Day 98 - Versailles

We woke up today to go to Versailles and spent all day there. Breakfast was once again simple and fun before we had to leave to get on the tram to get to the tram that would bring us to the train bringing us to Versailles. Once again, thank public transport for the really confusing layout of the system. The tram to Versailles was only about an hour long, and when we got there, we followed the sea of people all going to the same place. As we rounded the last corner, we saw the tops of the palace glimmering gold in the small amount of sun that  could break through the clouds. After walking through the gates, one of our group went to go wait in the huge entrance line while the rest of us went to go get tickets in a different line. Along the way, half of us got separated and went back to the group, while me and two others stayed in line. Our plan was to switch out when we got our tickets and keep our spots while the other group got their tickets. When we got to the actual ticket counter, the guy gave us a weird look when we handed him our visas and told us to go show the people at the entrance our visas and we'll get in for free, we didn't actually need a ticket. Gosh I love our visas, they get us into such nice places for free.

We met up with the other half of our group and realized that we had gained the twins in our absence. We told everyone the news and settled in to wait in this line. Just to give a good idea of how long this line is, it folded back on itself about 10 times over about 50-75 yards. We were in for a long wait. Somewhere along the line, a group split off and went somewhere else while the rest of us waited patiently. When they got back, they told us that they had gotten tickets for the Gardens and that we should get some too. We did, waiting in a much smaller line, and headed back to the entrance line to once again wait to get through the golden gates. Finally, we passed through the entrance and handed our visas over in the place of a ticket, getting us through the doors and into the palace of Versailles. It was beautiful! There was some reconstruction going on, but most of the roofs and windows were gilded gold. We of course took pictures before heading inside to take a look.

The first thing we saw past the entrance hallway was the chapel. I wish I could show you the pictures I took of it because it was gorgeous, especially the huge organ towering above everything else. throughout the ground floor was a collection of paintings depicting the royal families, especially of King Louis XIV and Lois XV as they were the ones that built the place. The exhibits took us though the history of the building from a hunting lodge to a museum like place, and it was amazing to see the various pictures that were painted during that time period. Upstairs was a hallway that showed marble statues of important people, including LaPlace and L'Hopital (both mathematicians who gave us many days of grief for their famous rules). Down a different set of rooms were the living quarters for the royal families, which were all exquisite and richly decorated. At the end of that hallway was the war room with huge paintings and artifacts pertaining to fighting. After leaving that room was the hall of mirrors spanning all the way down the side of the palace to the peace room, which was once again decorated with large paintings and artifacts. Then came the queen's room, which held a lot of flowery decorations and vanities. Beyond that was what would have been the kid's room. In that room was a painting of Marie Antoinette and three children. The reason why there were three, and not the two everyone knows about is that the smallest one, a girl, died at the age of about 1. As children weren't given names before their second birthday, not much is known about her.

I know I'm going fast, but there was a lot to see. Beyond that wind was a wall of paintings from the renaissance era depicting scenes from Napoleon's era, the American Revolution, and a lot of other wars. I met up with four others at this point and we started the small walk back to the exit by the queen's bedroom. Along the way, we saw more statues and generally enjoyed ourselves until we arrived at the exit. At this point, we were sick of staring at paintings, so we exited and went to the gardens. We saw all sorts of statues and fountains, but not a lot of flowers. We even saw a hole in the hedge and decided to explore a bit. We got really close to what we thought should be an exhibit, and actually started climbing the structure, but a guard saw us and started blowing her whistle at us, following us as we turned around. It felt like a Zelda moment. We slipped passed a gate and saw the guard, who told us we shouldn't have gone where the gate was blocking, but we told her that there was a hole in the hedge that we went through. She stopped talking to us and took off in the direction of the gate, I'm assuming to close it before some other wayward travelers went through. So we got to see some exclusive content because we got into a restricted section. It was pretty awesome.

