Roller Coasters + Easter Bunny || April 1, 2018

After a short school week plagued with my first taste of homesickness, we were blessed with a four day weekend for Easter. 

Highlights:

• my host mom's homemade lamb cake
• an intercultural workshop scavenger hunt--more so just an excuse to get out of AIB and wander Bonn for a short while
• Sausalito's with my gals (Ibk, Iz, Alexa)

We left Bonn at noon on Friday and arrived in Strasbourg around 6. After we checked in at our hotel, we picked up some "tacos" at Le Goremt Voyager (not exactly tacos, but very very yummy and the workers there were quite nice) and spent the next few hours walking around he city. 

Highlights:

• the transit in Strasbourg has gps location maps along with the stop names so you can actually see the route you're taking
• Hôtel Graffagar graffiti
• first look at Strasbourg Cathedral
• moon/stars platz (not quite sure of the name but I liked it because it made me think of the little prince)

*sits on bridge for a photo*

Jack: What if I just pushed her in?

Me: I can't swim, please don't...

The next morning we took a flixbus to my most anticipated destination/the entire reason I'd planned to go to Strasbourg in the first place--Europa Park. When I'd first confirmed my participation in the program, one of the very first things I did was look up amusement parks near Bonn. The closest was Phantasialand, but Europa Park really caught my eye because it was supposedly the second most visited park in Europe, behind Disneyland Paris. But because there were lots of other places I wanted to visit, I put it on the back burner and decided Phantasialand would be better because I could go on just a one day trip from Bonn. But as Easter neared, my list of destinations dwindled and the more excited I got about Europa Park. So I asked Ibk if she wanted to come with, Jack and Joseph hopped aboard and off we went. I think arriving at the park on the bus and walking to the entrance was the most excited I've ever been over the course of my study abroad so far, so subsequently, the most excited I've been in my life. Seriously, I was bouncing and jumping all around and legitimately could not contain my joy. My mood went downhill from there and there were definitely a few things I'd have changed about my visit if I could, but it was all around a great day and a great amusement park.

My top rides:

Wodan timbur -- Das BESTE

Silver star

Arthur

General notes:

• The park layout was set up so that you pass country to country like Epcot 
• They had a really cool locker system with the rides. As you board each coaster, much like at six flags, you walk through the car to reach the cubbies on the opposite side, but what makes them different is that there are three sets and they open with their corresponding group of people. So if there are two different sets of cars running at once, the people on the other car can't access your stuff. For one of the rides, they also had actual lockers but instead of money you open them with your park ticket. 
• The food actually wasn't (too) overpriced. I had tortellini for lunch and it was 4,50 for a smallish quantity, but very yummy
• Giant slides = danger, I flew off the end and hurt my ankle a little so beware

After we left the park we grabbed some Döner pizza for dinner then took the bus back to Strasbourg and settled in for an early night. The next morning was Easter Sunday and Ibk and Joseph wanted to go to church, so I went along with them. The people there were friendly and the sermon seemed oddly directed toward me, but I thought the pastor was really funny and I enjoyed it a lot. 

We went back to the hotel to pick up our stuff (and Jack) and check out before we set off for the day. And thus began the walking. Walking to grand ile, through little France, from the center of Strasbourg to Neudorf, a small sector on the edge of the city. We spent the entire day walking, but it ranks very high up there among my favorite days of city travel. We went inside (and up) the cathedral, saw Palais Rohan, stumbled upon SO MANY small markets and fairs, and wandered through the university campus.

Highlights:

• the old French architecture (10/10 very aesthetic, especially along the river)
• The cathedral--the view from the top as well as it's design (I liked the statues)
• Found the original master of forehead pics
• Pit stop for pomme frites et crepes (YUM)
• The Easter bunny gave me chocolate

Eventually we ended up in a shoppy type square in Neudorf. Ibk and I spotted a nice buliding with a beautiful art wall outside, so of course we stopped for photos!! For like an hour... whoops. Once we'd taken fifty million plus, we decided we were pretty done exploring the city. We were all quite tired and ready for a break, but we still had hours before our bus came. So we popped on into the movie theater (also the building with the art wall but we didn't know what it was before) and bought tickets for Ready Player One, version originale. I didn't know much about the movie except that it was based off of a book I've been meaning to read forever, and it definitely surpassed my expectations. It had lots of embedded game references and jokes and such, so it was a good lighthearted movie with a few splashes of action as well.

