Miscellaneous Catch-up

Since I've been unfortunately neglecting this blog as of late, here's some miscellaneous pictures and happenings from recently:

• Went on a pub crawl throughout Bonn with a big, cool group of kids. I was mega tired so only went to 5 bars I think, but I stole a glass from the last one and use it basically every day, so a total win of a night in my book ;]

• I saw this man during the Nazi blockade and after unsuccessfully trying to take some stalker pictures of his awesome t-shirt, John was like "why don't you just go over there and ask for a picture?" A rough "Entschuldigung, kann ich bitte eine Foto mit ihnen machen? Ich liebe dein T-shirt!" later and tadaaa:

• I finally made it out to Alter Zoll, an outdoor beer garden at the entrance of the Rhein, with Janina, Becca, and Katie. Enter the wondrous beer mixed with Bananensaft. Forever yes. 

• I've officially seen the Avengers three times whilst in Europe, and each time is better than the last! It's an amazing movie, and amazing super hero movie, and an amazing cast and crew. I cannot stop with the accolades! Good think Katie Australia and I love to just non-stop quote passages from it even now.. a month later? Hah.

GEBURTSTAG!!

I finally turned 21 last week and had a great birthday in a great city with great friends. We started the morning with a cruise down the Rhein River to Königswinter where we stopped for delicious lunch (tomato soup) and hand down the most tasty beer I've ever had in my life. It was a mix of Kölsch (don't judge) and some sort of malt beer, I think. All I know is it was dark, it was cheap, and I want it again some day. It rivals the banana beer from Alter Zoll! Then we hoped on another bigger better boat to go back to Bonn. It was a night ladies excursion :)

Then people came over in the afternoon and we made lasagna for dinner. I'm so proud of us. Germans do not freaking own normal kitchen ware, I've realized. But using stuff gleaned from my kitchen and the two from the second floor, we made a pretty rocking dinner. John, Karissa, Amy, and Becca surprised me with a couple bottles of wine, chocolate, and the piece de resistance- a Baily's cake, complete with lit sparklers! Um, amazing. We headed out to Konsum, my favorite club, because it's got a fog machine. I love it. The music was pretty good and I danced for hours!

I didn't bring my camera, but here's some of what Amy took throughout the day (thanks, girl).

Out at a bar at midnight for the legit start of my birthday

      

On the Poseidon! Or was it called Beethoven..

So very much enjoying the Rhein

                                        
                                                         I was so surprised! Too nice :')

Needing a moment to work up the courage, and John way ahead of me. Some things will never change

In Bruges

Have you ever watched the movie In Bruges and loved it so much, you decided to take a spontaneous road trip to Bruges? Because that's what we did. Two Thursdays ago was Christi Himmelfahrt (the single greatest named holiday, imo) which means who knows what, something about Jesus, but classes are cancelled, so four of my friends and I road tripped up to Belgium! Sebastian's from my dorm, John and Kersey are from my program, and Sarah is Kersey's friend visiting from Ohio.

We had absolutely no idea that the holiday was as big of a deal as it was. As we entered the city, the roads were all roped of creating a sort of path, but people were still walking in the middle of the street. I figured there might have been a marathon earlier in the day or something. Once we get to the city center, there's thousands of people in there with huge bleachers and everyone's ready to watch.. something. Turns out, Bruges hosts a huge parade telling stories from the Bible or something, so we got a free show with animals and crazy costumes and parade floats decked out as Pharaoh's palace and all that jazz. It was... bizarre.

Despite the unique crowds, I really enjoyed Bruges. The architecture reminded me a lot of Amsterdam, with tons of canals and bridges. I actually prefer the buildings here because in Amsterdam, most of the buildings were of similar height and width, while in Bruges there was more dissimilarity and funky roofs. We got Belgian waffles and fries and went into the church that has *~Jesus' blood~* in it. Sebastian and I specifically found the restaurant at the base of the main tower where Colin Ferrell's character eats dinner at the end of In Bruges, so that was a success :]

Shops and cafes line the giant city center

The Jesus Parade had sheep, camels, and horses! Where do you even get half a dozen camels in Bruges?

I spy Moses

Looking cool, Seb

I blinked!! -_-

But yeah, you all should go off and see In Bruges like, five minutes ago. It's a fantastically brilliant dark comedy and in my opinion, Colin Firth's best movie acting-wise. Plus it's got half the cast of Harry Potter in there (Mad Eye Moody, Voledmort, and Fleur).

Everybody's zooing it!

