250 kilometers per hour. That's how fast
our ICE train was traveling between Berlin and Bonn. 155 mph, for those of us
with Imperial minds, is pretty fast, but life the previous week felt like it
was speeding by at a rate closer to 671 million mph, or 1080 million km/h,
otherwise known as the speed of light.
Monday began in Munich, but ended in Vienna.
Then, before I knew it, Friday was there and I was leaving for Prague. Now it’s
Monday again, and I’m in Bonn. My host mother and father told me, separately,
today that they’d never had a group do as much traveling as ours, and they’ve
been hosting students for over fifteen years.
Don’t get me wrong, I love to travel and get to
see new places, but sometimes it’s nice to be back in a familiar place where I
can just relax. I honestly didn’t realize this until the train ride from Prague
back to Germany. Olivia and Dr. Wasser had both previously told the group we’d
be thrilled to be back in Bonn after nine days away, but I wasn’t entirely sure
I believed them. Sure, I’d liked the week I’d spent here before leaving, but I
didn’t really feel too attached. Oh, was I wrong. Even arriving in Berlin and
seeing German advertisements rather than ones in Czech was comforting. However,
nothing compared to stepping off the train in the Bonn Hauptbahnhof and knowing
exactly where I was and how to get “home.”
That was the first time I’d thought of my room in
Bonn as home. Before, it’d just been “my host family’s house” or “where I’m
staying.” Now though, it’s a place where I can just slow down, look back, and
let my mind catch up with my life.
My time spent in Vienna was without a doubt
magnificent, amazing, and thoroughly enjoyable. Whether I was touring the
Medical University or walking through the catacombs below Stephan’s Dom, I was
blissfully happy. The food was great, the history museum awe-inspiring in its
detail, the Freud museum fascinating, the Belvedere beautiful, the Josephenum
incredible, and the Natural History Museum too grand for words. The highlight
for me though, was the Spanish Riding School, or Spanisch Hofreitschule, where
I got to spend an hour watching beautiful Lipizzaner horses perform, play, and
have fun. Even then though, when I was having the time of my life, that hour
felt like a minute.
Five hours after the too-soon departure from
Vienna, I arrived in Prague and hit the brick wall known as a language barrier.
Before traveling to Germany, I’d had some practice with the German language, so
I knew what I was looking at or hearing, and could maybe understand a little of
it. But even though I grew up in a small Czech town, the only phrase I know
(Jak se mas?) was of no help whatsoever. The Czech words are also so different
from the English variations that inference of meaning is nearly impossible.
Thankfully, the hostel in which I and the rest of the group were staying was
incredibly helpful with directions, recommendations, and an overall just plain
friendly attitude…In English. For the rest of the weekend, I and the group
didn’t stray far from Sir Toby’s unless on a trip led by one of the staff
members. Those trips led us to mostly tourist areas where English was much more
common, and we managed to get by and enjoy ourselves immensely.
Sunday brought with it another day of travel, and
for the first time in over a week, time seemed to slow back down. Perhaps ten
hours of train travel always does that. No matter what, I welcomed my return to
Bonn with open arms.
~Daily Blogs Posted Below Break~
