Nobody has died yet and so I'm classifying this trip as a success for now

It’s been a few days since we arrived in Bonn and so far we have experienced varying weather, public transportation, food trucks, and a fight with mace. Let me go further into detail.

The weather in Bonn is typically cooler but seems to have a certain characteristic in common with Texas weather: unpredictability. During our tour of Bonn, the rain started and stopped multiple times leading the group carrying umbrellas in anticipation of more precipitation. On our second day, we were instructed in tai chi by Dr. Wasser. It was a very relaxing lesson until the sun decided to beam rays of pure heat into my exposed face. Fortunately, I was not sunburnt. This was our first hot day in Bonn and while most people treated themselves with gelato, I got a refreshing fruit smoothie. Something I didn’t know until after I ordered is that they do not put ice in their smoothies.

Most TAMU students have to ride a bus or train to get to class in the morning, but my host home is within walking distance of the AIB building. This means that my first experience with Bonn public transportation was on our trip to the House of History. The trams were clean, fast, and way better than NYC subways (which, to be honest, isn’t that high of a standard to be comparing with other metro systems).

It is pretty clear that our favorite lunch destination is a group of food trucks near the new AIB building. They have fresh pasta, fruit juice, fish, falafel, gelato, strawberries, and even chicken nuggets. The TAMU students may be unfamiliar with directions in Bonn, but we know our way to the food.

One of the craziest things we witness was a fight in the park. While on our orientation tour, we walked past two guys yelling at a man with a dog. The dog proceed to bark at the other men. Our group was waiting to cross the street and didn't pay much attention to the fight. Then, things escalated quickly. One man drop kicked the guy with the dog. Someone pulled a belt out and started hitting the dog owner. Just when we thought the dog was going to lose its human, the owner pulled out a can of mace and sprayed the other guys. The fight got closer to our group and we quickly fled the scene. No one really knew what had just happened since we didn't speak German.

Classes were pretty chill this week. Most of the stuff we learned was introductory. When Professor Waltz started talking about physics and chemistry, the dread in the room was almost tangible, but after a few slides I think everyone was caught back up on the basics. Dr. Wasser’s lessons contained a lot of information. I am now grateful for taking great diseases of the world back in College Station because it made these lessons so much easier.

I feel like I’ve already written a lot so here are a few things I want to add:

1. The Haribo store has tons of fun gummies in different shapes and flavors. Fellow Aggies, if you haven’t gone yet, you need to go.
   
2. I have no idea what this castle thing is but I hope to find out.
   
3. This peanut butter provided by our host family is PROUDLY AMERICAN!