Week 4 pt. 2: Czechin' out Prague

Alright. Week 3.5: Elektrische Boogaloo. Prague time, baby. We leave Vienna. Good times were had but now it’s the weekend. But first, a tad bit of drama. Apparently, I never bought a train ticket to Prague. I’m 70% sure I did but with my memory, that’s more like 35%. 

Anyway, I spend the morning trying to find a confirmation email over 4 different emails and my text messages. No where to be found. 

Over the time I searched, we saw some famous white horses practicing in the morning and visited the museum of natural history. That was pretty cool, aside from the time I didn’t hear the important part of what the tour guide said. There was a meteor we were allowed to touch except for the part where there was shear. However, I didn’t hear that second part. Ok actually I didn’t hear either part. I’m not great with listening in museums, even when they’re more interesting ones. Anyway, I see everyone touching the meteors and I think “ooh old rock I can touch.” Of course, the first part of the rock I go to touch is the part that’s different. The part that’s weirdly smooth, where the rest of the rock is craggly. What person with the attention span of a 10 year old wouldn’t touch the smooth part. I touch the rock, feeling the grains, and feel 2 pairs of eyes singeing the top of my head. I whip my head up, and meet eyes with Reagan and Mats. After being told I need to listen to the tour more, I was able to focus. Interesting how that works...

Anyway, we finish our Friday classes, get back to the hotel, and, upon confirming that I hadn’t been charged, rebought the ticket. Barely raised in cost so no harm. We all meet in the lobby of the hotel and, when we are all ready, head out to catch our train. We get there early enough to grab a quick bite. Döner is a classic choice that’s never served me wrong (but now I remember every time to get no onions. Every other bite just tastes weird. Bleh onions). We finish up and get in the train and begin our trip to Prague. Ryan and I managed to finish up a lot of our diffEq homework on that ride (but not all of it) and caught some of the sleep we were missing. Eventually, the train gets to our stop. Or... not. The train stops early. German plays over the intercom. Eventually, one of the other passengers clarifies what was said for Ryan and I, who were in a separate compartment from the others. Apparently something happened at our stop requiring police and our train was not going to be able to pull into the station. Instead, we were going to have to pull into the last station we were at and find our way from there. Quite a start to our furthest trip away from the program. 

We pull into the station and are let out. Luckily we have self check in so the fact that it’s nearly midnight is no qualm to the owners of the Airbnb. However, the walk between where we picked up the keys and the actual Airbnb was... sketchy, to say the least. I’m very happy I wasn’t on my own. I don’t think I’d normally be too worried but a group of 5+ obvious tourists rolling suitcases on the cobblestone paths, loudly clattering along empty streets and alleys seems like a prime target. However, we ended up at our destination, where we met up with Sean and Kevin who had taken Park and Yoong halfway to their hostel. We clamber up the steps, knock on the wrong door (we forgot that the second floor in Europe is the third floor in America) and finally, after about 2-3 minutes of fumbling with keys, get into the Airbnb. The single beds are immediately chosen by the girls and Kevin. In an attempt to have some semblance of choice, I chose the sofa bed in the living room. I still don’t know why that’s what I went with. Oh well. We set up in our various corners and settle for the night. It’d be a big day tomorrow. 

I wake up without an alarm (a good feeling) and allow myself some time to fully awaken before getting out of bed to get ready. The 5 guys had one small bathroom to share while the two girls got the full bathroom. Def planned by Madyson but that’s a moot point. We all eventually get ready and grab breakfast in the market. After grabbing some money at an ATM. First thing I see at this atm, the allowable withdrawal values are incredibly high. Then I remember that the currency, the Czech Koruna, is 25:1 against Euros. So that 1000 withdrawal is more like 40 euros. Way more sense. We get some money and realize that, food in the market is incredibly cheap. Like, really cheap. So I set to work and get lots of small things, trying to taste a bit of everything available. And it’s great. Some stuff is better that other things but, on the whole, a very good and filling meal. Then, we set to town. We sightsee. We crossed a bridge. Sightsaw some more. Classic stuff. You know me. Stuff I’ve forgotten by the next day. At a certain point, they decide to see some synagogues and, while I hadn’t yet seen any of those yet, I’d had enough of religious buildings to last me quite a while. So, I bid them Tschuss and left on my own adventure. 

