Nice was nice

Nice was possibly the most relaxing week of my life.  From the beginning, as Jake and I flew in over the ocean,  I knew that it would be perfect.  The sun was shining, the water was a clear light blue, and I immediately felt a mood boost coming from dark and cold Germany.  Once off the plane and settled in to the hostel, we proceeded to relax for the next week.  We did manage to make it to a few other cities.


 In Cannes we played catch on the beach, had a few beers, and then sat outside and had some amazing French food.  I was a little reserved, but beef pate and escargot turned out to be quite delicious.

In Antibes, we checked out the Picasso museum.








                                                                                                                                       In St. Raphael we got some more beach in and hiked around a bit.


In Monaco we checked out the half million dollar cars and their armani clad owners who gambled enough in a hand to pay for my education.  We even through a few euros down on black jack, but luck was not in our favor that day.






In Nice, we climbed to the top of castle hill and looked out on the entire city.  We also walked around the old town, checking out the antique and flower markets.  We even managed to see the famous Rothschilds palace.  Nice was extremely beautiful, and just being a part of it made me happy.

Best Day Ever!

So… Paris is great and all but c’mon Disneyland Paris is even better. So starting with the best… 13 hours at Disneyland with the best weather of the semester is the definite winner in my book for this study abroad experience. There hasn’t been a day that included so much fun and awesomeness at once. Standing on the Eiffel tower, Arc de Triomphe, and on the steps of Sacre Cour let us experience the amazing views over the city, but nothing like a late night fountain and firework Disney sing a long spectacular. The bike tour and cruising down the Seine river came a close second, but there is nothing like spending Easter in the happiest place on earth! 

Before Paris: One Class Down

Since last summer, that I worked at a Vet Clinic, I got the chance to work around the pharmacy. I would prepare some take homw medications for the patients, but never did I know what exactly I was handling. The names were clearly there, but what they were meant to treat or the mechanism they undergo in the animals body, I had no knowledge of. When I found out that this program offered a pharmacology course, I got so excited and right away knew I wanted to sign up for this class. At the beginning, Dr. Wasser, informed me that Pharmacology was presented as a four week course, I thought SCORE!!!! Easy peasy, lemon squeezy! Four weeks is nothing right? However, now that the course is over, I do wish it would have been longer. It is one of my favorite material I have learned so far and I am actually sad the class is over. I really did enjoy it and I wish I would had been longer so I could learn more material, and in more detail. Even though it was composed of four weeks, I learned so much each and everyday, to the point that I felt so lost and overwhelmed! However, when I got home and reviewed the material, it began to make sense. The body and the drugs are like a puzzle, you just have to see where it fits in order to make the picture. I have to admit, it was a bit challenging. Having a 4 week course obviously means we have to learn new and alot of material each and every day, and so we were basically quizzed every day, meaning I had to study every day to do well in the quizzes, but even after all that studying, I would get 7/10 on average for the quizzes. I promise I tried for that course, I might end up with a B, and even though I did not get an A, I learned so much in that class, and enjoyed it very much. Honestly, Dr. Fajt is an amazing teacher, and I can not wait to once again have her as my pharmacology professor a few years from now in Vet School. I Look forward to it. Farewell Pharmacology, I will be meeting you some time in the future and Im sure you will make my hair grow turn green! But for now, Bonjour Paris! Now that I do have the stress of one class being done with, I can go to Paris and have a carefree Easter weekend.  I am actually  a little hesistant about Paris. It is my second time going, and let's say that my first experience wasnt as amazing as everbody else is. One goes to paris, thinking youre going to have the time of your life, but it was otherwise for me. So this is ROUND TWO BABY!  We shall see what paris has to offer this time around :] All I know that is going down!
 "Nigguhs in Paris, that s*** is cray!" -Yeezy and Jay C aka Stephiee and Jessiee!

Hiking?

So this weekend, we decided to keep it simple. Instead of going to visit other cities we decided to go hiking.
 Our plan was we would hike from St Goarshaussen to Kaub... about a 7 hour hike...

We started out early in the morning around 9:30 in St Goarshaussen we followed the signs that lead us to the trail. Somehow I do  not know we got lost... We ended up in a middle of nowhere town called Patersburg... cute town really... I enjoyed it. Anyways... we knew we were lost when the trail became road and then the GPS said we were not in the right area... However, the overall goal was to see the Loreley that rock were all the boats crashed when they looked at the beautiful maiden... yeah that one... So we decided to head in that direction. We came upon a Medieval fair in the middle of NOWHERE... I am serious. Imagine walking in the middle of nowhere and finding this fair... it was a bit strange... the cool thing was everyone dressed up and I got to meet this really cool guy dressed up riding a dragon. It kind of weirds you out to see forest and a fair all of a sudden. Anyways, we made it to the Loreley... 5 hours later... no joke...it took us 5 hours to get there when it was supposed to take 2 if you stuck to the trail. But it was nice we walked around and saw the beautiful Rhine river. We also saw the statue of the maiden. Although she did look pretty sad. I suggest you all go there it is pretty. Afterwards we figured we should head back to where we started because it was getting late. I am slightly disappointed that I did not get my 7 hour intensive hike. But I will before I leave. 

Rheinsteig Hiking!

Hiking to me was a process of walking on narrow muddy roads in the mountains, trying to reach the top, but hiking on Saturday was more challenging and fun than I had ever expected! First-time intense hiking was a wonderful experience.

