July 5th

Yesterday I slept til 11.  I got up and met Sara (the other exchange student staying in the house. She's a few years older then me and in a different program) and then watched an hour or two of German MTV (mainly Pimp My Ride with German subtitles) with the family. I don’t even watch MTV at home.  

Nikki called around 1pm and asked if I wanted to go to Cologne to see the Gay Pride Parade going on that day. I accepted and invited Sara.

It was so much fun. I love Niki.  And gay guys. Haha. After the parade we just walked around and then decided to stop at a bakery called Merzenich. I had an interesting raspberry jell-o type pie. It was okay. I’m not a huge fan of Jell-O and the crust was a little too soft.  

My first experience in Germany

So, I'm a few days behind but I've been busy. What can I say?

The day I left for Germany and the day I got into Germany blend two days into one long day. With a sleepless 8 hour plane ride, leaving at 7 pm from Washington DC and arriving in Frankfurt at 9:30 am, I had a hard time comprehending what day it was. 

I’m in Bonn now and will stay here for the next seven weeks with a host family while I learn German and about the German culture at AIB (Akademie fur Internationale BIldung or Academy for International Education).

July 4th was my first real day I feel I spent in Germany, seeing as my first day in I was to zonked out to stand up straight and understand how I suddenly got from the Frankfurt airport to the home of my host family in Bonn.

We (my group of 25) were taken on an excursion to Monschau. A lovely town filled with shops and a beer garden. I could easily live there for a time or possibly own a summer home there. We hiked far up a hill to get an amazing view of the entire town and we ran into a ram on the way up. My first ram. J

We then ate lunch at a local restaurant where I got a colorful salad with carrots, cucumber, lettuce, cheese, hard-boiled egg, and something else I couldn’t quiet make out. It was different and delicious (and I don’t even like hard-boiled eggs). This salad was followed by an interesting vanilla pudding with chocolate flakes.

Then we went bobsledding and played in the park before heading back to Bonn. 

After a few hours of rest at home we all decided we weren’t done for the day and headed out to an enormous out door concert called RheinKultur. It was filled with bands with pounding basses, beer, pretzels, and most of all people. The craziest thing they had was a place for bungee jumping.

The next thing happened so quickly that my friend James threw up. Because beer and running do not go together. Some of us had buses to catch, so a small group of us left the concert early. But seeing as one girl was running late for her bus all seven of us had to run for like hell across town to catch it.

Once we got there Chris and I decided to take the same bus back together because we live four blocks apart. The only problem is we only knew his bus stop and not mine seeing as I don’t take the bus. Long story short: He walked me to my house, then my host dad and I walked him back to his house where everyone was asleep, and then my host dad and I walked back home. The end of day one. 

P.S. To see more pictures, check out facebook.