Now, on our sightseeing, we passed a lot of weeeird museums. And I heard stories of some even weirder ones around. I’m talking multiple torture museums, chocolate museums, a Kafka museum. I was determined to hit as many of these as possible. Or at least mildly intrigued by the idea of doing so. First stop, medieval torture museum. As you can guess, they did some stuff back then. Some weird stuff. Some bad stuff. Mostly a lot of both. I’ll spare you that and move on. 

My next plan was to hit the Kafka museum. But then, in a classic Sid move, I got distracted. And by distracted, I mean lost. And then distracted. I saw a marionette store and thought “this is sufficiently creepy”. It was. Those things stared into my soul. 

After spending sometime in there, I kept walking and found a little bookstore. Normally, I’d keep walking. I see book stores everywhere, why would I care this time. I don’t know why but something made me decide to give this one a shot and I took a stroll into this little bookstore in a wall. But when I got inside, I realized it kept going, I walked further and further in and it kept going. Until I finally hit a wall. Wait sorry. Did I say wall. I meant stairs. Leading downstairs with a sign saying simply “more books”. I decided I would steer clear of any further labyrinthian trapping and look around where I was. 

After a little searching, I found a book that my grandmother told me about a couple years ago. “The Gene” by Siddhartha Mukherjee. I took a quick glance and read a couple pages and move on, searching hungrily for nothing in particular. 

Suddenly, another book laying on the ground caught my attention. Titled simply “BEHAVE” my attention had been caught. It was perfect. A book about the link between our physiology, our past, and how that molds our behavior. Perfect. I sat down and read the intro and was hooked. I could have easily sat there and read for a few hours then and there. I very nearly did. But then I glanced at the time and realized that, I’d been gone so long that the other’s might have begun worry about me. But I was trapped. I’d just found a great seat. I had a great book to relax and read. How could I leave? I decided, for the first time in literally years, to buy the book so I could read it later. I normally read books online, textbooks or reading books, so I hadn’t actually bought a physical copy of a book in a long while. I go up to the cashier and ask her what the price was and she reads out “459 Korunas”. I did some quick division and figured that that’s about (I think) 18 euros. I look at the back of the book and see that it was bought initially for £10.99, or 12.66 euros. I considered arguing for a lower price but decided against it in the moment, hand over the money, and walk out with my new book in hand. 

I get back to the Airbnb uneventfully. We spend the rest of the night relaxing and getting more work done. Around 1 AM, some of us went out to a bar nearby and celebrated a little before heading back (and getting McDonald’s) and catching some sleep before our last day. 

Next day was fairly lax. Went to the Jewish quarter and saw a few different synagogues. Had an alright burger (undercooked and not well seasoned). We all catch our various modes of transport back to Bonn. Only issue is: our bus gets to hauptbahnhoff around 7. And we have classes at 8:45 Am. Not enough time to really head back home to drop our stuff off and then get back. Ryan and I end up deciding to just go straight to the AIB and only bring our stuff back home when we go back home after classes. We get to the AIB, excited to get inside and relax in the lounge. Only, the door is locked and none of the buttons are getting an answer. This wouldn’t normally be an issue because I have a student key to the AIB (which is soo useful as a common meeting place for studying/whatever). However, I gave my key back on the Monday before Vienna bc Mats was going on vacation and I’d rented it out from him. So Ryan decided to go and get breakfast somewhere and I just waited outside the door until someone came, 20-30 mins later. I got our stuff inside, collapsed on a couch, and took a quick nap before class started. 

Week 4 pt. 1: Tired? Vien-Nah

I’m going to try to make this as short as possible. Which is going to be reeeeally hard given that this was the longest and most exciting week I’ve had so far. I thought I was tired after Rome? Ha. That’s funny. 

First off, the class work I was stressed about in the last blog ended up just fine. Through some prioritization and actually-being-awake-while-working-on-253, I managed to get everything done just in time for each due date. As in, minute before the due date most times. The stress was real. 

The next morning at around 4AM, a taxi came to our house and took us to the bus stop we were dropped at when we first came to the AIB. In the taxi was everyone in Bornheim/Hersel so Melania, Yoong, Ryan, and me. We were the first to get to the bus stop but, after a few minutes, others started getting dropped off. One thing to note is that I am not good and packing. Or remembering that I’m not good at it. So, I ended up staying up all night to pack. The benefit of that was that I was much more awake and aware than anyone else in the car. But once I fell asleep, it was a deep sleep. That flight could’ve been 2 hours. It could’ve been 20 minutes. I got to my seat and almost immediately slumped over. 

