Einatmen, ausatmen.

How do I even begin to organize my thoughts?

I leave Germany tomorrow morning. I wonder where the time went (it's nearly August? I've been here since February?!) but then I remember all the crazy and amazing things I've done and seen the last five months. Seven countries, and even more cities. The longer I'm here, the less English I seem to be able to speak. Random phrases or words escape me, and some German lingo has engrained itself into my vernacular (looked that up, it's Mundart. What a great word! Right up there with sloth being Faultier, meaning literally "lazy animal"). I keep wanting to type 'es handelt von..." to describe anything and apologies if I let out a "böah!" now and again. This semester, I celebrated my 21st birthday, got a tattoo, and went back to brunette. While I never want to leave this country, I'm so excited to begin UW's German Education program, and come back here as soon as possible.

But most importantly, I'm glad I got to become friends with so many awesome people. We've laughed, travelled, explored, learned, and danced our butts off.

Worte können die letzten fünf Monate nicht beschreiben- die Menschen die ich kennegelernt habe, die wunderschöne Städte die ich besucht habe, die Sprache in der ich verliebt bin.. Ich werde alle meine Freunde um die Welt wirklich vermissen und hoffentlich kann ich euch ein Tag besuchen! Badgers, Gott sei dank, dass wir dieses Jahr mit ein ander haben ;] Ich hab' so viel gelernt, und ich konnte nicht für ein besseres Semester gewünscht. Grüße <3

Nein Mann, ich will noch nicht gehen. Ich will noch ein bisschen tanzen!!

Ah, summer, when the day of the week doesn't matter, plans are made the day of, and sunshine and a book is all I need to be entertained for hours. I'm having a super fun last week in Bonn. Went to the Deutsches Museum and tried to learn about inventions and Herz in German, spent two days in a row at Melbbad, the single greatest public pool I've ever been to, had a couple grill outs and roof top sunset watching, star gazed, went to Cologne and chilled on the steps of the cathedral.. pretty awesome, gotta say. 

Oh look, there's me flunky balling! 

This sunset was insane. Clouds are probably the most beautiful thing to me

 Ok, warning, I took a lot of pictures that night, but apparently ruined nearly every one with my franticness (I wanted pictures with EVERYONE) and by turning off the flash XD

We'll miss our Germans so. much. 

AY.

aww

Grilling out in the Ferdi backyard

hey girl hey

Giant lily pads at the Botanical Gardens!! Apparently they're stable enough for young kids . Point, nature.

There's a little swimmable obstacle course for the turtles

Schloss

Our heat map at the Deutsches Museum

A cool random Reservoir Dogs mural in a cafe's bathroom in Köln

We ran into the Hari Krishnas outside der Dom! The men..

and the women

Beautiful people, beautiful weather, beautiful music, lots of dancing

Maastricht

I spent the day on Thursday in Maastricht, Netherlands with Amy, Karissa, and her dad. Of the things I will miss most of living in Europe, it's the Rhein River and traveling to countries like driving through states. Two trains, a bus, and a couple hours and bam, you're in Holland! We had a super delicious lunch in the city center, then explored and walked around for the day, grabbing some great dark beers at an outdoor cafe. Summer has finally come, so it's been hot the last week (except for today, where it's of course raining off and on endlessly). 

Real honest to goodness wooden clogs! Can people actually walk around in these shoes?

 

The river Maas

Other side of the Maas

De Stadhuis

Eternal flame man

A gothic church from 1351!

Street art I liked 

A cold glass of Abdij Dubbar, perhaps my new favorite beer. It was delicious!

Random little Tor along the river

Botel Maastricht

Summer Vacay-ish

Well, that was the most bizarre and easy exam week I've ever had in my life. But they're done, and who knows exactly how to transfer grades back to UW, but we'll figure that all out as it comes, yes? We watched a newer German movie called Vincent Will Meer after our Medien test. Kids with tourettes, OCD, and bulimia steal their mental hospital's boss' car and drive to Italy. There's lots of car exchanges. Oh, when looking for the trailer, I found that the whole movie's on Youtube! So highly recommended. I liked Alexander haha

After class on Thursday I caught a train to Köln and met people at Metroplolis to see the new Spiderman in English. I gotta say, as someone going into this film apprehensive (Avengers stole my life and I need to save the rest of my fan-girling for TDKR) I was impressed! It's not great script-wise and it's not groundbreaking or anything, but the casting was inspired (Martin Sheen and Dennis Leary were amazing), Andrew Garfield has perfect hair, Emma Stone is always awesome, and I liked it. Thank goodness it wasn't in 3D, I could see myself hating it then. I took the Strassebahn back to Bonn instead of the speedier train because I wanted to enjoy the countryside, and get through another chapter of my book. Sometimes you just need to force your butt outside to a place where you just have to read! It's fun. That night, everybody (allll the Europeans, accents, and North Amerikans basically) spent the entire night chilling at Alter Zoll, which was pretty glorious, and I still managed to go for a run!

