week one
So after I finished up posting my first blog post, not long after I headed to the airport with all of my things. I was actually much more nervous than I anticipated, but I said my goodbyes and headed to security, after which I almost immediately met Dae (it was the A&M backpack and t-shirt that tipped me off). It was nice to have a friendly face, so we walked with each other to the gate and I soon met more new friends before boarding the plane on which I had mY OWN ROW. Talk about amazing. There's nothing better when you're 5'11" and have horrible knees and no one sits next to you on a 9 hour flight. You better believe I spent that whole flight sprawled (probably not super gracefully) across all three seats. Quick shoutout to my mother for making me bring a neck pillow even though I said I wouldn't use it--it made a perfect normal pillow. Going on, the food was horrible and I didn't sleep much but after some waiting and traveling (i.e. a 2.5 hour bus ride that ended up taking 4) we made it to the AIB. After a short wait, I met my host family and they are wonderful! Maike, my host mom, is a nursery school teacher that grew up in Kenya before moving back to Germany for university. Noura, her daughter, is 17 years old and is really good at English and also really cool, but shy at first. She and I rode the bus home where I met Gabriel, Maike's boyfriend. He doesn't speak much English, but is very kind and smiles a lot, so we get along just peachy. Maike was so kind (actually, is always so kind) and showed me around her house and was super accommodating; she even walked me to the bus stop so I knew where to go. I'm not gonna lie, but in the original email from Maike when she said that my room was their "spacious attic," I was a little apprehensive. However, my room is great! It really is quite spacious and I have room for all of my things. Because it's the attic, it's also pretty funny how many times I hit my head on the sloped ceilings, but I'm slowly getting the hang of it. For dinner, we had a roasted vegetable mixture that was really quite delicious and I went to bed soon after.
(That was just the first night)
The second day I awoke to the sunlight at 6:45am. Lol what. Anyway, I was able to get to central station by myself (!!!) and Henning, the program coordinator, lead us to the AIB where we had a little orientation. Afterward, we had our first German lesson with Hilde. I am not good at German but I do love Hilde. Then they said "go" and set us free for lunch. I actually really liked that they just let us go, but I was also hoping that they would've given us some tips on where to eat. Literally all of us eventually settled on one restaurant--with English menus--and I had a pan of sausage, potatoes, and cooked onions, which was quite delicious. Once we got back from lunch, Henning lead a tour around Bonn, but because I had no sense of direction, I remember most of what he said, but not where anything is. That night, I went home to dinner with my host family, and we had some pasta and salad. We got gradually more familiar and some of the awkwardness fell away.
The third day was a little bit earlier. We had lecture straight from 8:45am-1:00pm, which was comprised of German, the neurophysiology of music, and history of medicine. I find all of the classes very interesting, particularly NOM because of my musical background. It's quite fun to think back to all of the piano theory I know in high school and know that it's actually coming in handy. Although, I currently have NO idea how I'm going to tackle this class. I've been playing Bach and Mozart and Haydn and Beethoven for as long as I remember, but I've never really thought about what their specific "sound" was. This is going to be a learning experience. We had the rest of the afternoon off, and while a lot of people went back to their homes to take a nap, Alana, Drake, and I decided to do some exploring. We walked around, popped into the church, pretended to be students at the university, and went to a biergarten overlooking the Rhine. Afterward, we had a welcome dinner that was put on by AIB, complete with (I'm assuming) traditional German dishes and barbecue (no, not brisket). It was a little awkward, as most of the programs kept to themselves, but the weather was nice, the decorations were cute, and the introductions were funny. We took Dr. Wasser's hero story and made it the Aggie story. We won.
Thursday was actually a public holiday, so my host family (being oh so wonderful) took me on a trip to Drachenfels, which is a mountain with both the ruins of and a restored castle. Imagine my surprise when we go to get on the train, the doors open, & I'm staring at half of the people in my program! It was pretty awesome. I also thought it was pretty awesome how my host family was the only one there. I think Maike thought it was a little awkward, but I was so grateful that they were willing to do that. Now, let me tell you about the climb. To give you some idea of how steep it was in places, there were donkeys available for you to ride. It was so much fun, but very difficult in some places. We first hiked all the way up the mountain to the ruins at the very top, and the view was definitely worth it. Hiking back down, we stopped at the restored castle and Noura and I went in to take a look around. At one point, we definitely ended up in the rooms behind the plexiglass and may have gotten in some slight trouble. The rooms were very cool, and the views were grand. Afterward, we sat a cafe right on the Rhine for a snack, so naturally I got strawberry cake. It was amazing. We headed back home and had a nice evening with dinner that was some make your own noodles.
On Friday, after class in the morning, I got a train to Munich. It was my first experience traveling by train on this trip, so it was interesting to say the least. After a little confusion we got on our train and made it to Munich pretty late at night. We decided it was in our best interest to take a taxi to our Airbnb. After a little more confusion, Marissa and I ended up in a taxi together going approximately 110 mph on the Autobahn in the backseat of a Mercedes. Even though we were the last taxi to leave, we were the first to make it to the Airbnb, which was in Dachau approximately 30 minutes away. The second taxi to leave then made it to the Airbnb, but the first taxi to leave, with Kathryn, Carter, Dae, and Hailey was nowhere in sight. Turns out, their cab driver had taken them to the wrong place, not once, not twice, but three times, and finally dropped them off about a 40 minute walk away from the Airbnb. While they were dealing with all of this, everyone else walked down the street to pick up some pizzas. Finally, they made it to the Airbnb, we all hung out over some pizza, and went to bed.