By this point, it was well past lunch time, so we stopped at a restaurant in the middle of the gardens and had a great lunch before continuing our trek. We wandered around some more until we got to the back of the gardens and exited the park so we could get closer to the water that was only a little ways from us. We had fun spooking the swans, jumping over water between corners, and putting flowers in one of the guy's beard. Yes, you heard me right. We picked little daisies and threaded them through his beard so he looked like they were growing out of his face and took a ton of pictures. During this time, the water came on to the fountains and we decided to see more of them before the water ran out. We must have seen 20 different areas and 10 different fountains, taking funny pictures and laughing at the weird looks that the flower beard was getting. We stopped at a fountain that had a choreographed show every 10 minutes and met up with the other half of our group, who had brought a guest. Apparently he was a PT and was touring Europe before his next job started in 2 weeks. he ended up hanging out with us as we looked through the rest of the gardens.

At 5:10, we headed over to the Neptune fountain to see the show that would be going on in 10 minutes. We arrived and sat down to wait for the water to start. When it did, we were really excited...until we realized that nothing was changing. It turned out to be a major disappointment for those of us expecting something exciting. We left really soon afterwords to get back to Paris proper and had a great experience at dinner. We had snails and I had Chantilly, which was made out of tripe (cow intestine). I didn't know it at the time, but the snails were really good and the Chantilly was...OK. I finished it, but I don't think I'll have it again. After that, we went to the store to grab some drinks and headed back to the apartment. I was really glad because for the last few hours, by legs had been killing me.

Tomorrow is Easter, and Melissa and I were planning to go to the Notre Dame for Easter mass, which is super exciting. After that, I don't really know what we're doing, but I do know that we're planning on climbing the Eiffel tower at night. It's supposed to be beautiful at night, so I'm really excited. So for those who are like em and it's now officially Easter Sunday, Happy Easter! For those like my family for whom Easter is still a few hours today, Have a great weekend and I'll wish you a Happy Easter tomorrow.

Till tomorrow!
Erin Z

Day 97 - It's been a Good Friday

Wow. I am so exhausted because of everything I did today. I am truly living out my Nana's advice and not relaxing at all on my Easter vacation. I woke up today moderately early and took the initiative to go out to the supermarket and get breakfast for all of us for the morning. It was a bit cold out, but the promise of food made it worth the 5 minute walk. Unfortunately, the store didn't open until 9, and I didn't want to wait out in the cold for 30 minutes, so I walked back to the apartment. It turned out to be a good thing because I was able to get my jacket and figure out what kind of groceries we wanted for breakfast. I left again to go to the supermarket and came back to find three people wanting to make breakfast for us. Breakfast was wonderful and we had eggs, baguette, and brie. Hey, when you're in Paris, you eat French food.

We finally left to go to the city center to visit the Louvre. Luckily, because we are technically EU residents (thank you, visa) we got into the museum for free. It was great. We saw a ton of statues of the Greek/Roman gods and slowly moved into the painting section. We followed the crowd to the Mona Lisa, and were a bit underwhelmed. It's really tiny compared to the Giant picture of the Wedding of Cana and everyone was taking pictures of the Mona Lisa. We couldn't even get close! there was a wall of people a few yards back that were all straining to get a picture of the famous painting without any of the cameras further up getting in the way. We finally left the room and wandered around some more. We walked so far, we went to the other museum that contained the medieval and Egyptian artifacts. It was really cool to see all the sphinxes and even see a statue of King Ramesses II. We actually got bored of the museum rather quickly and decided to leave without checking out the third and final museum.

Outside of the Louvre, we took pictures in front of the glass pyramid and walked around a bit, heading out to the gardens at the entrance to the museum. At this point, we were super hungry, so we ate at one of the cafe's that were scattered around, eating a meat free lunch (Lent) and enjoying the ever changing weather. Seriously, it would be warm and sunny one minute, and windy and cold the next. Ah well, we tried the Crepes here (delicious!) and called another member of our group that went off on his own to see if he wanted to meet up with us. In the distance, we could see the Arc de Triomphe so we headed to the famous structure to meet our friend. It was a lot further away than we thought it would be, so we were able to see a lot of Paris as we walked down the road. At one point we saw the Disney store and stopped by for a little bit of sightseeing. It was pretty cool to see how popular Frozen was even in Paris (yes, I love this movie!) and I was able to see/listen to the French version of "I have a Dream" from the movie Tangled.

