Long Time No See

Well hello there!  It has indeed been a while but I wanted to wait until I had enough to tell to make it interesting to read.  This entry dates back a while because between then and now its just been a lot of school and routine which is fun for me but boring as hell to read.  Anyway, on to the action!

One Tuesday evening we all went (all AiB students as well as the Texas kids) to the Germany/Australian soccer game.  Good news and bad news; bad news, we lost.  Good news, it was really exciting and experiencing a game from the stadium was awesome.  Everyone got super into it which was a blast.

A couple weeks later we went on an excursion to Aachen and Maastricht which started off dull but got awesome later on.  To start, we went to a church with a lot of relics and the likes which was, in retrospect, pretty cool but at the time it didn't seem that substantial.  The building was old, as you can imagine, and had been built in several different steps which showed in the different architecture styles used throughout it but it wasn't jaw dropping.  Also doesn't help that I forgot my camera again which has turned into the theme of this trip unfortunately.  Next we went to the point where Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium meet and, after taking a couple quick pictures, we all went and played at the playground for about 20 minutes.  There were all sorts of cool structures and such that we'd never played on before so it was an exciting time for all of us.

From there we went to Maastricht to tour some caves and stumbled upon the greatest tour guide of all time.  His name was Cornelius (plus like 6 middle/last names) but he asked us to call him Cor.  He was about 65 and loved giving these tours which made it all the more awesome.  After getting out of the creepy, pitch black tunnels we got some free time to roam the city where a small group of us went to get fries and walk around the city.  About 30 minutes before we had to meet back up to go we decided to go get some pancakes which turned out to be a delicious choice.  At 6:30 we met at the bus and headed home.

Friday night, the night after, I ended up playing Activity with my host parents and their game night friends.  I dare say that of all nights in Germany, playing pictionary/taboo/the one where you pantomime the word all in one game with Germans was probably the best one so far.  I don't think that sentence flowed as well as I intended it to so what I'm saying is that it was awesome.  We played in English but the cards were still in German so I had to use my host dad's iPad to translate the words.  The night ended at around 2 when most people went home, one guy stayed (didn't like going home I guess) so I played chess against him.  He owned me but the fact that I played chess against a German guy at 2am is a cool story on its own.

Finally, to end with a bang Phantasialand.  Germany's 6 flags.  It was fucking awesome.  There were tons of roller coasters that no one else wanted to go on but I loved, no surprise there.  I'll post pictures taken and a video my host dad took of me on one of the rides to my Facebook soon.  Anyway, it was super fun to get some adrenaline pumping for a few hours.  Park opened at 9am so we got there at 8:30 and closed at around 7 but we were all done by 6.  All in all a successful day.

Oh yea, and I played tennis with/against my host dad and sister the other day.  It was really fun to get back into it and run around again.  If any of you at home are mediocre tennis players and want to rally for a bit let me know, it'd be fun to casually get back into it.

That's all folks!  I'm off to take my last final then relax before packing to go to London, Ireland and Scotland before returning back to the States.  PEACE!

Spain!

Made it back, I have.  Spain was the second and final long group excursion we got to go on and it was quite enjoyable, to say the least.  It consisted of Madrid and Barcelona which were both very cool cities though I liked the former more than the latter, less sketchy.  Anyway, lets get this summary post on the road!

We met at the AiB at 10:15 on Sunday morning and got taxis to the airport.  The journey to Madrid, 2 hour flight, and all that was nothing special so I'm not gonna add anymore about it.  Once we got to Madrid, we met with our guide for the week, Diana, who, much to the enjoyment of the guys in our group, was very cute (mid to late 20's).  We went straight to the hotel to drop our stuff off through the insanely complex subway system, there are like 3 or 4 levels of tunnels underground.  Anyway, after dropping off our bags we met at 5pm for the walking tour of the city where we got to see a bunch of historic buildings and the likes, as we do.  We stopped around dinner time and a group of us got dinner in a little restaurant which was meh, not the best food I've had but not the worst either.  At around 10 I met up with Brittany, friend from LMU and we went to McDonald's so she could eat (her choice) where we sat and talked for a couple hours.  At 11:30 we got kicked out so we moved over to a bar where we chilled till about 12:30.  On our way out we saw both LMU groups in the bar we were in (Bonn and Madrid groups) and were invited to go out with them but neither of us were feelin' so we decided to call it a night.

