Wednesday, April 8, 2015
Paris!!!
So with Easter came a four day weekend and finally the one city I said at the beginning I HAD to see before returning home...Paris.
It was truly an amazing thing to be in the city for which my hometown is named and to see and go up into the real Eiffel Tower. The weather wasn't the greatest our first two days there, but it could have been far worse. We made the best of the rainiest day by spending the entire day in the Louvre. I really could have spent days or weeks wandering through the Louvre as there is just so much to see!! We did a usual historical walking tour of the city that we do in most, enjoyed some wonderful food, a morning in Versailles, and Easter Mass at Notre Dame to name a few. I think the highlight for my trip was probably a boat tour the last night we were there...to see Paris from the water lit up along with the beauty of a full moon was absolutely breathtaking. The weekend wasn't long enough. I don't know when I'll be back in Europe, but one thing is for sure, I will be and I will be spending much more time in Paris!!!
Tuesday, April 7, 2015
They Know I'm Not French
It's insane that we're going home in less than a month... I don't want to leave at all! One semester was not enough and I know I'll be going back to so many of the places I've been. I'm a little sad that I didn't get to travel more in Germany, seeing Hamburg and Munich would have been really cool. I'm especially disappointed that I missed out on the Black Forest but I'm taking it as an excuse to come back to this beautiful country.
Paris for Easter Break was the craziest and best idea. I still can't believe that only three days ago, I was standing at the top of the Eiffel Tower looking over the city as the sun set. We went to Easter mass at the Notre Dame and I enjoyed it so much. I was surprised by how much of it I could understand and it was cool remembering the prayers in French that I've forgotten. I definitely tried speaking French a lot, but Parisiennes speak really fast and I blew my cover almost every time. Lesson learned: I can't pass for French. We got into the Louvre, and the Arc de Triomphe for free (heck yeah, thank you study abroad) and went on a record number of tours for one city (four tours, hot dayum). Paris was stunning. Cross off half of my bucket list stunning. It's a beautiful city with so much history that I enjoyed hearing about. We saw the Mona Lisa, which I definitely never thought I would be able to do in my life. The Louvre was incredible! It was HUGE and the art was amazing. After seeing all of these amazing museums inside palaces and intricate buildings, the ones back home don't really compare. It's also really crazy that we saw Moulin Rouge and some of the places in Amelie. Another cool thing was walking around the city and seeing tombs built into walls of people who died in the Liberation of Paris in 1944. I still can't believe we did the things we did and I definitely want to go back some day.
School is incredibly stressful now for everyone and you can definitely tell when you walk in one of the classrooms. There are so many tests and projects due at the same time so I'm worried that I won't be able to keep up. I'm definitely ready to go home so that I'll have more time to study for classes.
The funniest thing about Easter Break is how I felt when I got back to Bonn and saw everyone. Bonn feels more like home every time I come back and I don't know if I'll ever be ready to leave. I also didn't realize just how much I missed the rest of the Biosciences people until I got back today and talked to them about their breaks. I'm pretty sad that our excursions are over and that I won't travel with the entire group again. It's going to be weird going home and not seeing their smiling faces every day.
I forgot to write about Berlin and Prague so I'll hopefully get to that by next week :)
Paris for Easter Break was the craziest and best idea. I still can't believe that only three days ago, I was standing at the top of the Eiffel Tower looking over the city as the sun set. We went to Easter mass at the Notre Dame and I enjoyed it so much. I was surprised by how much of it I could understand and it was cool remembering the prayers in French that I've forgotten. I definitely tried speaking French a lot, but Parisiennes speak really fast and I blew my cover almost every time. Lesson learned: I can't pass for French. We got into the Louvre, and the Arc de Triomphe for free (heck yeah, thank you study abroad) and went on a record number of tours for one city (four tours, hot dayum). Paris was stunning. Cross off half of my bucket list stunning. It's a beautiful city with so much history that I enjoyed hearing about. We saw the Mona Lisa, which I definitely never thought I would be able to do in my life. The Louvre was incredible! It was HUGE and the art was amazing. After seeing all of these amazing museums inside palaces and intricate buildings, the ones back home don't really compare. It's also really crazy that we saw Moulin Rouge and some of the places in Amelie. Another cool thing was walking around the city and seeing tombs built into walls of people who died in the Liberation of Paris in 1944. I still can't believe we did the things we did and I definitely want to go back some day.
