Amsterdam and more!

Writing this on Thursday of my second week of the program, I find it hard to believe how quickly time is flying by. Each day spent here has been filled with exploring new places and learning new things, and it feels like I have been doing things nonstop. This past weekend I traveled with a few others to Amsterdam for a couple of days. Before this trip, I didn’t really know anything about the differences in culture between various European countries, but I feel like I am beginning to get a little more of an understanding. While Germany seems to be very clean and organized, my experience in the Netherlands was somewhat chaotic. It was so exciting to try lots of new foods in Amsterdam- a few highlights being the stroopwafels and bitterballen. After having a full weekend of walking and experiencing the city, we were on our way back home, but our plans were quickly halted due to the cancellation and rescheduling of our second connecting train. I met some really nice Germans at the train station who quickly told me what to do and then took to waiting for the train to arrive an hour later. It was an interesting experience being on an overbooked train and standing for over two hours- however, it now makes for a great story to tell and a really funny situation!

Aside from all of these experiences that I had on my own time, I have also enjoyed lots of planned excursions this week, as well as time with my host family. I really enjoyed our visit to Cologne and was surprised to see how such a large city can somehow feel so quaint. The Cathedral was so much grander and more intricately beautiful than could even be captured by photo, and I loved seeing how the people of Cologne rebuilt their city with both older looking buildings and many statues with interesting stories behind them. This week I have also gotten to spend a good amount of time with my host family which I have very much enjoyed. I have had several conversations with my host mom and sisters about topics ranging from their church here in Bonn to politics in Texas and America as a whole. It has been so cool to get to talk to people whose life experiences look very different from mine and I really look forward to the rest of the time of getting to know them!