It has now officially been one week since I landed here in Germany and there is really no other way to describe the past seven days other than completely unexpected. Based on my previous travel experience, I naively believed that I would somehow be immune to the travel mishaps that can make trips like these a little stressful. Of course I knew there would be adjustments I’d have to make, but I should’ve known from the moment that my plane from Dallas to Frankfurt had to back track and make an emergency landing in New York that this adventure would be far more different and challenging than anything I had yet faced.
The last thing I want to do is sound ungrateful. I truly am SO happy to be here and have this opportunity! However, from getting little to no sleep because of jet lag and the sun that seemingly never sets to having my card get declined when trying to purchase train tickets, the week was just difficult. Nevertheless, in the midst of the obstacles set in my path there were several moments of bliss. For example, after taking a walking tour around Bonn in the mid Tuesday afternoon heat (which has been unusually high according to my host mom), a few of us went to a biergarten on the Rhine. As we sat and got to know each other a breeze rolled in a way that was rejuvenating. The next day a group of us students went to Burrito Rico for lunch and I had some quesadillas that warmed my Tex-Mex loving heart while we continued to share life stories, school things like which biochem professor to take, and what we want to do after undergrad. On Thursday Jessika and I managed to master the holiday bus schedule as the majority of Bonn had been closed for Corpus Christi, and we spent the afternoon planning our weekend trip to Belgium and then relaxing by the Rhine. The following morning we woke up early to go to Bingen and got to spend the day napping and bonding on the bus, touring the Hildegard Museum and Marksburg Castle, and enjoying a group meal with not one but two scoops of ice-cream. These moments helped me get through the rockiness of the first week and I was looking forward to the weekend plans.
Once we were dropped off by the bus many of us had to run through the rain to the central station in order to catch our train to Brussels, Belgium. Having never used the train we wanted to have enough time to figure out how to get around and where exactly we needed to go. After grabbing some McDonald’s in the train station, which I have unfortunately eaten more here than I have in the past several years of my life, we jumped on the train to Cologne where we were supposed to catch our second train. The second train ended up being delayed an hour though so the thirteen of us sat on the platform and bonded over exhaustion and free train station Wifi (a necessity when AT&T charges you $10/day you use your phone abroad). Once on the train we sat as close together as possible and spent our two hours talking, planning, putting on temporary tattoos found in the magazines, and trying these weird chocolate covered lemon cookies. We then managed to taxi to our AirBnB, get into the AirBnB after only 10 minutes of thinking we were stranded in an alley in the middle of the night, and found a quaint little bar with a man who spoke perfect English - a welcomed luxury. That night I slept the best I’ve slept since getting to Europe. I found a fan in the closet, the rain from the day before had blown in a slight cold front, and half of our group was kind enough to let Jessika and I sleep in and join them in the city later. I woke up feeling like a totally new person, excited and ready to finally have some REAL Belgian waffles. After meeting up with the rest of the group, the day was spent aimlessly walking around the city, checking out any touristy things we came across. We even stopped to see the famous Manneken Pis, a statue of a peeing boy, which was much smaller and less extravagant than expected as it was sitting on a random street corner. In all honesty, the best part about the statue was the random parade we caught that was walking by it just as we had gotten there. Overall we walked about 9 miles and finally made it home and in bed around 2:00a.m., which would have been fine if it weren’t for the fact that Jessika and I had to be up at 5:00a.m. to catch a taxi and then a bus to Bruges.
When our group of seven finally made it to Bruges it was still morning and nothing was open yet. We walked from the train station to town and eventually found an open restaurant called It’s Toast that served all kinds of toast, including avocado toast. We ate and then walked around the town waiting for things to open. Since the town has a canal running through it we decided to take a canal tour before treating ourselves to another round of waffles. The afternoon was then spent hanging out on a patio looking over the canal where we met an Italian guy and a Swedish guy and asked them where we should go in Europe. All of this made for such a fun and relaxing weekend until we got on the train to come back and a delay in our first train messed up the rest of our train schedule. I hated not being in control and felt helpless as we were stuck in a very sketchy train station with no one that spoke English and no functioning bathroom, but we made it and looking back I realize things were not as bad as it seemed in the moment.
So, even though I have been adjusting over the past week, there is still much room for further adaptation. Hopefully the next few weeks are a bit calmer than the first and I can get a little more sleep, but if not it'll be an adventure and at least I’ll have an interesting story to tell! Now let's see what week 2 holds.
Sarah Bohac
Sarah Bohac
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