School is incredibly stressful now for everyone and you can definitely tell when you walk in one of the classrooms. There are so many tests and projects due at the same time so I'm worried that I won't be able to keep up. I'm definitely ready to go home so that I'll have more time to study for classes.
The funniest thing about Easter Break is how I felt when I got back to Bonn and saw everyone. Bonn feels more like home every time I come back and I don't know if I'll ever be ready to leave. I also didn't realize just how much I missed the rest of the Biosciences people until I got back today and talked to them about their breaks. I'm pretty sad that our excursions are over and that I won't travel with the entire group again. It's going to be weird going home and not seeing their smiling faces every day.
I forgot to write about Berlin and Prague so I'll hopefully get to that by next week :)
T-Minus 1 Month: Part 1
Soooooo, it's been a while since my last post, but I'm just gonna jump right in to my most recent trip to London and bounce around from there. First of all, it was great! The food was great, the sights were great, the people were great, the weather was great, and our traveling group was also great! Getting to see all sorts of sights like Big Ben, the London Eye, the British Museum, and all sorts of other cool things like the London Bridge and the modern marvel of a building, the Shard! It was such a cool city, and getting to share that experience with a good bunch of fellow Aggies made it a very enjoyable trip. While we were there, we met some very friendly people in our hostel and got to talking about traveling. Through this conversation I realized that I've visited the same number, if not more, countries here in Europe than states in the United States, and it makes me really want to visit more of the places closer to home!
To jump back all the way to February, the Karneval weekend leading up to Rosenmontag was fantastic! All the craziness come out during the 5th season here in the Rhineland, people dressing up in bright, colorful costumes and all sorts of things like that. Being a part of the million people that come to Cologne on Rose Monday was a great decision! It's like Halloween, but the candy comes to you! The main parade there in Cologne winds it's way through the streets of Cologne, with paraders throwing candy to you the whole way through!
One more thing for this post, then there will be more to come! We went to Leverkusen to watch a Bundesliga match between Bayer Leverkusen and SC Freiburg! That was so much fun. A fan and player of soccer in the States, getting to see some sort of professional soccer while I was in Europe was definitely a goal of mine, and one that I was so happy to have gotten to do. Coming off a great Champion's League win, Leverkusen powered through Freiburg to win the game! I may be repeating myself, but it was so much fun.
Definitely more to come!
Monday, April 6, 2015
A Bit of a Family Easter in Europe
I had the awesome opportunity to spend Easter weekend in the
Netherlands with my aunt and uncle. It was wonderful for both of us to spend
the holiday with family.
We spent a day in Amsterdam just to see the city. If I had to
describe the city with three words, they would be: architecture, canals, and
bikes! I did not realize that Amsterdam had such beautiful architecture.
Everything was built up impressively tall along the canals, and impressively
large in other areas. The city itself was prettier than I realized. It was also
cool to see the canals running through such a busy city! I’ve never seen
anything like it. The sidewalks were barely big enough for single file lines to
pass in opposite directions. And then, there were the bikes. The first thing I
saw outside of the train station was the “parking lot,” an area packed full of
probably 300-400 bikes! I’ve never seen so many bikes in one place in my life.
The city is so accustomed to them that I believe it would be faster to get from
one end of the city to the other on bike rather than by car. The city was busy
and crowded, but it was a sunny day and love to see new places, so I really
enjoyed it. We spent some time in the Rijks Museum where I saw, among many
talented Dutch artists, a Monet, three Van Gophs, including a self-portrait,
and Rembrandt’s impressively huge “The Night Watchmen.” We walked by Anne
Frank’s house, and I took some pictures outside, but, it being Easter weekend,
the line to enter was over two hours long. I passed on that opportunity, but I
really enjoyed the things I did get to see.
After Amsterdam, we drove into the country to a little town
in Friesland called Beers. It has one church, a little one-room schoolhouse,
and a bit of horse industry. Besides that, the entire tiny village is homes and
farmland. This was the village my grandmother’s father lived in until he was
12-years-old. He immigrated to the United States with his family in the year
1900. And now, over 100 years later, his granddaughter and great-granddaughter
visited the village he grew up in. It was quite the experience to see where he
lived and went to school so long ago. What an unforgettable way to spend my
Easter weekend with my aunt.