Finally, we made it to the Arc and headed through the underground passage to get to the Arc. We met up with Brandon and decided that we wanted to head up to the top of the Arc to see the star shaped roads leading to all corners of Paris from the Arc. Once again, we got in for free because our Visas are super awesome and make us residents of the EU. Walking up the arc wasn't that bad, and when we saw the view of all of Paris spread out before us, it made the entire hike worth it. Soon we left to get back to the ground and meet up with more members of the AIB group. We waited and talked about what we wanted to do later the day and the next day. At 5, Melissa, Nicole and I left to go to the Sacre-Coeur, a basilica in the Montmartre part of Paris. We arrived super early for the 7 pm mass, so we walked around and admired the view of both the church and the city far below it. The basilica happened to be on a hill, so it was a hike to get up to the entrance, but the work was worth it to see the church up close and to see the city far below us.

We walked inside the basilica to take a look around and admired the various statues and mosaics that were set up. Even the stained glass windows were beautiful with the light streaming through the simple designs in glorious rays of golden sunshine. When we were done exploring, we took a seat to wait for the mass to start as we didn't want to be stuck standing the entire time. We still had about an hour to go, so I may have nodded off a few times because even then I was tired. However, when the nuns came around and handed out the schedule for the mass, I perked up and stayed alert. Yes, you heard me...read me...whatever. There were nuns passing out the readings and music. In habits. And they went up to the choir section a few minutes before mass started. When mass actually started, there were like 7 priests and 8 alter servers that came down the aisle to give the mass. the whole mass was beautiful in the French language. I could have sat there all day and listened to them, but the mass eventually ended and we had to leave. Actually, mass was really long, about 2 hours long and our plan to leave by 8:30 to arrive at the apartment by around 9 were shot down in flames.

We called our roommates to make sure that they would have dinner still available (meaning they didn't eat it all) and we learned that they had just gotten back from the supermarket and dinner wouldn't be done for another half hour. The three of us left to take a maze of trams back to where we were staying and arrived at the apartment just in time for the pasta to be done. Our roommates were even so kind to separate the meat from the rest of the meal so Melissa and I wouldn't have to pick it out after the fact. We had a great dinner of pasta and good French wine, just enjoying each others company. It was one of the times that I could almost see the future of how my life would be, tons of friends around a table, enjoying a simple meal and a glass of wine and having an absolute ball while doing it. We even had on "fancy music" to set the mood. It really was a Good Friday, in both of it's meanings.

Tomorrow is an early day and we go to Versailles, Woohoo! I can't wait! Again, no pictures because the bandwidth here isn't great and fights me every time I try to upload them.

Till tomorrow!
Erin Z

Days 95 & 96 – Perfume and Paris

Ach! I thought I fixed the skip a day and do double posts problem. It’s not exactly the best thing for a daily blog is it? Although, the fact that I’ve managed to hold on this far and do mostly regular daily updates really surprises me. I thought it would fall by the wayside long ago. Anyway, yesterday was pretty cool. It started out with learning more about the GI tract in Physiology as we finally moved on from the urinary system. After that was done, we walked into our main room and made different topical creams similar to how they would have been made by Hildegard von Bingen. We all gathered around as we made a Marigold cream that had been mostly prepared the day before, helping to strain out the leaves and bits of flower to get to the scented water and wax solution they had been sitting in. We then split up into 3 groups to make other ointments, one from mint, one from violet, and one from another plant I can’t remember. I got put into the mint group. We started to mix most of the ingredients together, but we were missing one really important component: beeswax. So we sat around for about an hour as we waited for one of the student workers to come back from the beehives with fresh wax.

