Days 0 & 1

Location: Bonn, Nordrhein-Westfalen, Deutschland

I put fingers to keypad today to begin my first blog from Germany. Yesterday, we began the flight from Houston to Frankfurt via Lufthansa. In spite of all of the hellish things that I had heard about modern air travel, I thought it was not too bad. The security line was short (pure luck), the food was edible, and the staff friendly. I tried to sleep, but it eluded me most of the time. As we went straight into night, I did not get a good view of the U.S. beyond Houston and its suburbs, though there was a spectacular spralling night view of Atlanta. Later that night as we were flying over either Greenland or the lower end of the Artic, I looked out to an awe-inspiring night view of ice shelves, clouds, and the night sky. But by far, the most amazing view from the plane was at "dawn" when the clouds looked, almost literally, like a sea with an island in the background. This broke down at the bottom of my view at one point to reveal a winterscape of several Belgium and German villages nestled amongst hills.

Having landed in Frankfurt, we retrieved our bags (also not bad. Everyone got theirs). I was soon able to put my minimal German to good use trying to find directions. I also heard a few German words uttered from Germans that should not be said in civilized company. As I knew what was being said and the anger was not directed at us, I couldn't help but smile. Soon, we found Nils, our AIB program coordinator, and boarded the bus that would take us to Bonn. I spent most of the trip conversing and viewing the crisp, white villages with beautiful architecture.

Finally, about 1 pm local time, we had arrived at our destination. Nils showed us our rooms in this... I'll be honest, I don't quite know what I'm staying in. The papers that we were handed call this a student dorm, so I'll take their word for that. This room is easily twice the size of any dorm I have been in in the United States. Though, looking at what they call a "mattress," I am more inclined to believe them.

Once we were oriented, a large group decided to go ahead, tour downtown Bonn, and pick up lunch. I decided to join. Though I intended the first food that I had in Germany consist of some variation of "Ein Jagershnitzel, bitte!", it turned out to be a pretzel from a local bakery just outside the Hauptbahnhof (main train station and central hub of the Underground that we took). I then wandered for a bit with Sahra and Vesanny. I want to upload our pictures with the statue of Ludwig van Beethoven (I tried to mimic Schroeder in mine), but I'm having issues with the computer.) Then, we went into the gorgeous Bonn Minster, a Catholic Papal Basilica that looks like what I expected from an old world church. Then we walked through a toy store and a book store. Especially in the latter, I kept pointing out certain German words or phrases that I knew and translating them. The girls obliged by throwing me ones that they found. It helped us all learn some German.

Soon, we met back at the Hauptbahnhof with the rest of the group, Nils, and Dr. Wasser. We were then given a quick night tour of Bonn (as prep for the big one that we will have tomorrow), and rounded out the evening at the Rheinish Biergarten, the first and oldest Biergarten in Bonn where I ordered mein Jagershnitzel.