Hoppy Easter
For Easter, I somewhat last-minutely decided to visit my friends that live in Steinfeld whom I visited before the program started with my aunt and uncle. I was slightly nervous to travel there by myself and to be with them without my aunt and uncle since they are the only reason I know them, but I am so incredibly happy that I did! This wonderful, relaxing weekend was exactly what I desired at this point in the semester.
I am very thankful for all the traveling I've done this semester, but I fear that I was approaching a plateau in the continuation of my culturing. The pace of traveling and seeing previously incomprehensible sights increased exponentially this semester, which is awesome, but I fear that part of me hasn't yet caught up with where my physical self has been. I've noticed especially lately that sometimes I will be walking through the streets of a new city (often in a somewhat sleep-deprived fog) and for a split-second be unable to remember the name of the city I am currently inhabiting. When I go back and look through photos I took, I sometimes have trouble believing that I actually corporally explored such perfectly picturesque places. So for this Easter weekend, it was refreshing to go somewhere where the smell immediately brought back a flood of happy, warm nostalgia.
We ate incredible food and drank expensive champagne and homemade schnapps entranced by a crackling fire. I laughed and relaxed and reminisced upon previous times of equivalent coziness.
I am excited to get back to school and prepare for our presentation to Enmodes that is rapidly approaching. I am also becoming increasingly excited to return home to be enveloped by hugs and love and warmth from my family. A very large reason for my decision to come to Germany was to prove to myself that I am capable of being totally independent. Albeit I am far from being financially independent, but emotionally, I have passed the test!
I am very thankful for all the traveling I've done this semester, but I fear that I was approaching a plateau in the continuation of my culturing. The pace of traveling and seeing previously incomprehensible sights increased exponentially this semester, which is awesome, but I fear that part of me hasn't yet caught up with where my physical self has been. I've noticed especially lately that sometimes I will be walking through the streets of a new city (often in a somewhat sleep-deprived fog) and for a split-second be unable to remember the name of the city I am currently inhabiting. When I go back and look through photos I took, I sometimes have trouble believing that I actually corporally explored such perfectly picturesque places. So for this Easter weekend, it was refreshing to go somewhere where the smell immediately brought back a flood of happy, warm nostalgia.
We ate incredible food and drank expensive champagne and homemade schnapps entranced by a crackling fire. I laughed and relaxed and reminisced upon previous times of equivalent coziness.
I am excited to get back to school and prepare for our presentation to Enmodes that is rapidly approaching. I am also becoming increasingly excited to return home to be enveloped by hugs and love and warmth from my family. A very large reason for my decision to come to Germany was to prove to myself that I am capable of being totally independent. Albeit I am far from being financially independent, but emotionally, I have passed the test!
Wednesday, April 1, 2015
Spring Break Part 3-Barcelona
The final stop on our spring break tour of the Iberian peninsula was Barcelona, Spain. We arrived by plane in the early evening and took a taxi to our Russian AirBnB host's apartment right next to the beach. We didn't do much the first night besides eat dinner (a menu del dia meal, of course).
Our first full day in Barcelona started with a visit to Park Guell, a fantastic park designed by Barcelona's most famous architect Antoni Gaudi. The park had an interesting layout with plenty of cool tile mosaics. From here, we went to the Picasso museum which featured hundreds of his paintings, sketches, and pottery. Much like the van Gogh museum in Amsterdam, I discovered just how prolific and amazing of an artist Picasso was. I think people often dismiss some of Picasso's work as just weird modern art (some of his pieces are admittedly a little strange), but after seeing all of his life's work, one can see how he was always successfully changing his style and perfecting his art. After the Picasso museum, we headed to the Sagrada Familia, another Gaudi masterpiece. The Sagrada Familia is an unfinished cathedral designed by Gaudi that is still being constructed. The inside was gorgeous with one side having warm-colored glass windows and the other side having cool-colored glass windows, creating a beautiful mix of colors on the floor. We had a tour guide show us around the church, and I was really impressed with her ability to roll every single "r" in every English word she said. In fact, I think she sometimes added r's to her words just to show off how well she could roll them. Following the tour, we took an elevator to the top of the Sagrada Familia which offered great views of the city, and walked back down a really long spiral staircase to return to the nave of the cathedral.