So, we land in Vienna, get to our hotel, and Marcus, Josh, and I sort out who gets a room key (by the end, we each had our own room key but we only started with one). We went and got a really good breakfast at a cafe nearby. It was a 3 egg fried egg with ham cooked in, 2-3 rolls of bread each, butter, and a cup of tea. All for fairly cheap. It was filling and delicious and was a good beginning to the trip. 

My memory is kind of failing (I’m writing this late sorry) so I’ll write highlights of what I remember. The breakfast at the hotel every morning was quite nice. A fair selection of tasty treats. Croissants, rolls, Nutella, egg, meats, and more. 

I need to either find a way to enjoy churches more or get used to being bored. Wait no. Swap “churches” for “sightseeing in general” and it’s more accurate. Churches are just a little harder because, while the painted glass and sculptures are nice when you first see them, there isn’t much “new” about them. And I’m all about novelty. 

One of the days in Vienna, I decided to go for a walk because... I didn’t really have much else to do. Pretty boring day after a lot of homework. Initially, it was supposed to be a quick, 5 min max walk. I got a few minutes in a decided “I know how to get back from here.” So I turned and kept going. And I kept doing that. Eventually I figured I was fairly lost. So obviously, I kept going. As one does. I just took in the city. Looked at the stores, the people, listened to the noises of the night. It was peaceful. A nice little time. At a certain point, the trance broke and I remembered I was supposed to have a short walk to meet with someone back at the hotel. I went to a nearby restaurant and, after some misunderstanding, got WiFi and managed to find my way back (even with that, I accidentally got lost a couple times on the way back. Pretty typical for me.) I don’t remember what the plan was after that but I’m guessing nothing happened. It was a nice walk though. 

With the program, we went to the Freudhaus one day. It was pretty cool and was one of the better “museum” type things I’d been in. Probably because I’m a fan of psychology and already know about some of Freud’s... eccentric ideas. What a guy he was. 

We also had a tour around the city with a very... familiar sounding plague doctor. He showed us various sights, explaining their medical significance, and gave us some of the variety of “cures” employed by his fellow plague doctors back when they were all the rage. Stuff like vinegar and cloves. Just delicious*.

My favorite museum, to no ones surprise I assume, was probably the goulash museum. It was essential a restaurant with the largest variety of goulash I’d ever seen. At least, it seemed pretty large compared the 0 I’d seen before. Before we got there, they mentioned the existence of horse goulash. Now, one thing I enjoy is trying new things. Especially new food. And horse is not something I’d eaten before. So, when we got there, I had to get it. I didn’t have a choice. I was mentally and physically obligated. And it turned out pretty well. I also shared a bottle of wine with Katarina and Yoong. If you know “much” they drink (read: very little), you can guess that I had a... fair quantity. I tried sharing the bottle with Joshua but he was already roped into another 3 person group by the time I had Dr. Wasser finished telling us to get wine in groups. So, I can only assume the goulash tasted great. I’d already had enough wine that everything tasted good. Good times...

At this point, this post is long enough that I’m going to end this here and write a different one for Prague. Maybe I’ll see you there. Or... be read by you. Am I the words on the page? I’m not sure how this works. I should probably cut this part out of the post but nah. 

One of these days I’ll write a concise, non-rambling post. Today is not that day. 

*not actually delicious.

End of week 3: A Long, Meandering, and Spotty Recollection of Rome

I’m pretty sure I made a mistake at some point. I feel like I probably shouldn’t have 4 semi large homework’s due tomorrow. Relating to the program, things have, as I guessed last week, ramped up. This week is going to be stressful for a few reasons. I’ve already gotten a taste of a weekend of travel and man am I tired. It was incredibly fun, as I’ll go into more later on, but never before has travel stripped me of all of my energy at the end of the day like Rome has. And there’s a lot of work to be done and not much time to do it. I’m really hoping I don’t have to but I might have to cut some corners to get this all done. Or I could just actually work hard and focus on doing homework for more than 20 mins at a time. 

Ha ha just kidding. Like that could happen. 

Jokes aside, I do need to find a way to finish this all by Monday. Hopefully I can get enough sleep tonight so I’m not a zombie tomorrow. I’ve got two presentations to do. Pretty lax ones but presentations nonetheless. 

On Friday we went to the Stoeckl museum of Anesthesia (I think that’s what it’s called. Maybe). It had some really cool artifacts representing the progression of the science of anesthesiology. Having someone tell you about various old medical instruments is much different than actually being able to see the instrument in real life, inches from our fingers. 

In terms of personal....

