Sunburns, Allergies, Getting Lost AKA The Most Extraordinary Excursion Evah

Since I have come to Germany, I have gotten lost twice (once in the rain), had a skin reaction to something unknown (which is always super fun), got a sunburn (which is really just my fault). However, this has been the most amazing extraordinary fantastic supercalifragilisticexpialidocious trip that I have taken. In. my. life. . . . . . (so far).

                  This is the face of a super happy camper (btw Collin in the back cracks me up).

My favorite way to see the city so far has actually been when I was alone walking either to class or back to my house mom in Bad Godesberg. The streets in Bad Godesberg are lined with arches of giant trees that cake the ground in fallen leaves and seeds. Accompanying the trees is a continuous line of three story houses that change from modern 2000's architecture to Victorian era design. The streets are so peaceful and the gardens are impeccable! The walk into Bonn, however, is a totally different story. No trees line the streets, but mazes of concrete and brick alleys flow into giant plazas of all kinds. Münsterplatz has been my favorite so far because it is a vast open space of cobblestone, and is interrupted by a grand statue of Beethoven at the far end of the space. The other end is shadowed by the towering structure of Bonn Münster (one of the oldest churches in Germany). Overall, everything is beautiful.

On our time off we have gone off to see the Dragon Castle and the Dragon's Rock, which has a legend about a hero named Siegfried who fought a dragon, who later dies via betrayal. The ruins of the castle were amazing and gigantic! Also it was made in the 1100's! How?!? It was straight out of Game of Thrones. The Dragon Castle was super elegant with beautiful spires, red brick, and a giant golden stag (actually two). This stag was my favorite because it reminded me of those alternative music CD covers where the band members just look off into the distance.

     
My favorite place we have visited though has been the Beethoven house. Seeing his own journals, composition books and instruments was incredible because I could just imagine the hours he must have spent trying to build a sonata. The coolest thing was that on the instruments you could see that it was worn or stained by his sweat or by him touching the keys a lot. The violin had a half-moon shape where he would pin the violin between his shoulder and chin. The organ's middle foot pedals had worn off the wood stain from over use. My favorite though was the piano because middle C and the notes surrounding it were so worn that the ivory had completely been eroded at the edges of the keys. Seeing proof of his hours of work was really incredible to me.

As for classes, they are great! I have loved the conversational way of teaching that our teacher, Hilde, has been using. So now I can introduce myself, tell people where I want to go ect. I have loved our history of medicine lectures because I have always been one who enjoyed learning history and how we interpret lessons learned from the past. Seeing how frames of thought gradually shift throughout history, specifically in a scientific aspect, and how certain ideas are rejected has always fascinated me. I can't wait to see what occurs during the middle ages and then the renaissance.

I can't wait to see what comes next!!