Decided to go to the Cologne Zoo last weekend with a great group of people! Apparently it's Euro-famous for being awesome, which I totally believe. It's ginormous! We happened to go on Family Day, so it was a bunch of college kids gushing over cute turtles next to a bunch of kids in strollers gushing over cute turtles. I didn't see any of my three favorite animals (1. Ocelot 2. Manatee 3. Sloth) but there were elephants with stars on their butts and awkwardly running llamas and a derping camel. I always preferred COSI and the art museum over the Toledo Zoo, but it's been a long while since I've been to a zoo, so I had a lot of fun.

We lucked out with some amazing, sunny weather that day. After spending a solid afternoon there and not losing anyone, we all had some Chinese food in Bonn, then Katie Canada and I watched Pineapple Express. She spent the first half of the movie thinking it was actually Tropic Thunder and was just waiting for the exposition to end so they can go to Africa XD

 

Excited for the zoo?

 I'm so happy Becca bought this picture, I love it! Rachel completes it with that photobomb <3

 

Gorgeous cheetah

Honey Badger don't give no shit

 

post-Zoo awesomeness 

Mifflin am Rhein

So, three weeks' hiatus is what happens when life gets in the way of updating about your life! Sorry about that.

I guess the first major event I missed blogging about was the joint 'holiday' event of Mifflin + Rhein in Flammen, together lovingly dubbed by the Madisonians as Mifflin am Rhein. My Badgers and friends came over around 11 am and we feasted on the single greatest brunch ever created by a rag tag group of 20 people in a foreign country. I'm talking pancakes with honey syrup, bacon, bread, a dozen types of meats and cheeses, oranges, bananas, juice.. basically so much delicious. And a necessary start to Mifflin! We made a beer pong table out of my two kitchen tables, hung Kevin's Wisconsin flag on the window, and spent the entire day hanging out :]

After a döner pit stop, we all headed to the Rheinaue Park for the most epic fireworks show I have ever seen in my life. It was similar to Rhythm and Booms in that it was set to music, but the music ranged from traditional German drinking songs to love odes to the Rhein to modern dance music. We laid out on the grass and had an amazing view. The fireworks were shot off from boats on the Rhein! There was also a bona-fide carnival set up, with rides and game stands throughout the park. I bought a delicious banana chocolate crepe, nom chomsky.

Since there were nine billion people leaving via subway at the same time, we decided it'd be much saner to just walk back towards my place. I ended up catching the U-bahn at a stop or two past the Rheinaue that took me right home. There wasn't even that much of a mess in my kitchen after that full day! We kind of overflowed the recycling bin though :3

 The group! <3

 Hannah und ich...

 ...before she dropped nutella on my shoe and I had to spend the rest of the day a little more mismatched that normal XD

 

 Badger girls

I'm really glad we pulled off planning our own little Mifflin while abroad! I love our t-shirts and had a great day with some great people. The most exciting thing is that we can all continue partying hardy back in Madison next semester! 

I've seen these posters all around Bonn since basically my first weeks living here. There was a Nazi protest going on today, and everyone wanted to show that Bonn and Germany won't stand behind that, so a bunch of us joined in the huge counter protest as the Nazis marched through Beuhl (the city across the Rhein). There were massive police barracades, in full riot gear, separating us from the Nazis, but I yelled and clapped along with everyone else, so I think I did my part to join in against them :] The weather was gorgeous and one of the stages played Peter Fox, so I think it was successful. Also, I took a picture with a dude wearing a "I <3 Jews" shirt! #peopleskills

I proceeded to spent most of the rest of my day laying out in the hofgarten. I'm trying to build up my tan before Croatia so I don't get burned to a crisp as I do every vacation. I bought German Glamour magazine and I absolutely adore it so far. The articles are way better than the US version, talking about how to organize your fridge and female directors to look up to compared to boys and clothes non-stop in the US counterpart. So far I've understood allmost of the articles, which helps :]

 Tonight, I went to a play put on by the Universität Bonn and assistant directed by my theatre teacher. They did a version of Jean Anouilh's L'Orchestre/Das Orchester, an absurdist French play. There was live music, lots of wigs, grown men is high heels and dresses.. basically it was fabulous. I had to waltz on stage with a woman in a suit ("Linken Fuß weg, rechten Fuß vor" and repeat!). Hopefully we don't need to write a summation though, because the dialogue went over my head at times. It was an absurdist French play! I had no idea what to expect. But the entire cast had some great physical comedy and they all perfected acting even when you don't have a line. It was distractingly good :) Glad to see live theatre again. Maybe Hair in a couple of weeks?