It was a little bit boring, but we managed to get through. When the wax came in, we added it into our mixture and heated it up in a water bath until everything was dissolved into one liquid substance, which was when we added the mint scent. We put in so much of the mint that it filled the entire room with its smell. After folding in the mint extract, we poured the mixture into the small containers that were waiting to be filled. Now came the fun part. As we waited for the solution to harden into the cream it was destined to become, we came up with more and more ridiculous names. Finally we settled on our final versions and wrote down what our new lotion would be called. Each of us had a different name, most pertaining directly to our names (mine was Erin’s embalming cream so you get an idea of how crazy they eventually turned out) and we slapped the labels onto the containers. We happened to be the first ones done, so we wandered around the room smelling the fragrances that wafted up from the other groups and sometimes dropping in to bother them for a little bit. After a while, everyone was done with their cooking and we started to clean up.

And that was class for the day. Our mint cream came out to be a little bit on the liquid-y side, but it still smelled heavenly, so now it’s sitting on my desk purely as a source of perfume. Hmmm. Not much happened after that as I mostly bucked down with everyone else to finish up the signals and Design homework due the next day. It didn’t help that we had a signals quiz the next day. Everyone remembered the abysmal scores of that quiz, so we tried our hardest to at least make a better average than the last one. Eventually, I went home to spend some time with my host family and pack because the net day we were heading to Paris! Late that night, I was able to call my friend Claire and we had a great conversation about traveling, her research, and Biomedical Engineering. I probably won’t be able to see her in person this summer because she’ll most likely be in Great Britain doing her research for her Ph.D., but it was wonderful to talk to her again.

Today, I woke up and got ready for school, packing away the last few things for my weekend in Paris before heading out the door to face the day. It started off rather easy with Physiology again, followed by Signals and the quiz we were all dreading. Before class started, all you could see from the top of the room were the tops of heads as we all bent over our textbooks to frantically cram in some last minute knowledge that we were sure we would need for the quiz. When we actually received the quiz, we were surprised. Instead of math problems filled with Greek letters, we were given a bunch of fill in the blank questions. The rest of the class after the quiz flew by in a haze of moderate confusion (much better than the severe confusion in previous classes) until our class was done. It was officially the end of our class day and the start of our Easter weekend.

We went out to get lunch and generally hang around until we had to leave to get to the tram bringing us to the train that would bring us to the train in Cologne. You think your transportation problems are hard when you go on vacation? Public transport waits for no one, and we actually had to wait an extra half hour because we couldn’t get the ticket to the train to Cologne before the doors closed and the train rode away. It was no big deal, we still caught the train to Paris before it left the station. On the train, we sat around and played cards, talked, worked on homework, wrote blogs, and slept.

We arrived in Paris not long after, got our 5 day metro passes, and tried to figure out where we would be staying for the next 5 days. We arrived at the right tram stop, but were a bit confused as to where exactly the apartment was. Luckily our host saw us and called out to us. I guess it’s not hard to miss 8 young adults with suitcases standing lost only a little ways away from where they’re supposed to be. She showed us around the apartment (which is adorable by the way!) before leaving us to do our own thing. We left to go into Paris proper for a bit of the night and met up with our last two members under the Eiffel tower. We enjoyed the view and walked along the river, just watching the city go by. A big part of going to Paris is actually seeing Paris, so I get the feeling we’ll be walking a lot in the next few days. After a while, we got hungry, but the only thing selling food that late at night was the tourist trap by the tower. We were desperate (it was midnight and we hadn’t eaten since lunch) so we bought some crepes before heading back to the metro to catch a tram before they stopped for the night. We were lucky and caught the very last tram of the night to our stop.

Tomorrow is more time in Paris, and Melissa and I wanted to go to the Montmartre Basilica for Good Friday mass and we might be going to the Louvre or walking up the Eiffel tower. I really don’t know, but I guess we’ll figure it out tomorrow.

Till then,

Erin Z

P.S. Apparently everywhere I go, the places don't want me to upload the pictures on here. I'll be taking a lot of pictures, so I'll just upload all of them when I get back into Bonn. Sorry you can't see the awesomeness of the Eiffel tower in all it's glory right now!

