Welcome back.
This week has been chaotic and I have had one day of rest, if you can even call it that, between my weekend travel and this excursion to Berlin. Last week started with a full four days of classes of which I have no memory of learning anything because half the time I don’t know what’s going on, I just show up. I’m sure my parents would love to hear that but let’s just blame it on the senioritis. Last week began with me falling down two flights of stairs at my house which is mainly four stories of a spiraling staircase. I did not realize I would gain that much speed, it sounded very violent. Not violent enough, however, because my host mom came out of her room 5 minutes later peaking around the corner as I lay at the foot of the stairs face up just trying to pinpoint all the places I hurt on my body. Within the next 15 minutes my roommate, Camryn almost got hit by a bike. You could say it was an eventful Monday morning.
BIMS students got Friday off from school so Bridget and I packed our bags and headed out to Heidelberg. The next day we woke up and went to a café to have brunch. The waitstaff was very friendly and I had the biggest and most decorative piece of avocado toast I've ever had in my life. I ordered a hot chocolate, or a coffee with chocolate in it, I never know over here. It was bitter so I mustered up the courage to ask the waiter for sugar to which he replied increduously “is it not already sweet enough??” I said “not for me it isn’t” and he retorted, “it’s 74% chocolate…” This interaction led me to realize I may have a problem.
We then walked through the old town cobblestoned streets on our way up to the castle. Fear shone in my eyes as we looked up at a steep hill full of stairs and I don’t know why I thought there was an easier way. We eventually made it to the top which was well worth the tremendous pain and suffering, and were in awe at the ruins in front of us. There weren’t many activities to do, as we found throughout the trip due to it being ‘off-season.’ I tried mulled wine and walked around the property which was a highlight of the trip. We then got on a railway up the side of the mountain that took us to the highest peak and back down to the city below. Once at the bottom we walked around more and went to find museums at the university Platz. This is where my stupidity comes in. While outside the university, Bridget and I notice red candles, mourning flowers, and other items taking up a large part of the stairs to the school. We look at each other and wonder what happened for that to be there, was it a Holocaust remembrance, was it a cultural thing? Then it hit us. This was the town and university where a student had shot four students and killed one just four days before. A weird sensation of realization and horror washed over me as I remembered our carefree day in a city that had just occurred as a very saddening event happen so recently. We moved on from the place and carried on elsewhere.
The next day we caught a train to Cochem to see another castle, this one from around the year 1000. This is where the trip turned into a scene from the Twilight Zone. We showed up and all was well, we hadn’t eaten much because we were planning to eat a big dinner and save our money throughout the day. This panned out to be a very poor idea. The entire city was steep hills of cobblestone so we got our fair share of exercise. Bridget and I pretended we were storming the castle and wanted to see if it was impractical and if we would be shot down on our way up. The conclusion was that we would not have even made it up past the bottom of the hill. The castle was amazing and the entire tour was in German but we got an English translation so things worked out fine. The tour was about 30 minutes, so once we got kicked to the curb we were at a loss for what to do as we had the whole day ahead of us. We walked back into town looking for shops and snacks. We soon realized that even though it was Saturday, almost everything was closed. We ended up in a small underground restaurant/wine room where we were ignored for 15 minutes, even as we came in the door, so much so that we wondered if we had turned invisible. We each had one glass of wine that was about $4 each. Due to us not having had food all day, we left slightly intoxicated. We really needed food by this point and so we found another place, but the food turned out to be a small cheese the size of a Babybel and one skinny link of sausage for the both of us. Therefore, we had a glass of mulled wine to fill us up a little. Let’s say the hills were much more fun to walk up after that.
By the time we went out to look for food that night, everything was either closed or required reservations. After an hour things were looking meek. We finally stumbled upon a pizza place where Bridget began the anger stage of being in another country as she protested the high prices and $7 water. On our way back to our room we saw a bright light and a loud explosion. We both kept walking towards it then hid behind a wall. My heart was racing so fast because my first thought was “are we being shot at?” but I knew that was irrational and not what a gun sounded like. I was afraid to walk past the arched walkway where it happened in because I didn’t want a firework to go off under me without my knowing. Nothing happened after that but it gave me a bit of a jolt.
The next day, Sunday, the town was again empty and we headed back to Bonn. One full class on Monday and now here we are on a train to Berlin for the week. I have no idea how we are supposed to manage school and grad school applications and organizations on top of this but somehow it will be done.
Tschüss,
Avery
Soundtrack for this week: Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto No. 1 in B Flat Minor, Op. 23
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