Joseph had told us his stomach didn't feel well before we'd gone in, so it was not too much of a surprise that he still felt pretty awful afterward. (Future update, turns out he had appendicitis.) He wanted a little bit of food but KFC was the only thing open. We got him a couple of chicken sandwiches to pick at and plenty of water, and in the meantime I enjoyed the free wifi! Soon we headed back to the bus, but we thought it left earlier than it did so we had to sit outside for a little while. But we all entertained ourselves with music, and I tried teaching Ibk how to do some pirouettes until the bus arrived. 

The week before the storm

The week before Enmodes snuck up on us all real fast and was over just as quickly. It was the week after Easter, so everybody was a little tired, but otherwise is a pretty relaxing week, well, as relaxing as it could be with Enmodes looming.

The most exciting part of the week was the trip to Bingen. We visited the Hildegard von Bingen, and my favorite part of it was the garden. The garden was so big and I wish we could have been there when everything was in bloom. I tried to find a book about all the plants in the garden and what Hildegard used them for and how they are actually useful, but all the books were in German and ich spreche Deutsch un poco, so no book for Brynn.

After the museum we ate lunch at this quaint little cafe by the Rhine. I was super happy with my food choice of a meatball thing because the chicken people got did not taste good at all, a lot of people didn't even finish their chicken :/ 

The Hildegard trip was a good kick-starter to the week and allowed me to actually start functioning again after Switzerland. I don't know what else to say so thanks and gig'em.

Easter = Switzerland

For Easter we did a blind booking and wound up going to Zurich!

We spent two days in Switzerland and learned two things very fast: everything is super duper expensive and their public transportation regions are super duper confusing. We discovered the magnificence that is Coop, the cheap grocery store found all over and we purchased all of our meals and snacks from there. Our first day we spent hiking in the hills and countryside, as our plan to hike up in the mountains was foiled once we realized there was still a good two feet of snow where we wanted to go. That day was full of adapting and spontaneous plans, but it all worked out in the end because we got to take a cog train halfway up a beautiful mountain and play in the snow, and then proceed back down (instead of paying 50 swiss francs to go all the way up) to where we hiked around.

The second day our hiking trail planned out, and we spent the whole day experiencing the beautiful mountain region we were in. We were still in the foothills, but there was no snow and we were higher than we were the day before.

We wished we could've spent Monday to walk around the city of Zurich to see all the Easter festivities and just explore the city in general but because it was a blind booking, we flew out that morning and got to spend Easter Monday back relaxing in Germany.

Never Again.

Never again will I bike 20 miles at a time against the wind on a bike that is not mine. I mean, the journey and destination was really fun, but the next day my body questioned my motives.

This ambitious journey started with us taking a train to Koblenz to rent our bikes for the day. Once we had finally found a place that was open and gotten our bikes, we were off! We biked along the Rhine, passing through all these cute little villages in order to get to our destination: Rheinfells castle. We stopped in at one little cafe for lunch, and ate at tables nestled right beside the river. The ride to the castle took three and a half hours, dashing any ideas of biking back to Koblenz. The hill up to the castle was brutal, and we had to get off and walk our bikes all the way up because there was no way. The castle was awesome and we had a fun time running and climbing around it (which you are not supposed to do by the way). Unfortunately the tunnels within the castle, one of the main reasons we wanted to go, were closed down so we couldn't venture in them. Once we had had our fill of the castle, we headed back down the hill and got a yummy, carb-loaded dinner followed by a satisfying scoop of gelato. After that, we headed back to Koblenz, dropped off our bikes, and returned to Bonn for a well earned rest.
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                              nyoom

MOM

I got to go to London with my mom during Spring Break!!

I did not realize how much I had missed my mom until I finally met her in London and I was super happy I got to be with her for a whole week and show her around a little bit of Europe, as this was her first trip ever to leave the US.