 

Day 94 - Rhein Cruise

Today dawned bright and clear and - most of all - cold. That's right, the day that we were supposed to go sailing along the Rhein was the coldest day yet. The only saving grace was the fact that it didn't actually rain while we were outside. I woke up, said hello to my host mom and sister, then left to meet everyone on the bus. When we actually got on, we started on our ride to Bingen, a town on the Rhein River that is even further south than Frankfurt. It took about 2 hours to get there, most of which I spent sleeping. When we arrived, we got out of the bus and walked along the Rhein for a little bit before coming to the Hildegard Von Bingen museum in the town of Bingen. Our teacher gave us a little tour of the small museum and the life of Hildegard. She was one of the main people who started the shift to natural remedies being recorded for others to use. She also had visions that came from God in her late life that she recorded and had a monk transcribe into nice flowing Latin for others to read. It was cool to see her journey from a young maiden being handed over to a convent, to the abbess of the convent, to starting her own convent based on her visions from God. We were also able to see some of the pictures that were a part of her most famous book of visions that depicted the types of visions she might have had. It was actually pretty cool to see all this stuff.

They had a dress-up area where we had a lot of fun

That wasn't the only stuff in the museum, the entire building was dedicated to medical treasures that were uncovered in the area. There was also a complete set of medieval medical instruments that was buried with the physician who owned them. We were even able to walk around the garden that showed the medical plants that would have been used by the people back them and to learn how they were used to heal people. After that we had a nice lunch at a restaurant at the edge of the Rhein. At the end of the lunch, Dr. Wasser told us a tale of the castle that we could see down the river a little bit, about how the duke there was tired of hearing the peasants cry for food, so lured them into a barn before burning it. He went back to his castle, saying "listen how the corn mice squeak." When he sat at the table, his castle was suddenly overrun by mice trying to get to him. He fled to a nearby island, but the mice swam to get to him, eventually killing him. As a consequence, the castle is called "mouse castle" (but in German). Don't you just love the stories that come from the Middle Ages?

When story time was done, we boarded the boat that would take us North to where our next stop was (yes, the Rhein is weird and flows South to North). Did I mention that it was cold out? And we were going into the Wind? In the middle of a river? We huddled together for warmth for the entire hour and a half we were on the boat, enjoying the scenery as it flashed by. The reason we didn't go inside was because our teachers said that if we didn't stay outside, we wouldn't get ice cream or coffee for us when we got to our destination. Yes, we were bribed to stay in the cold, but what can you do? When we disembarked, we got back on the bus to take us to the next castle. I slept again. I've gotten used to napping in the middle of the day thanks to all the trips we're taking, especially in the sitting position.

 Don't we look so cold?

Just one of about 7 castles we passed

I woke up when we arrived at the foot of the castle and we had to hike up a little bit to get to the actual castle. We got our ice cream or coffee depending on our preference and walked a bit to where our guide would meet us. Our guide unlocked the huge front gates with a comically large key and started the tour of the castle. She told us that this castle (Marksburg Castle) was the only castle along the Rhein that was still completely original and that people still lived in it today. She took us to the place where cannons would be shot off in honor of the King that would be sailing below, to the garden where the herbs were grown, the kitchen as it would have looked long ago, even a bedroom that used to be used. Fun fact: the beds that were super small in the Middle Ages wasn't because the people were super short, in fact they were almost as tall as modern humans. They were super short because the people would sleep sitting up so that they wouldn't be mistaken as dead. They believed that an imp would come in the night ans sit on the sleeping person's chest. If they were laying down, the person would suffocate and never awaken, but if they sat up, the imp would fall down and not be able to suffocate the sleeper. We went to the torture chamber and spent a little bit of time talking about how the most popular methods would have worked before heading to the blacksmith's shop where the most common thing that would have been made were the horseshoes.

The knight in the ticket area

 Our first look at the castle

 Look at how pretty the Rhein is!

