Oh the luxury of jet lag; 4:30 am came way to soon, along with 5:30 and 6:30 and then 7:00 when I officially decided to get up and go for a run on the Rhine River. It is only a minute from our dorm and in case you were wondering, the BEST way to wake up. Class started at 9 today after a nice German breakfast in the dorm and we headed to the AIB building. Note: the BEST part about the AIB building is ice cubes for water right when you get there. That is a rarity in this country. Anyways, at AIB, Viktoria (our trip planner) introduced us to Bonn and all of the AIB rules and regulations. Boring right? Well she is actually quite entertaining. We need to be “on time” and not have any “sleep over’s” except if you let them know it is okay? Funny rules I tell you. There are posters all over the AIB building warning us of alcoholism and being the “not fun” girl at the party from getting to drunk. It’s pretty entertaining. In addition, spicy little Viktoria told us that for every time we yawn at anyone it costs us one Euro. This keeps things interesting and keeps us from pretending we look like we are bored. Molly from our group was the first victim and had to pay up right then and there. I think Viktoria uses it to buy shoes- not a bad idea!
After orientation we made our way around town. This place is amazing. The way people interact and the culture is almost indescribable but I will do my best to relay how I felt. Here, the pace of life is so much slower and fluent. People don’t panic. They are CHILL- America could learn some lessons. The town is basically one big circle. Bonn has two separate markets- one more primarily food and markets and the other one is more shopping/bank/post office/etc. The food market is amazing! There is fresh fruit everywhere. There are soup stands, crepe stands, wiener schnitzels, and about anything else you can think of. The best part is it all smells amazing! I can’t wait to try everything. I told the girls today- I will be spending my money on food because I have to try it all!
After the tour of the town and a more in depth explanation of the town we made our way to the Museum. There we had a young tour guide walk us through the basic contemporary history of Germany. The tour was about an hour long and if it wasn’t so damn entertaining I probably would have fallen asleep. For starters, I think within the first 5 minutes, all 12 girls here noticed his zipper was unzipped. Talk about feeling like you’re in middle school again. It definitely got the giggle boxes going. Then as we made our way to through the museum to the JFK days and Elvis Presley days we here the tour guide refer to Elvis music as “nigger music”. He was trying to describe how the German’s did not like the music but I don’t think he quite realized that he was saying even after repeating it about 3 times. Whoops. We also had an addition to our group the entire tour. Some guy just tagged along the entire time and made the tour quite entertaining. The guys referred to him as the James Franco.
Following the Museum, we made our way to the grocery store to buy some snacks and sandwich stuff for the dorm. Let me just say first and foremost: GOD BLESS ‘MERICA! The grocery stores here SUCK! Caitlin and I figured we would split everything so we got some bread, cheese, salami, turkey, Pringles, breakfast bars, and the famous Nutella. Checking out was another story. We had a hard time figuring out change and then also were blessed with the great country of Germany doing a great job of removing their carbon foot print and you have to pay to use a grocery cart as well as a plastic bag at check out to carry your stuff home in. Interesting. It was a good experience but dang, if I lived here I would never cook only at the expense that you have to take the subway, walk, pay for a bag to carry your groceries back, only buy enough that can fit in two bags in two hands, carry it back without defrosting, subway, then dorm. WAY TOO MUCH WORK IF YOU ASK ME. Good thing so far everywhere we have gone the food has been superb.
Speaking of food, after the market trip most of us made our way back to the central market to go DM, which is like Walgreens, to get toiletries and stuff. On our way back we stopped at a vendor and bought a local German food. Of course, everyone made fun of me because I made friends with the guy who was named Mamet. He was awesome and I guarantee we become best buds before this trip is over. He is from Syria and he served this pita –like dish that had chicken, lettuce, vegetables, feta cheese, some kind of dressing, and bread. He said I was a “super-nice American” and hoped to see me back. I love food friendships. J I do believe that is my calling in life.
Dinner led to a quick change and then a night out on the town with Sebastian- an AIB student worker. He is AWESOME! He showed us the “old part of town” that Bonn made to keep up with the older cities of Germany. This area is primarily where the college students hang out and go to bars/pubs. He took us to an Irish Pub where the two bar tenders were national Rugby players. They were very nice and patient with the Americans. We got to be so loud so fast it was bad. No wonder people think we are crazy. My first beer was the mixed German beer- the Radler. It is basically half German Beer mixed with Yellow Fanta. Good beer for me to start off with and then I switched to the traditional beer that is made in Bonn after that. I love the people, food, beer, environment, and culture here. Needless to say it has been a jam packed day and I am ready to actually get some sleep tonight. Goodnight Western Civilization.
Funny quote of the Day: We have an Australian girl in our group who was explaining to us that a Bogan is a person in Australia who doesn’t care about how they look and Michelle answers- “oh, like me!”
Allie asks everyone, “so do the toilets really flush in the opposite direction here?” And Jackie responds- “so wait, does that mean they flush up through a tube?”- no Jackie, jus the direction of the water spin in the toilette bowl, hahaha.
Fun Fact of the day: Fraternities here and in the USA are completely different. Fraternities in Germany fight, as in fencing, for a spot of manliness in their frat. The ultimate goal to get initiated is to fight someone else from another fraternity and put a huge scar across their face. Ouch. And people in America think hazing is bad…
Housing in Bonn
Caitlin and I at the Irish Pub
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