What a wonderful world

It's been exactly a week since landing in Bonn and I can say it feels like a year. All I needed was sparkling water and Birkenstocks to feel like a city local, and overlooking the Rhine river and seeing Drachenfels castle makes me want to stay. It's been nice to acclimate to Europe in one place and establish a routine, taking the same bus to class every morning and getting some sort of authentic German food for lunch, then going home and eating dinner with my (and my roommate Baylee's) host mom, Hilde. She has the funniest stories and is such a happy person, and really cares about helping us learn and understand the German culture.

The great thing about this program is we're not just sightseeing, which would be a great way to explore Europe in and of itself. For everything we see we're getting the backstory or an explanation of how something works and how it affects the German culture and people, which isn't your typical tourist experience. To be able to then come home and ask Hilde about what we learned in class or what we saw that day has been an invaluable resource. For example, our first lecture we learned about the German healthcare delivery system and how the government is having to enforce cuts to make up for budget deficits and that the population isn't okay with it. We asked Hilde about it and she's unhappy about having to pay for medical prescriptions when it's been unnecessary her entire life. The entire medical system is free, meaning no premiums, no deductibles, but high taxes and sometimes there needs to be cuts to make up for unexpected market changes. This system is quite different than America and one that I wouldn't know about if I were just coming to Germany to see tourist attractions. I'm so thankful to experience Europe for the first time in this way because it adds so much to my understanding and appreciation of this beautiful place.

Germany is in most ways a modern society, with the best and brightest on every street, but the beauty of it all is when you go next door and see a building or church that's been standing for over 500 years, or a pub where Beethoven liked to go. This contributes so much to the feeling of this culture, how they contribute to and conserve the past but look towards the future. My bus route every morning goes past a cemetery that I haven't been in yet but am told Beethoven's mother is buried there and also the German composer Robert Schumann. This happens all over town, where ornate German houses are perfectly happy in the city square and the 'traditional' is just normal. The world really is amazing, we just have to slow down and appreciate every aspect of life, where normal really is beautiful.

Hopefully my next post will be more fun, It's really late at night... Until then!

Annie