Week 13

 We are back in Bonn after France. We need to prepare for our enmodes presentations and for our easter weekend travel. It was a very short week of school. 3 days including the Enmodes presentation day. It went better than expected honestly but we definitely have tons of work to do still. Genetics still managed to test me because zoom at 7:45 is awful. That being said I begrudgingly admit that I like the class. 

Peri and I finally decided (on Wednesday) that we will be going to London for Easter weekend!!!! Very excited to go and see London as I've never been. Kassy and Colby will be coming as well so yayyy! I've been debating on if I should try to go to a soccer game in person but ultimately I want to have a relaxing trip and going to a soccer game will be very expensive and complicate things so I think I'll end up at a pub watching it instead. 

London is amazing. It is so pretty and there is so much to do and see! The only downside is that everything is so expensive. Like a basic meal that should be $8 is more like $20 in London. The public transportation is soo nice. It is clean and a train comes every 3 minutes I swear. We bought public transport day passes and it is so convenient and much cheaper than taking bolts or ubers everywhere. One thing I noticed is that the time it would take to uber was essentially the same to get you somewhere as public transportation. I was a big fan of that because a book I'm reading highlighted how public transport often doesn't connect throughout the city, so going across a city and trip linking (picking up kids, buying groceries, posting a package, etc. in one trip) would take ages while ubering would be faster but extremely costly. I thought it was very cool how public transport took the same amount of time as an uber but was much cheaper. The entire trip made me realize how relaxing it is being in a country that speaks your language. Moving abroad here would be much easier than moving to any other european country like Germany where I simply don't speak the language. It was so strange to understand the voiceover on the train and to be able to read advertisements and understand people's conversations around me. 

Our friday night consisted of the Buckingham Palace and the F1 arcade. The Buckingham Palace was pretty but honestly it felt like any other building. The F1 arcade was so much fun, but pretty difficult. Peri and Kassy crashed into me in most of the races so naturally I blame them for my low placement (no other reason). It was fun laughing about our races and which teams we got to drive for. I drove for ferrari and Peri was VERY jealous. Kassy drove for McLaren and we all felt bad for her. Peri drove for red bull so she was our common enemy (they had the best car by far). That night I made Peri and Kassy try some of my favorite UK candies (pastilles and cadbury mini eggs). They didn't appreciate them enough if you ask me. 

Saturday was a slow day. Peri and I walked across the London Bridge and went to the Borough Market. We had the best gluten free brownie ever. I mean ever. It was delicious. We also had a victorian sponge cake. It was also delicious but that brownie was insane, you couldn't even tell it was gluten free. After that we went to a pub and watched the Manchester United vs Everton soccer game. It was a lot of fun and it was cool to be in that kind of environment where everyone was watching the game. At least where I grew up people didn't really do that unless it was the Super Bowl or the Olympics or World Cup. The culture around soccer is very different here and one I can appreciate. 

Sunday was jam packed. We started by seeing the Tower of London and walking the Tower bridge. I enjoyed seeing the castle and the Tower bridge was very pretty. The weather was amazing which helped a lot. Colby, Peri, and I then went and saw the West Ham soccer stadium. It was cool to see, especially since it is involved in a Ted Lasso season 3. Then we went to the Natural History Museum. I love natural history museums so it was a 10/10. We didn't stay terribly long though because everyone was starving. We walked to a wingstop for lunch/dinner. It was delicious. Can't wait to go back in the states. I always forget that I like chicken wings and buffalo sauce until I eat it again, and then I'm like ohh yeah I forgot I love this food. Happens every time, without fail. After that we went and saw Big Ben and Westminster Abbey. We also saw the Parliament building and all I could think about was the movie "V for Vendetta". After that Colby went to go see another soccer stadium and Kassy went to walk Tower bridge so Peri and I went and saw Scotland Yard and then went to a bakery. Peri wasn't feeling well and the bakery was mid so we went back to the air bnb and finished Ted Lasso. It was bitter sweet catching up with present day because now I can't binge watch it anymore. Plus it was fun watching and discussing the show with Peri. We started the show Money Heist in replacement of Ted Lasso. I had heard good things about it but I do really like the show so far. 

On Monday we woke up and got ready to eat breakfast before heading to the airport. I had a classic english breakfast with english tea. Honestly it was pretty good. I was pleasantly surprised. It was raining the whole day though so it was nice to be inside and have all of our sight seeing done. I was nervous about making it through airport security in time because the last time I was at that airport it took over an hour to get through security and people all around us were missing their flights. All in all thought it took 15 minutes to get our boarding passes and pass through security which was a relief. The flight was short and we got back to Bonn around 5. I wasn't feeling very good and I'm pretty sure Peri got me sick, but it is just a cold so things could be much worse. 

I'm apprehensive about the next 3 weeks. They are absolutely filled with exams and the enmodes project. I'm not quite ready for it all but I'm hoping I can prepare for things this week so the next 2 won't be bad. 

I can't believe the program ends in 3 weeks. It feels like we just got here. I've seen and done so much and I don't really want to head back home. Here I just have my classes which I enjoy and traveling. Back home I have work and school and the mcat and volunteering and all kinds of other things so being here has been nice. I feel like I'm in a weird limbo where I can see the end and all my looming responsibilities but it is too far for me to really recognize that I'll need to figure out how to repack my suitcase by myself in 2 weeks.