Friday morning we have breakfast with our Intensiv Kurs which was lovely. Frau Lüdenbach took a photo of us all and printed a bunch out and we signed them for everyone <3 Love it. That night was a Schifffahrt along the Rhein with our program. It rained, but we got open faced sandwiches and silly music, so I say it balanced out in the positives. But Saturday was absolutely amazing. First was Trevor's going away dinner, which was delicious, and tons of people I love were there :] Then I went to the World Beat Party at Nyx with three girls because everyone else is a straight fool, the only explanation for why they missed one of the coolest nights in Bonn the whole semester. I mean that figurative cool, because we probably sweated out a couple kilos by the end there. The DJ played African, Indian, Turkish, Portuguese music, electro-swing.. oh it was so awesome. I spent the rest of the night hanging out with some roommates in the kitchen. We decided while Football and Futbol are both cool, Rugby is completely different and we don't really know how it's played.

Now that's I'm just bumming around Bonn for the last week and a half, soaking up this beautiful, damp, 65 degree weather, I'm trying to use as many Gutscheine wie möglich! Yesterday, I went to the Kunsthalle for the Pixar Exhibit with Kevin, Erin, and Helene. It was AWESOME! 25 years of Pixar animation history, with storyboards, sculptures, character art, this amazing movie about sound design..
I don't know if I can pick a favorite Pixar film without rewatching them, but Monster's Inc and A Bug's Life will always be near and dear to my heart. Then we popped into Haus der Geschichte were there's a brilliant exhibit featuring the work of photographer Herlinde Koelbl. All of her stuff was beyond amazing. Beautiful, real exhibits!

Today I'm going to finish up laundry and continue deep cleaning. It's never to early to think about packing! :( It tears me apart to throw anything away, but I'm going to have to part with my towels and some shoes just because they're old and gross and won't fit, but I'm a hoarder! Skyping with Maurissa really made me excited to get back to Madison though.

Another (old) soccer pic with Katie :]

Becky water fall braided my hair during Kaffeestunde! I loved it. Now I need to watch Youtube tutorials until I figure out how to do it too.

Rachel and I front row waiting for Beirut! What a beautiful day for a concert

Die Frauenmannschaft 

Düsseldorf!

Bonn

It's the every day sites one misses the most in the long term, I think. The feeling that a city is your home. This giant church is at the center of the city. It's so huge and interestingly built. I use those steeples as a beacon to see how far away my dorm is when I go running on Kaiserstrasse :]

Stumbled upon the stage that all these big name concerts have played on in Bonn this summer. Bob Dylan was on the 4th of July, Lou Reed was here too. No one was around, so we just walked right up the back stage and has ourselves a gander!

It would be so intimidating to have all your fans right there yelling at you. New found respect for famous people, man.

All the boxes of stuff were still backstage, and taped to one of them, I found...

Patti Smith's setlist!!!! What a crazy random happenstance. Adding this to my collection with Gogol Bordello, Owen Pallett, Flobots, and Gaelic Storm :]

wut?

Ah, dictionary searches like this confuse me, when I don't even know the English words! Harangue? Screed? Guess you learn three things every day! 

I was waiting in line to refill my coffee (it's the only thing that makes Starbucks tolerable to purchase from. 1.80€ for a tall coffee, then 50 cent refills equates to pretty reasonably priced coffee!) and I couldn't help but soak everything up, read every sign in German I could, just stare out the window, because I know it's stupid, but I'm finally really feeling that I'm flying back to the states much sooner than I'd like. Of course, I really really miss my friends and the Bromansion and can't wait to firmly delve into WUD Film work and to swim in Lake Mendota and I get to see my family for the first time in a long while... but I'm going to miss Bonn something bad. I want to make a list, pro/con things I'm going to miss and things I'm looking forward to.

Soak it up, kids. #MLNE.

I'LL MISS:

Currywurst just basically all German food

Beautiful buildings

Free and easy public transportation

Drinking in the streets (open container laws? why? jk jk)

Randomly extremely cheap things (19 cent Brot, zum Beispiel)

LOOKING FORWARD TO:

Netflix, Pandora, Youtube, etc. 