So, I had wanted to go to Rome earlier but I didn’t realize there was a group chat for it yet. So when I finally got added, most of them had already made housing plans and bought the plan tickets. Because I took so long to buy those, I dropped a bit more money than I wished on the plane tickets and I wasn’t able to stay with most of them at the Airbnb. I ended up getting a plane ticket that left a few hours earlier than theirs would (which I’m thankful for now due to homework remaining) and staying in the same hostel as Ana and Madyson.

Thursday night, I packed my bag but then realized that I wouldn’t be able to fit everything in my bag and still be able to fit it under the seat in front of me. It had too many pockets so the extra material made it stick out more than it needed to. So I made the... questionable decision to put all of my stuff into a duffel bag and fold the extra space back in. I realized later on that I probably could have managed to fit the backpack underneath but it was too late by then. Despite my *obvious* ingenuity of using the lack of separations or general form of the duffel bag, it was not a popular decision. Apparently people think that “a duffel bag is too big to fit under a seat. How is this any better? You need more sleep.” and “Hurry up Sid. That duffel bag is unwieldy and you keep hitting your leg and you’re walking slow.”

Ok that was my internal dialogue saying that but nevertheless, it was generally seen as a weird idea by the people traveling with me. But, I managed to fit it under the seat with enough leg room to get some much needed rest. 

Friday morning around 5, I caught the bus to the CGN airport along with Ana H, Josh C, Madyson, Marcus, Melania, Ryan F, and Reagan (not on our flight, just leaving at a similar time). I did not sleep much the night before, trying to get some work done before being unproductive in Rome. That failed and I got almost nothing done but... oh well. 

Apparently I have an affinity for getting lost for hours and then, as described by a couple others who came, “randomly popping up out of nowhere.” Because I joined the group later on, I couldn’t join the airbnb they were in. However, I also wasn’t signed up for the plans that Ana and Madyson had. So I kind of switched between the two groups throughout the day. And I was not very good at finding my way on my own. So what ended up happening was that I would leave the hostel with Ana and Madyson and we would travel part of the way together and when we’d split up, I’d manage to get lost in the city for one reason or another. Mainly due to lacking cellular data. It was “worst” on Saturday when I ended up exploring around the area where the Airbnb was (I knew the train stop but not the address) and then quitting and wandering around the Vatican. I put the “worst” in quotes because it was not really a bad thing. I was able to explore on my own at my own pace and discover what city life was like in Rome vs other cities I’d been to. However, for nearly this whole time, I was unable to let the other’s know where I was or find out where they were. Eventually, I get into the Vatican museum, ready to see it on my own. However, halfway into the Egyptian exhibit, I hear a voice behind me and, what do you know, saw that Josh had spotted me in the midst of the crowd. So I was able to join them for the rest of the museum. 

Well, most of it.

I was already tired once I met up with them. It was an interesting walk but it was long and it was lightly rainy outside so my feet were deeply angry at me. And this museum is nothing to scoff at. It’s looooooooong. It’s cool and I really enjoyed some parts, like the hall of maps. But man, I am not one to go to museums slowly savor second by second. There were points where I almost decided it was not worth it and considered leaving before seeing what I came for, the Sistine Chapel. At a certain point, I was just tired and there was a route to skip a large portion of the trail and go straight to the Sistine Chapel. I thought we were all going that way but, when I turned around, they were some distance away and the gate I’d just passed to go this way closed. I considered finding a way back to stay with them. Then quickly discarded that idea and went into the chapel. It was wayyy bigger than I’d thought it was. And there were so many people, huddled together trying to fit even more in. I found a seat and absorbed the pictures, the crowd, and listened to the related audio tracks on repeat because I would listen to about 20 seconds and then zone out because I went back to focusing on the first 2. When I finished, I walked out and realized that I was faced with a decision. Always disappointing realization. I could continue through the museum and catch up with them afterwards. Or I could wait here at the exits for however long it would take for them to come here. There were some pillars with a flat area near the bottom that would serve sufficiently as a seat. I figured it would be a while given that they had a lot of ground to cover and I guessed they would take longer in the Sistine Chapel than I would. Eventually, I decided to take a seat for... some reason. Anyway, after playing on my phone for a while, a guard took his chair next to me and sat down, watching the crowd filter out of the Sistine Chapel. After a while, I looked at him and saw that he looked... really bored. Like I was. So I took a leap and decided to talk to him. After I was sure he spoke good English (so the conversation wouldn’t be a toil for him to work through) I asked if he was allowed to have conversations with the museum viewers. Once that was out of the way, we just talked about stuff like how his job was, how he got it, where I was from, what I was doing here and in Germany, and other simple stuff like that. It was really interesting have a conversation like that for some long-ish period of time. After some time spent talking (I’ve forgotten most of what we talked), they finally come out of the Sistine chapel to the sight of me talking some guard’s ear off (I swear he was talking too, it was just my “turn”). I said my goodbyes and finished the museum with them. 