 A recreation of how the kitchen would have looked

 The armor of knights and defenders of the castle through the ages

Showing the shields from the various owners through the ages

Sadly, that was the last of the tour and we headed back to the bus for our ride back home, where I again fell asleep. Unfortunately, this caused me to miss when we stopped near my tram stop to let some people off and I rode all the way back to Bonn, where I just barely caught the tram back to my stop. I ate dinner with my family and we watched some Fussball on the TV until I caught a call from a friend back home. After the call, it was a little late, so I worked on homework for a bit and did this blog, and that brings us up to the present moment. Tomorrow is more school, but Thursday I leave for Paris! I'm so excited, I'll be able to see the Eiffel Tower and the Louvre, and have Easter mass in the Notre Dame! I should have Wifi where I'm going, so I should still be able to update this blog as we'll be staying in an apartment for the 4 nights before heading back into Germany for school.

Till then!
Erin Z

Day 93 - Knee surgery

So as I stated yesterday, not much was going on today. It was mainly school work with a little bit of excitement thrown in at the end, but overall a really normal day. My first class was History of Medicine where we learned about Paracelsus and Hildegard Von Bingen, two really important people in the advancement of modern day medicine. It's of particular importance because we'll be doing a Hildegard workshop doing something (I know not what) and learning more about her life on Wednesday. After that was design, which was basically a class to work on the DHF that's due at the end of the year. We actually got a lot of work done in that class, only needing a few more sections before the assigned sections were completely done. Unfortunately, my computer died and I forgot my charger at home, so we were one computer down. It didn't help that our last member was stuck in Scotland because a late bus caused him to miss his flight yesterday and catch one today, so we were really low on computer power. Luckily I was able to still make myself useful with my ability to come up with amazing ways to word phrases to help my teammates as they tried to show our product in the best possible light.

After that, we took a small break for lunch before coming back just in time for the dreaded signals class, but luckily we stayed in relatively easy territory and mostly learned about the various proofs of established theorems and how they got to that point. We also got our quiz back. Haha, you remember that quiz I talked about on Friday? The one I said I did really bad on? Yeah...I did really bad on it. In fact, the entire class did bad, bringing the class average to be about 38 out of 100. In retrospect, it makes my 45 look that much better, but it's not a good thing for the class when that grade comes out to be the average. I could feel Sarah's disappointment as we looked over what we did wrong, which really stinks because she's actually doing a really good job at making us understand what it is we're supposed to be doing. The teacher back in C-Stat is so bad, the students don't even bother to come because they'll just be confused even more than they already are.

Once signals was done, we got back together to work on homework, both of the signals and the design kind. We finished almost everything up with the sections we had to do, and I went back home. When I arrived, I saw a full house that was there to check up on Sophie, who had knee surgery today. Poor Sophie looked so sad, carrying around her blood bottle so her knee wouldn't bleed everywhere and hobbling on crutches. We played a few games before dinner where everyone talked in German around me, so I just kind of faded into the background. I eventually went upstairs because I have an early day tomorrow and wanted to write this post, even if it's short.

I can't wait for tomorrow, which is the Rhein cruise. The weather isn't supposed to be that nice, in fact, as I write this I can hear rain pounding on my window and earlier today, I got caught in a short hailstorm. Don't worry, the hail was the size of small raindrops and melted quickly, but not an hour later it was sunny and windy. I finally found a new top to Texas weather. The Germans call it April showers because April seems to be the only month where the weather can be nice one minute, then horrid, followed by an innocent sunshine, continuing on for almost the entire month. It's supposed to be cold tomorrow with a small chance of rain, but I won't let it ruin the boat ride.

Till tomorrow!
Erin Z

P.S.: No pictures today, but stay tuned for tomorrow!

Day 92 - Palm Sunday

Wow. I've been here 92 days. In only eight more, I'll be hitting triple digits. That means on Monday, I'll have spent 100 days abroad...and I'll be in Paris! How did my life get to be so fantastical? Anyway, for those of you how wanted to see pictures of the gardens, I'm sorry but I'll have to disappoint. The weather today was awful for walking around outside, and I still had signals homework to do for tomorrow. Instead, I woke up this morning and got ready for the day. Just as I was leaving my room, I realized I had forgotten my keys. Now, I don't know if I've gone into detail on this before, but the way my house/apartment is set up in that the ground floor is a shop. The next floor is where my family lives, separated from the staircase by a locked door. On the top floor is me, in what I think used to be an attic or storage space. That means that I need my keys to get in and out of the main living area, which is where I was sure I had left them. Also, the doors lock behind you when you enter the staircase area, so you really need a key to get in and out. So you see why losing my keys was so bad, especially when my family wasn't home to let me back in. Luckily, I knew that they were coming back that night, so didn't worry about it that much.