We watched the changing of the guard, ran around the Tower of London (where mom made bffs with the ravens that live there), had a fancy afternoon tea at Fortnum and Mason in Picadilly, saw some cute doggos, got lost in Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens (where we got to feed wild parakeets!), and think we saw every sight there was to see. It was a shame though that Big Ben was completely covered in scaffolding, being as it was one of the only things I realllllllyyyy wanted to see :(  Monday was a big day for us because we took a tour to see Windsor Castle, Stonehenge, and the Roman Baths. Windsor Castle was awesome, and the Queen was even there when we arrived. She left while we were there though, because we could hear her helicopter as she left. Within the castle grounds in St. George Cathedral, where the royal wedding will be held in May. Now whenever the wedding comes on TV, I get to point and say hey I've been there! The cathedral was also super cool because that's where a lot of famous royals have been laid to rest, including King Henry VIII.

We left for Belgium on Wednesday, stopping in Belgium before we headed back to Germany. Bruge was the highlight of Belgium for us, with it being the cute little city we needed after being in the large cities of London and Brussels. In Belgium, we had waffles for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, which I have no regrets about and never will have regrets about.

Vive la France

Basically this was the beginning of Spring Break, but just a week earlier.

We did a lot in this week, travelling from Bonn to Paris and making stops in Colmar and Beaune along the way. The smaller cities were so fun and enchanting, and I'm just glad the bus was able to navigate all those tiny streets. And I must say the hotel we stayed at in Beaune was super nifty. Everybody's room was different, with some having lofts and others having awesome layouts, and the hotel itself was so much bigger than it seemed.

However, I think my favorite thing about our trip to France was when we went to Versailles. It was nice to get out of the busy and crowded city of Paris and head a little out into the country. The palace and the grounds were so beautiful, but I don't think I could live in such a big place. I wish we would have had more time to walk around though, because by the time I had finished touring the palace there wasn't any time left to go out and explore the gardens. Which were huge. Like I couldn't even see the end. It would have also been nice to be at Versailles in April or May, when everything would have had a chance to bloom and we could see it at it's best.

And then the best part, CHEESE IN THE GARDEN OF VERSAILLES. I listened I thought rather raptly to Julian (the best guide ever) naming and explaining all the different kind of cheeses, but I am trash and immediately forgot what they were all called as soon as I grabbed my baguette. All the cheeses were so good (except for one of em but I have no idea what it was called but that fella was smelly and nastyy) and since I was going to see my mom that night, I packaged a little bit of each cheese and half of my baguette so she could experience their greatness too :) Moral of the story, France gave me a greater appreciation for cheese, and I know once I get back home I am probably going to start eating crackers with more than just cheddar cheese, because I am a classy fancy lady now (but only on Tuesdays.

sick week 》》alwin’s bday!!

feb 19-25- mar 4

This week kinda sucked for me. The flu was going around Bonn-- probably because everyone’s immune systems were lacking after five days of partying at Karneval. However, I powered through school. Monday and Tuesday we had two really long workshops for pharmacology with Dr. Fajt. I thought these were really helpful and insightful; however, I do wish the 4-hour periods were split up into shorter sessions. By Thursday, Whitney and I decided that we should go to the doctor and get some medicine (plus I had an eye infection). I was out of school on Friday, and ended up sleeping the entire weekend away trying to get better. The next week at school was superrr busy. We had three or four lab reports due, the final exam for German class, a lab exam, and the first physiology exam. We also had to be prepared for our first presentation for the Enmodes project. We had most of our ideas all ready to present; we just needed to put it all on a powerpoint presentation, finalize which parts each of us were going to present, and build a build a model of the device. Thankfully the end of the week came pretty quick and it was out to party for Alwin’s birthday. A group of us met up later that night and we walked around Bonn trying to find a big enough place for all of us to fit. Since it was snowing and cold, we gave up shortly after and decided to go have a little party at my host family’s house. Saturday I met up with Artavia and Claudia and we did some shopping. I bought some boots and jeans. Later that night Nicky, Alwin, Vijay, and I met at the hbf and we walked over to Tacos bar with Artavia, Claudia, and Austin. Kate and Harrison showed up later that night and we hit the dance floor. We like to call this night our BEST NIGHT EVER. Sunday was a relaxing day, I ran to the gym and then came back home, ate dinner, and packed my bags for FRANCE!!