The next day, I got on the flight and tried putting my bag under the seat and realized that I had, in the rush of packing before check out, forgotten to pack it specially so it would easy to put under the seat. I struggled for about 2-3 mins until one of the flight attendants came up to me and told me I couldn’t do that. At first, I thought she was saying that it was too big and I needed to go and check it. But then she pointed at the above cabin area. I neglected to mention it earlier but the row I was sitting in was an exit row and, to my surprise, they don’t even allow you to have bags under the seat in those rows. So I was “forced” to put my bag above. I say that with quotes because it saved me from having to pay for checking it. So basically, nothing goes wrong when you’re lucky. 

I really need to shorten these. It’s such a struggle finding the middle area between too concise and too detailed. So many many things happened that I skipped noting because this thing is looking huge on my Notes app. Oh well. I’ll get it streamlined eventually. 

Week 2: Ramping up

So, like I wrote in my blog last week, Ryan and I stayed with a different host family this past week. It was a very different experience. We wore shoes indoors. On the night we got there, we had dinner with one of their children and their family (who was hosting Sebastian at their house). And like I noted a week ago too, they have a dryer. I tried to wash all of my clothes last night but didn’t realize the washing machine was much smaller than the kind I am used to in america (also the settings aren’t in English) so I only managed half of the clothes I wanted to wash. In fact, it was a struggle even washing those clothes because it took three attempts to get the washing machine to work. Eventually, Ryan figured out that the issue was that the water valve wasn’t open (whoops) so it wasn’t getting water into the the machine. At that point, it had gotten to be pretty late so I decided against doing a second load after in favor of getting some more sleep. That didn't happen either and I ended up not sleeping until 4 am for… reasons I still don’t know). Today (Sunday), we moved our stuff back into our original host house.

On Tuesday, we visited Cologne with the program. First thing you notice coming off of that train is the immense structure very nearby: the cathedral. After a tour of the town where we learned about the history of the town and various excavational findings made due to rebuilding after WWII, we climbed the cathedral fairly high up while learning about the very long history of its construction. I am pretty sure we did other stuff which I am currently forgetting but I’m tired and it was a while ago (aka more than 1-2 days) so my memory isn’t perfect.

Yesterday (Saturday), Ryan, Ryan, and I went to Cologne again on our own to check out some of the things we missed in the program. When we got on the train, we had our tickets checked (first time this has happened to me) and found out we were on the wrong type of train. Right destination, wrong pay grade. It did seem like a really nice train. Anyway, we got off and first saw the lock bridge and walked a long, perusing the many, many locks attached. There were some with huge locks that were in the shape of a heart or an animal. After that, we went to the Ludwig museum and saw a lot of different types of art, including a collection of Picassos. After that we went to the chocolate museum and ate small samples of chocolate as we toured, which was pretty sweet (pun intended). For lunch, we went to the Fruh Brewery and had a kolsch beer with the food. Once we were done, we headed back (this time on the right train) and I was exhausted.

Classes are finally starting to get under way and homework is beginning to pile up. I’ve been able to get it done on time for the most part (I did one of my German worksheets on the bus and walk to class one morning) but I can already see how balancing work and travel/relaxation can get to be a pain. Maybe this will force me to improve my terrible time-management skills. Maybe. We’ll see.

Tschüss

Week One: Complete!

I might have to do these blog posts more than once a week because, after jotting down just the things that immediately came to mind, I easily filled half a page with bullet points. Anyway, this has been a crazy full week. In terms of stuff with the classes, I have taken Differential Equations classes and a German class, alongside excursions/tours for the History of Medicine course. So far diffEq has been mostly just reviewing and I think we will be starting the main meat of the course within the next couple classes. I have been learning German bit by bit and the class has definitely helped me with the grammar and pronunciation, which can be confusing at times. I have the numbers 1-11 down and nearly perfectly memorized and I can formulate most of the numbers as necessary up to maybe 9999. Maybe. Pronunciation needs work but I get it conceptually. It's a really nice feeling being able to look at a sign on the street and understand what it (probably) means.