Instead, I walked to the bus stop to catch a ride into Bonn for mass. Over the weeks, I've gotten used to the German mass and can even say most of the common prayers in broken German. When I arrived, they handed me what looked like a clipping from a bush. I thanked them and looked around in confusion for what I was supposed to do with it when I realized that it was my "palm" for Palm Sunday. It cracked me up and I played with my "palm" the entire time, though not making palm crosses or braids because...there was just no way to make it work. After mass, I wanted to go to the gardens, but I took one look at the cloudy sky and decided that no, I didn't feel like shivering myself to bits in the cold wind with no sun to warm me up and went to AIB instead. It took a while to get in, but I eventually had the whole studio to myself. Don't worry, one of the Viz kids let me in. But do you know how liberating it is to have a place that's all to yourself that you feel like is yours? A place where you can sing as loud as you want or dance as crazily as you feel without the fear of disrupting someone else's studying. Alas, it wasn't to last and I was soon letting other people into my temporary sanctuary so they could try and scratch out a glimmer of understanding in our homework. Wow, those last few sentences were almost poetic. I must be subconsciously getting in touch with my romantic side or something.

My little "palm" from church

Anyway, I told the newcomers about my little "palm" and we had a great time laughing over it before getting down to business. The next few hours were spent in the middle of homework as we desperately tried to understand the steps we needed to take to get to the answer. There were a few stress relief breaks where I went into the next room to burst out in song. Can you tell I miss being able to sing freely? Ah well, I go home in only...3 weeks!!? It's almost over? I know I miss home, but Europe is pretty cool. Everything is so close, I mean, I was just casually talking about going to Paris for the weekend! Who does that? Wow.

In other news, I got tomorrows homework done as well as 2/3 of the next one done. I would have done the last problem, but I took one look at the work I would need to do for the problem and decided that I had done enough for the day. I went home soon after that in the hopes that my family would be back already and was able to let me in because I forgot my keys. When I told them, they got this alarmed look in their eyes and helped me look for it, but we couldn't find it in the main part of the house. I took another look in my room to see if it had gotten hidden at some point, and I found them, which is really good considering it's how I can get in and out of the house. I spent the night just hanging out with them before coming up to my room and working on this. Tomorrow is more class, but the day after we get to cruise the Rhein, which will be super fun.

This was just too pretty not to put in here. It's the view from my walk home

See you later!
Erin Z

Days 89, 90, & 91 - Scedules and homework and Festivals...Oh my!

So....I forgot to write yesterday. Sorry. I was just so excited to have a night free to do whatever I wanted that I just...forgot. Anyway, it's been three days since my last post (which I never want to do again) and a little bit has happened within that time period. First on the list is the fact that I have signed up for both my fall and summer classes. In addition to the 13 required hours for my major, I need to take organic chemistry and decided to get some fun in at some point, so I'm taking skiing classes as well. It will be quite the semester. I also decided to take my Differential equations class at ATM because of reasons. It's just easier in the long run to take this class (a pre-rec) at the same school I'll be getting a degree from. Also, when I forgot to sign up for the summer session first, they wouldn't let me sign up for one of my classes until I either had proof of passing or was signed up through ATM to take it. Thursday was basically relaxing, doing homework, and frantic scheduling, so there's really not much to say about it. That night I went back to my host family and had a great dinner with them and we talked about our Easter plans. See, Germans get 2 weeks off of school/work for Easter, so my host mom was going to Holland over the weekend. Don't worry though, they're coming back in time for Monday so Sophie can get surgery on her knee before leaving for a large chunk of vacation again.