In the evening, we headed to Barcelona's famous street, La Rambla. We found a really neat outdoor market with all sorts of fresh produce, meats, and pastries. It's amazing how mesmerizing it is to watch a hairy Spanish guy clean a fish. We wandered to the end of La Rambla, then went to Plaza Espanya to get some dinner. We ended up eating at a restaurant on top of an old bullfighting ring-turned-shopping mall which had an excellent view of the art museum light display.
The next morning started with a trip to the cable car station that would take us to the top of the mountain to see Castle of Montjuïc. Or, so we thought. Apparently, there are multiple cable cars/chair lifts in Barcelona, and we happened to pick the one that only took us halfway up the mountain. We decided to hike the rest of the way, which was actually quite enjoyable. There were some really nice views on the walk up, where I took a picture, posted it on Instagram and raked in the likes. The actual castle was pretty interesting, and was the site of much Spanish Civil War fighting when Francisco Franco came to power. Rather than hike all the way back down the mountain, we took a bus back to Plaza Espanya to take some pictures during the daytime, then headed back to La Rambla. We got some lunch back at that same outdoor market, then walked to the Maritime Museum to participate in the Barcelona Beer Festival.
One of Vanessa's friends told us about the beer festival, and we were very glad that she did. The museum was packed with a strange assortment of people, everyone from old men to tourists to hipster beer snobs to a not insignificant amount of toddlers running around with their mothers. The festival had 40-50 beers on tap at any one time, and close to 400 different beers were available throughout the weekend. I tried several beers from all over the world. It's hard to say what my favorite beer was, but I definitely had a least favorite. Just for fun, I tried a Russian Imperial Stout which, as one would imagine, is colored completely black. It smelled and tasted like a combination of coffee and smoke and was a drink-tasting experience unlike any other. 4/10 would not recommend. The Barcelona Beer Festival was a really unique experience that was one of my favorite parts of spring break.
After the beer festival, we went on a whirlwind walking tour of Barcelona to try and see some of the major sites we had missed. We started with the lovely Catedral de Barcelona, then walked to see more Gaudi architecture at the Casa Batllo and the Casa Mila, took a subway to see the Arc de Triomf, and ended with the large, light-up torpedo building visible from all over the city. We ended our Barcelona excursion with a quintessentially Spanish meal of cheap tapas and beer.
Spring Break 2015 was one of the most memorable vacations of my life, and I'm glad I got to spend it with some great new friends. I saw so many beautiful landscapes and buildings, experienced 3 totally separate cultures, and made countless memories.
Due to the timing of my writing of this blog post, I think it would be remiss for me to not talk about the tragedy of the Germanwings flight that crashed last week. As most people already know, a severely depressed Germanwings co-pilot intentionally rammed a plane into the French Alps on a flight from Barcelona to Dusseldorf, killing all 150 people on board. This is especially sobering for me because we took a Germanwings flight from Barcelona to Cologne just a week before the crash, and I would not be surprised if that same co-pilot occasionally flew the Barcelona-Cologne route. I feel so terrible for the families of crash victims, and I can't imagine what they are going through right now. I guess this whole thing is a reminder that life is precious and unpredictable, and some things are just out of our control. (Sorry for the depressing ending, next post will be happier.)
Our first full day in Barcelona started with a visit to Park Guell, a fantastic park designed by Barcelona's most famous architect Antoni Gaudi. The park had an interesting layout with plenty of cool tile mosaics. From here, we went to the Picasso museum which featured hundreds of his paintings, sketches, and pottery. Much like the van Gogh museum in Amsterdam, I discovered just how prolific and amazing of an artist Picasso was. I think people often dismiss some of Picasso's work as just weird modern art (some of his pieces are admittedly a little strange), but after seeing all of his life's work, one can see how he was always successfully changing his style and perfecting his art. After the Picasso museum, we headed to the Sagrada Familia, another Gaudi masterpiece. The Sagrada Familia is an unfinished cathedral designed by Gaudi that is still being constructed. The inside was gorgeous with one side having warm-colored glass windows and the other side having cool-colored glass windows, creating a beautiful mix of colors on the floor. We had a tour guide show us around the church, and I was really impressed with her ability to roll every single "r" in every English word she said. In fact, I think she sometimes added r's to her words just to show off how well she could roll them. Following the tour, we took an elevator to the top of the Sagrada Familia which offered great views of the city, and walked back down a really long spiral staircase to return to the nave of the cathedral.