It has been a week and we’ve already gone on a number of excursions for the program, including traveling to a winery, to the Haus der Geschichte, and to Aachen to meet with the company (Enmodes). Outside of the program, we have explored large swaths of Bonn and some areas around it. Recently (Saturday?) I and a few others visited the Godesburg castle. It is more like the ruins of a castle that has had a hotel and restaurant built upon it. I found the gravestones in the cemetery we visited on the way down from the castle more interesting personally. I tried the Turkish Doner Kebab for lunch and quite enjoyed it. Generally an interesting trip but I heard some of the other castles were more interesting, though also more work to get to. After all that, Ryan and I waited in Bonn until everyone was planning to meet up and ice skate to celebrate Melania’s birthday. Still can’t find skates that fit my feet well but maybe one day… Anyway, after a bit we split up into two groups: the people who wanted to skate for a while longer and those who were done/didn’t start. I was in the latter group. We went to a nearby pub that was going to have karaoke that night but it filled up really fast and there was barely room for our group aside from a corner near the exit. After a while, we left and, after getting pizza, met with the other group and went to another bar for a couple hours.

As of today (Sunday), I and Ryan have temporarily moved in with another host family for the week while our host mom is staying in Switzerland on a work trip. It’s a very different experience of German home life and I am happy that I get to see more sides of how people live here. Also they have a dryer, which is pretty sweet. Kind of wish I’d brought more clothes to wash but oh well.

I think that’s enough for this week. I took more notes but I’m tired. Maybe I’ll add pictures to next week’s post.

A Very Tired Start to the Hero's Journey

Note: although I’m posting this on January 12th, this was written on January 10th, the day of my flight. I think in my tiredness and rush to prepare, I typed this up on a note in my phone and then promptly forgot to post it. Whoops. It’s also pretty long. 

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When I was initially planning how to write this post, I had thought out a general flow for how I wanted to write my thoughts. How I would start, how to link one idea to the other. Now it’s 4 AM the night before my flight (technically the day of but shhh), I haven’t slept much in the last 48 hours, and I only just realized, after hours of searching, that my phone charger somehow found its way into my toiletries bag. So, if my writing seems unorganized and tangential, it’s because I currently am. And also because I generally am, to a lesser extent. I’ll try my best to minimize that.

With that in mind, let’s start with why I chose to come to Germany in the first place. Ever since high school, I’ve wanted to study abroad. I’ve had family members tell me about their experiences in traveling abroad. I have talked to elder siblings of friends talk about how their perspective changed when they were immersed in unfamiliar cultures. Now, I have traveled with family out of the country a number of times but I’ve never: A) been to Europe (except for layovers), B) been out of the country without my parents, or C) been in a different country long enough to feel like their culture has had a lasting impact on who I am. So, for all of those reasons, I decided I wanted to study abroad. When I was looking through the various options, I saw some in countries I’d visited before (Singapore, India, etc) but the Germany Bio sciences program stuck out to me the most because I would be able to visit all around the region, I would have the opportunity to work with my fellow students with a company and give a presentation regarding our work over the semester, and because it had been recommended to me by multiple juniors and seniors who had previously studied through this program and immensely enjoyed it. And also I can legally drink alcohol but that’s not important or specific to Germany. 

I’m not personally anxious about living in Germany. The only part that I feel some concern for is the idea that I might forget something important in my current packing frenzy. Don’t leave your packing until the night before. Bad move. My parents, however, are a tad bit more anxious. I’ve never gone to another country without one of them, let alone another continent that neither of them have been to. However, they both understand how great an opportunity this program is for me and are happy to see how excited I’ve been, which has helped.

Ok so, now the future. My expectations for the program. This is getting to be pretty long so I’ll keep this one hopefully briefer. In terms of personal expectations, I hope to learn the language and culture of Germany and pick up bits from other locations around it. I hope that I can become more aware of perspectives outside of the ones I’ve grown up around. Both in terms of general life perspectives and on how people tend to view America from outside. In terms of academics, I am excited to see what kind of project we will be working on with Enmodes. Also, I have heard very good things about how the reduced class size helps in learning material, so I feel that will help plenty. I don’t want to say something I regret but I’m not too worried on the academic front. The smaller classes and tutors will help in minimizing confusion from classes, maximizing the time that I can spend improving personally. I think. I don’t know what’s going to happen. All I know right now is that I need to find and pack my outlet adapters.