The first few hours we could not find the trail we planned to walk on. Instead of walking along the river to the south, we wandered to the east. Our "translator" friend Phillip needed to stop by several places to ask local residents how to reach Loreley Rock. So after 2 or 3 hours we finally turned around and got on the right path.

We fought thorns and greeted several spiders on our way down to the right trail. The leaves completely covered the ramps, and it was hard for my to find places to stabilize my feet. After I got home I discovered a lot of bruises and scratches, but all that was totally worth it!

Around 2pm we finally found Loreley Rock, where the beautiful lady sang and the sailors crashed their boats. It was a perfect view of Rhein River, and I could imagine what the spring will be like with the blue river and colorful forest. We saw a train running along the Rhein. The passengers in the train could also enjoy the scenery from another perspective.

We went back to the town where we started the hike instead of our original destination because we could not make it there in 2 hours, before sunset. The cold weather did not stop us from visiting a Italian ice cream cafe, where I tried Waldmeister-flavored ice cream. The light green ice cream is a plant based dessert only available in spring. It actually tasted like spring to me and it became my new favorite! Thanks to Philip for recommending this flavor!

My legs are so sore right now, but everything was so fun that I forget about all the pain. I hope I could go back again before we leave Germany in May, when all the flowers bloom and the sun shines!

Just a Kid

No matter how old I get there will always be an inner kid in me. I spent this past Easter weekend in Paris with three others. We saw some amazing sights and had an absolute blast. We arrived in Paris early Friday and spent the first half of the day walking the city and seeing different parks. Friday evening we went up top the Arc de Triumph and walked around the famous Louve for hours.  I got to see the Mona Lisa, Le Code de Hammurabi, Ramses, and many more works of art. Saturday morning we headed to the Palace of Versailles to battle the ridiculous amount of people that were there. The line to get in was crazy and trying to walk through the palace was almost impossible with all the people. The gardens were really nice and I enjoyed them but could only stand the 30 degrees and high winds for so long. From there Cliff and I, stopped by the Notre Dame cathedral and Eiffel Tower.  Both were beautiful. We were standing there looking at the tower and all of a sudden twenty or thirty guys trying to sell souvenirs came running past us.  Come to find out there were not supposed to be there and were running from the cops. We hung around their before we called it a day. We were more focused on the next day and couldn’t wait for it to come.  Bright and early in the morning we boarded trains to Disneyland, Paris. I knew it was going to be fun but I had forgotten just how great Disney was. The day surpassed all expectations. Spent 13 hours in the parks, rode all the good rides and more, and got to see my inner kid come out. You should have seen the four of us running through the park, jumping up and down, beaming and yelling with excitement. I had mapped out the parks and rides the night before and we got to the park before it opened. They opened the gates and we dashed to the first ride. We rode all the rides we wanted to plus some more. We used the fastpasses to perfection and had great timing. It was a great day and luck was on our side. Tower of Terror and Space Mountain: Mission 2 were my favorite two and we rode each of them twice.  We even slowed it down with a parade, Buzz Lightyear’s Lazer Blast and Pirates of the Caribbean story rides.  The big finale of the night was the Disney Dreams show after the park closed. The lights, water, and animation show on the elegant castle that centered the park. You could have caught us singing along to the classic Disney songs.

Happiest Easter on Earth!

I feel like the luckiest person ever right about now. All my weekend excursions have been unforgettable, and France did not disappoint. I went to Paris this past weekend with some friends and could not have asked for a more amazing trip! It started out super early Friday morning (as well as Monday morning), and didn’t slow down anywhere in between. I’m not sure there is one part of Paris we left unseen. On the first day, we hiked to the Basilika Sacré-Cœur that had a beautiful view overlooking the city and climbed to the top of the Arc de Triomphe which had an amazing view of all the streets leading up to the giant round-about where the Arc stood and of the Eiffel Tower. We walked down the Avenue des Champs-Élysées, past the Place de la Concorde, to the Louvre, were we spent almost 3 hours looking at all the major works of art. On Saturday morning, we rode out to the Palace of Versailles. It was kind of a cloudy, windy day compared to the beautiful sunny weather we had on Friday, but it was still well worth it. We headed over to Notre Dame after that and walked around inside. They were preparing for Easter Sunday service while we were there, so that was pretty neat. The only downfall of these places was the “ques”! They were ridiculously long but fortunately moved rather quickly. After the cathedral, we finally went to go see the Eiffel Tower up close. I didn’t realize just how big this massive structure was! After taking lots of pictures, we met up for a Fat Tire Bike Tour for the evening. Despite it being a little cold, it was so fun! We rode around Paris at night with a group of about 20 other people and saw all the major sites in “the city of lights”. After the tour, we bought tickets to climb to the second level of the Eiffel Tower. It was an exhausting and jam-packed day, but still so much fun. I can’t believe we did all that in just a day and a half! But the real fun was still to come…

We had originally planned on taking Sunday slow and visiting any places we had missed, but where’s the fun in that when DISNEYLAND PARIS (!!!!!!) is right around the corner?! Cliff and Jake mapped out a highly strategic, maximum roller coaster-riding plan, and we headed off! This was by far, one of the most fun days I’ve had on this entire study abroad trip. The sun was shining bright all day and we literally ran like maniacs all over the parks to ride all the best rides: Tower of Terror, Rockin’ Rollercoaster, Space Mountain, and much more. It really was the happiest place on Earth for the four of us haha. After an awesome firework finale and 13 hours later, we came home, slept for 2 hours, and headed back to Bonn. Time for a little schlafen, then back to studying.