On Saturday, we woke up rather early to go to the Dachau concentration camp and what an incredible experience. There really are no words to describe something like that. I have been learning for almost my entire life about the Holocaust, but it's always been at a distance. To actually be in a concentration camp was overwhelming and difficult to grasp at first. We first looked at the International Monument standing in front of the maintenance building and what a sight. It was gruesome and eerie and absolutely chilling. The artist did such a good job at conveying the turmoil and utter desperation and agony of the Holocaust victims. You really just have to see it in person.
We then walked through the roll call area and down the camp road to the back where the places of worship were, one of which was Catholic. Next was the hard part. When we made it to the crematorium, I was glad that I split off from the group. Actually seeing the furnaces and walking through a gas chamber and standing in front of where the bodies were disposed of in mass quantities was heart wrenching. It finally hit me exactly what was done in those places. I then walked through the bunker back at the front of the concentration camp and was horrified that bunkers built for 200 people were forced to fit 2000 and that everyday they would have to make sure everything had to be spotless and even then, if a soldier was in a bad mood, they could be punished mercilessly anyway. I headed into the museum next, which was housed in the old maintenance building. It was here that I met back up with the group. This museum was incredibly lengthy due to the large amount of reading, but well worth it. It told the entire history of how the Hitler and the Nazis rose to power, how Dachau came to be, how it functioned, what was going on in the rest of the world at the time, the experiments the Nazis performed, and how the camp was liberated (to name a few). We spent a very long time in there but it was extremely educational and necessary. Afterward, we did a quick walkthrough of the bunker, which was basically the prison for either the more troublesome prisoners or those of higher prestige. Conditions varied vastly between one prisoner having two cells to himself to one prisoner being forced to stand due to lack of room. Overall, I am VERY satisfied with our decision to go there and spend as much time as we did, and I truly believe it's an experience that every person needs to have at least once. We finally left Dachau and headed back to downtown Munich, where we were able to meet up with my boyfriend, Jared, who was currently on an ID Study Abroad program. He showed us the Glockenspiel and a few churches that we poked our heads into before having to leave. We then sat at a Starbucks eating gelato until we made our way to Augustiner-Keller for dinner. Augustiner Keller was somewhere that I probably could've spent the entire evening. It was a HUGE biergarten that served giant half liter beers. I may or may not have cheated and gotten mine with half lemonade... But regardless, the atmosphere of the place was just amazing. It was good natured and fun and the weather was perfect and people were being loud and boisterous, but not too rowdy. It was a perfect balance and I was very content in that moment. I wish we could've stayed longer, but many of us were tired so back we went to our Airbnb.
On Sunday, we wanted to head back into town again, except there were no busses running. So, the woman who ran the hotel who also happened to be the sweetest person ever was kind enough to find us a cab that fit all nine of us!! Amazing. Once we were back in Munich and had our luggage stored away at the main station, Marissa, Dae, Anne Marie and I went to the Deutsches Museum, which is the world's largest museum of science and technology. I found it super interesting and fun to look at, particularly the interactive physics part except for the fact that everything was in German. I still had a great time. Then we went to lunch at a burger restaurant that is actually a chain (they have a location in Bonn that I walk by pretty much everyday) but still quite good and met up with everyone else at the train station. Our train back to Bonn was quite a fun time. What was supposed to only take about five hours ended up taking seven due to delays, but thank goodness we had no changes because we would have for sure missed our connection. For the most part I just read my book, but there were times when we were all just talking and laughing and having a great time. Finally, we made it back to Bonn and I chatted with Maike about my trip before heading to bed.
On Monday, I had to wake up on the earlier side, as I had German at 8:45am. It ended up taking about half the time allotted though, so we all had a really nice long break to just walk around and stretch our legs. We came back for our predeparture meeting for Vienna, followed by a lunch break where we ate an Asian restaurant, and then returned for a HOM lecture that ended at 3:30pm. I was originally hoping that after class, we would be able to plan our Prague weekend and I'd be home before 4:30pm. That was not the case. It took us SUCH a long time to figure everything out, particularly because there were literally 15 people trying got get on the same busses/flights, and it fell upon me to book the Airbnb. I ended up on the later bus and the same flight as everyone but everything was pretty reasonably priced, so I'm not complaining. I went home, ate a good meal with my host family, who I'm actually getting quite closed to and loving it (our meals stretch into several hours because of how we sit around and talk afterward), showered, packed, and went to bed very late as my Vienna trip started the next day, but more on that later.
I really enjoyed Munich more than I thought I would. The city had a good vibe and was more touristy than Bonn, so I felt like I fit in a little more. It had huge streets with shopping and many more people, giving me the first real "city" vibe on the trip. At the same time, it showed me just how homey Bonn had become in such a short period and it occurred to me that perhaps Bonn is the perfect size for a trip such as this. It's big enough that we don't get too bored, but still small enough that it's easy to navigate and get you on your feet quickly. All in all, Europe's got me a little bit shook up, what with the time change and the traveling and lack of routine and I am truly loving every minute of it. This is exactly what I was hoping to experience thus far and coupled with the people I have met, I'm having the time of my life.
You did it!!! You reached the end!!! Congratulations!!!
JMD
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