In the evening, we headed to Barcelona's famous street, La Rambla. We found a really neat outdoor market with all sorts of fresh produce, meats, and pastries. It's amazing how mesmerizing it is to watch a hairy Spanish guy clean a fish. We wandered to the end of La Rambla, then went to Plaza Espanya to get some dinner. We ended up eating at a restaurant on top of an old bullfighting ring-turned-shopping mall which had an excellent view of the art museum light display.
The next morning started with a trip to the cable car station that would take us to the top of the mountain to see Castle of Montjuïc. Or, so we thought. Apparently, there are multiple cable cars/chair lifts in Barcelona, and we happened to pick the one that only took us halfway up the mountain. We decided to hike the rest of the way, which was actually quite enjoyable. There were some really nice views on the walk up, where I took a picture, posted it on Instagram and raked in the likes. The actual castle was pretty interesting, and was the site of much Spanish Civil War fighting when Francisco Franco came to power. Rather than hike all the way back down the mountain, we took a bus back to Plaza Espanya to take some pictures during the daytime, then headed back to La Rambla. We got some lunch back at that same outdoor market, then walked to the Maritime Museum to participate in the Barcelona Beer Festival.
One of Vanessa's friends told us about the beer festival, and we were very glad that she did. The museum was packed with a strange assortment of people, everyone from old men to tourists to hipster beer snobs to a not insignificant amount of toddlers running around with their mothers. The festival had 40-50 beers on tap at any one time, and close to 400 different beers were available throughout the weekend. I tried several beers from all over the world. It's hard to say what my favorite beer was, but I definitely had a least favorite. Just for fun, I tried a Russian Imperial Stout which, as one would imagine, is colored completely black. It smelled and tasted like a combination of coffee and smoke and was a drink-tasting experience unlike any other. 4/10 would not recommend. The Barcelona Beer Festival was a really unique experience that was one of my favorite parts of spring break.
After the beer festival, we went on a whirlwind walking tour of Barcelona to try and see some of the major sites we had missed. We started with the lovely Catedral de Barcelona, then walked to see more Gaudi architecture at the Casa Batllo and the Casa Mila, took a subway to see the Arc de Triomf, and ended with the large, light-up torpedo building visible from all over the city. We ended our Barcelona excursion with a quintessentially Spanish meal of cheap tapas and beer.
Spring Break 2015 was one of the most memorable vacations of my life, and I'm glad I got to spend it with some great new friends. I saw so many beautiful landscapes and buildings, experienced 3 totally separate cultures, and made countless memories.
Due to the timing of my writing of this blog post, I think it would be remiss for me to not talk about the tragedy of the Germanwings flight that crashed last week. As most people already know, a severely depressed Germanwings co-pilot intentionally rammed a plane into the French Alps on a flight from Barcelona to Dusseldorf, killing all 150 people on board. This is especially sobering for me because we took a Germanwings flight from Barcelona to Cologne just a week before the crash, and I would not be surprised if that same co-pilot occasionally flew the Barcelona-Cologne route. I feel so terrible for the families of crash victims, and I can't imagine what they are going through right now. I guess this whole thing is a reminder that life is precious and unpredictable, and some things are just out of our control. (Sorry for the depressing ending, next post will be happier.)
A Rough Start!
Even though we've been told repetitively to be aware of pickpocketing… I lost my wallet the first night in Rome! I’m always very cautious and
make sure my belongings are well hidden, but all it took were a couple of seconds.
After loosing my wallet I was not upset at the fact that someone stole my
wallet, I was more upset that I was so careless and let it happen. It was not
fun to visit the police station (to report my wallet stolen), spend hours on
the phone cancelling my credit cards, and missing dinner. Although it was a
rough start in Rome, I did not let that incident ruin my whole experience.
Luckily, I was traveling with two of the most caring young women in the
Biosciences program, who did not hesitate to help a friend in need (Thank you
Hazel and Jane). We stayed a total of 5
days in Rome, which were unbelievable!!!!!!!!
Highlights of the trip:
1.
Seeing the Pope!
2.
Touring the City
3.
The amazing Food!
4.
Getting a sneak peek of the New James Bond film
6.
Relaxing in every single set of stairs we could
find
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