Friday wasn't bad at all. For once, class was something that I could understand in all it's entirety. The quiz wasn't that good though, and I'm certain that I only got maybe 6-7 points out of the full 10 because I forgot to study one of the three skills that was being tested. It's alright though because the lesson we had after the quiz made everything that we were learning so much easier to understand because we were working with things that we had a background in and could grasp rather easily. We also started Sarah in on her research in her optics lab and she gave us practical applications for why this was important to learn. It was really interesting to listen to which is basically shooting a laser at different substances and using the equations we're learning to get only the section we want to look at instead of all the noise or the original input. She also started in on their ideal for what their research will ultimately come to, which is creating red blood cells that would contain a fluorescent die that would be released upon bursting (a natural process, don't worry). This die could have a light source shown on it that would show the glucose levels in the blood depending on the light that's reflected. It was really awesome to listen to and for the first time in a long time, we were all spellbound by her explanations.

Sarah looks so excited to tell us about her research

I went out with some people for a quick and easy lunch before coming back. When we arrived back at AIB, I was expecting to go right back to work, but instead we decided that we would rather watch Frozen instead. Man, I love that movie. The music is just stellar and the animation (at least on the focus) is awesome. I hear the Viz kids went through and tore apart the background animation and showed some of us how and why it was shoddy work at best, but I was still enraptured by how complicated everything must have been. Also, I absolutely love Idina Menzel's voice. Her ballad is...I have no words. If you haven't heard the song "Let it go," please go listen to it, or better yet, watch it so you can see the awesome animation and hear the amazingness of her voice and how perfectly the instrumental goes with both of them. I have really strong feelings about this song if you haven't noticed.

Anyway, after movie time was over, I went with two other friends to confession at the Muenster. Luckily the priest spoke rather good English and we didn't have to try and fumble through mispronounced German words or long stretches of silence as we tried to come up with what to say. After that, I went home and watched a movie because no one was home as my host family had left that morning. I had all the time in the world to do whatever I wanted, and I was so relaxed that I completely forgot to write up this blog and went right to sleep after the movie.

This morning I woke up and got ready for the day before heading to AIB to meet up with some friends to go to the festival. See, there was a cherry blossom festival today that I really wanted to see. Instead, everyone else was really late because they were even lazier than I was or woke up late or couldn't get away. I spent a long time all by myself and started to work on the schematics for my homemade Catan game. I can't wait to get started on it, it'll be really fun to make! Finally, some people came in, but we didn't leave until about an hour later. We finally left to go to the festival, which turned out to be a huge flea-market type set-up that was punctuated by the sight of falling cherry blossoms that made the area look like snow. We met up with Frederique who just so happened to be in the same spot that we were looking at, and she palled around with us for the rest of the day because her friends ditched her.

 Reid with his new shirt, and you can even see the petals behind him

We are excited to see the "festival"

After a while, Frederique took us to go to a Brauhaus where we had a sort of lunch-ish type thing. What do you call a late lunch where you only drink beer and don't eat food? Tea time? No, there's no tea. Hmm, grabbing a drink? Yeah. We grabbed a drink and sat around outside under some gorgeous blooming Cherry trees for about 2 hours. Eventually we all noticed how cold it was getting and decided to go home or back to AIB to work for a little bit. We left, and I went with a friend to go get dinner that I would eat back at the house. When I got back, I started to do homework before getting bored and started writing this. Then I remembered that I wanted to watch Catch Me If You Can because even though I've seen the musical and know the music by heart, I've never seen the movie or even read the book. Well, one's down, just one more to go. Though I should probably finish Emma first before starting another book. It's a great story based on the life of Frank Abagnale Jr. who was one of the most infamous imposters/check forgers, traveling worldwide and escaping custody twice...all before he was 21! He's actually still alive and runs a financial fraud consulting agency and helps out the FBI from time to time.

At the Brauhaus

Tomorrow I'm going to the Botanical Gardens here in Bonn, even if I have to go alone. Though I don't think that will be necessary as a lot of people have expressed an interest in going. It's the perfect time to go as all the flowers are in full bloom and the day is supposed to be relatively warm. Sorry again about not writing yesterday, but I promise to write for tomorrow.

Till then,
Erin Z