Stable (if freakishly hot) weather

Most everything else being cheaper

The end ist leider nigh

I meant to write this so long ago! I even posted all the pictures yesterday, but got caught up in an 8-page extra credit packet that was unnecessary but I did all of. Whoops time management, yay bonus points? I've got my final theatre class this afternoon, my German exam tomorrow, and my Media exam on Thursday. So I guess it's good that I'm writing this now; prime procrastination fodder ;]

This past week has been filled with mini-feasts. Went to my first all you can eat sushi place (which included miso soup and green tea bread which was awesome tasty) in Poppelsdorfer Allee which totally wasn't as sketchy as all you can eat sushi could be! The International Office hosted a 4th of July shindig for us Amurikans, but everyone was invited, natürlich. Everybody, study abroad in Germany: your program gives you free beer! Lots of grilling and potato salad and there was even a guitar circle going for a while! Quote of the night was hearing someone say "Can I touch that baseball? I've never seen one in real life before!" Oh, world, I am so sorry you didn't grow up going to baseball games on the weekend and singing Take Me Out to the Ballgame and hotdogs and cracker jacks and t-ball and baseball caps... My favorite sport :] Though basketball's a close second.

Sunday night, I went with my Theatre class to Euro Theatre Central Bonn to see an adaptation of Albert Camus' The Stranger, oder Die Fremde auf Deutsch. The theatre itself is tucked away in the middle of the city center, very innocuous. It only holds I'd say 40 people and the stage was very small. If you want to be entertained/confused/horrified, you can read the summary of The Stranger on Wiki, but what we saw was an even weirder, absurdist, German adaptation of a weird absurdist novel. Two men in black turtlenecks and slacks, covering themselves and the plain black walls with white duct tape. The stage consisted of a dozen random chairs pointing every which way and a dozen sparkly gift bags with books and sand and water. I think they both played the same character, and other characters, and would switch sporadically? We had class today and since the weather was nice and our class + teacher is only 6 people, we sat at a cafe outside and discussed everything as best we could. I may not have understood everything, but I sure enjoyed it. I prefer theatre and art that disturbs me or confuses me. Something to think about is better than formulaic and predictable, ya dig?

Yesterday I spent all day at Starbucks filling out aforementioned 8-page extra credit packet about all sorts of random deutsche medien-related grammar things. This Starbucks in Münsterplatz has become a sort of unofficial meeting ground for.. everyone! I saw probably 20 people I knew throughout yesterday? It's fun to always have a study break friend right there, or someone in your class to help a sister out. Today I popped by the last Kaffeestunde :(, then had a nice lunch with Amy with Pizza Happy Hour, whatever that means. But so much delicious spinach and mushrooms and salami pizza! Whaddup, leftovers for dinner. And lunch tomorrow XD But now, I'm back at Starbucks, soaking up this free wi-fi and staring not longingly at my pile of study material. Everything is just so weird that it's ending. I leave three weeks from yesterday. Some earlier. I have to deep clean my room, buy souvenirs, pack, use as many coupons in Bonn as I physically can, abmeld with the city, make an appointment with my hausmeister or whatever to check my room, make sure everyone has my US cell number so we can keep in touch when I'm done with my awesome cheap-ass sudoku capable Handy...

But until then, PHOTO DUMP WOOOO

Katie and I in Bad Honnef. I will miss the sheer photogenicity on Europe.

HOW DID THAT PFERD GET UP THERE THOUGH??

Too soon? ;__; It was such a fun run though. I'm so proud of the German team!  Gomez, marry me

A pop up festival in the city center of Bad Honnef.

There's bound to be one staple beyond cheesy America-related thing that looks old as hell.

European roller coasters and rides are the best because they look so dangerous, go super faster, and more often than not, no seat belts. Kids were flying all over the place on this puppy

For you, dad! 

Birkenstock Mecca. I bought a pair of brown ones for only 25€! Whatta steal

The Rhein. I will go swimming! Just one more week til my tattoo's fully healed I think!

The Residents? On a menu for a hole in the wall burger restaurant? Hmm...

When I'm not taking day trips around the country or studying for my final exams, I spend hours on the Rhein reading and party boat watching. When the weather's gorgeous, this is hands-down what I'm going to miss most about this city. 

Wooooo

Last Saturday, Rachel and I went to Düsseldorf for the Open Source Festival! It was an all day music festival in the middle of the woods, absolutely perfect. Beirut was headlining, and we got prime spots for them <3

Hanf im Glück, a happy/pop/ska band from Düsseldorf, and the only band to sing entirely in German! 

Africa Hitech. 

A pretty sweet band from London. We caught the beginning and end of their set and they were good!

A little blurry, but it's Mouse on Mars! We didn't want to spend too much time making our way to the front since we were going to leave early for Beirut.

Ah, yes. Beirut.

Zach Condon <3

Okay, back in Bonn. I waited as long as I could, but I finally bought a pack of the perfect German pens that everyone falls in love with here! That journal become significantly more colorful towards the end

Lining up for Flunkyball! I decided to actually play as many rounds as possible (5) since we're nearing our final weeks . Yeah, Jon Bonn Jovis!

The enemy team. Bonn Diggitys

The Hauptgebäude and tent set up for graduation

This past Saturday, I travelled to Düsseldorf again with some friends to explore the city. Trevor took us on a little pub crawl