On Monday, we had to get up at 7:15 so we could be in the lobby ready to go at 8:30.  Breakfast was simple (not enough for some people) but I thought it was good, just a roll and a de-licious croissant. Our first stop of the day was an art museum with a ton of different artists showcased.  I got a new appreciation for Dali while there, his paintings are way more involved than I thought and I was legitimately impressed with his work which is rare, don't appreciate art as much as I probably should but whatever.  We then went to Toledo and walked around exploring it, very beautiful city.  The streets seemed to be lined with Mid-eval shops with swords and suits of armor literally every 50 feet.  There were a couple gorgeous churches and since Diana is an art history major she knew all sorts of information about them which was bonus.  Another cool stop we made was the oldest synagogue in the world which was, unfortunately, no longer in use but was still fun to walk around in.  We got back to the hotel at 6 and relaxed for a couple hours before meeting at 8 to go to the flamenco dancing show.  The only word that seems to fit the experience is passionate.  Both the music and the dancing were awesome and all the artists got really into the music/experience which I enjoyed.  It ended at 12:30 and I was not the only one who was wiped out and decided not to go out.

Tuesday started early again with a visit to the Prado Museum for about 4 hours which was legit.  Got to see a lot of paintings I'd only seen pictures of before and even though we spent 4 hours there we only saw a fraction of the collection, that museum is packed with stuff.  Lunch was a little sandwich-like shop which was by far the best food I had on the entire trip.  They were like hot pockets full of meat or mushrooms and cut in half, kinda hard to describe but the important part is they were delicious.  From there we went on a tour of the royal palace which was beyond beautiful but I wasn't allowed to take pictures unfortunately.  Our tour guide was more pretentious than even the royal family but all is well, it was still cool to see the palace.  With my free time I went with the shopping group to Zara where I finally got a leather jacket as I'd been looking for for ages then roamed back to the hotel to relax.  Dinner was with Ian and his friend and Mike from my group, we went to a little cafe then to churros and chocolate which was delicious.  The night then turned into bar hopping and Brittany and her friend joined us at around 10.  At 3am Brittany and Ian both called it a night so Mike and I headed to the club where the rest of the group was.  At around 4 we left with one of the members of our group who was done, to put it nicely.  Mike and I stayed up till 5:30 to make sure she was ok (kept getting called back by her roommates to come help with her).

Wednesday was supposed to start at 6:30 because we had to meet at 7:30 to leave but unfortunately none of our alarms went off so we all woke up at 7:30 to a call from Victoria at the front desk.  Needless to say we panicked and threw our stuff in our bags and sprinted out.  I, in my rush, forgot my newly acquired jacket so I had to run up and get it.  By the time I got out of the hotel they were no where to be found (I was about 10 minutes late), so I sprinted to the metro and thankfully found a sympathetic guy that spoke just enough English to point me in the right direction after he let me use his phone to call my group (I had run out of money).  Finally made it to the group and relaxed a little then passed out on the train to Barcelona.  When we got there we went straight to the hotel to drop stuff off then some people went out for lunch or to the beach but I felt awful so I stayed in.  As it turned out I threw up twice that day, never made it out of the hotel, and slept for a total of about 16 hours by the next morning.  I missed the bus tour of the city which I am still kicking myself over but lesson learned on that whole ordeal, that's for sure.

Thursday started off much better than Wednesday seeing as I was feeling much better and was an hour early as opposed to 10 minutes late to breakfast.  We went to Montserrat to visit the church on the mountain which was beautiful.  We got to hear the all boy's choir which is the oldest in the world, they were damn impressive. At 4 we got back to the hotel then at 6:15 we took an optional walking tour of the city, only about 6 of us went, which ended at the outdoor market and I got to have some delicious fresh fruit which I was very happy about.  The tour ended at the hotel where we picked up the rest of the group for dinner (the farewell dinner) which was paella, it was pretty good but again, not as good as I had hoped.  After Mike, Steven, Emily and I headed back to the hotel to watch an episode of Portlandia which was hilarious then crashed at around 11.

Friday was a relaxed morning, we didn't meet until 9:30 when we checked out and put our bags into storage. Most of us then went to the Picasso museum which was very cool.  I'm not really a fan of his later work but his early work, from when he was 14-17 or so is absolutely amazing.  He painted better than most do in their entire life by the age of 14.  Our tour ended at 11:30ish and Eric, Kara, Mike and I went to the aquarium where I learned that Eric knows fucking everything about fish.  Sorry about the profanity but literally at every tank we walked up to he had something to say about every fish and could name all of them.  It was a small aquarium so it only lasted about 2 hours and we had 4 to kill so we then roamed back into the city to explore and get lunch.  Ultimately we ended back at the market where we roamed around for a while looking at all the stuff available for sale, some of which was pretty gross (lamb's heads, cow tongues, pig heads/feet, the likes). At 4 we left the hotel for the airport and got there without any eventful situations.  I made it back to my house at 11pm where I promptly fell asleep.

All in all, a great trip.  It was much more relaxed than the Berlin/Prague trip which was nice but it was still eventful enough for my taste.  After emptying my camera I realized I never posted the pictures from Switzerland that I took nor the ones from Karneval on my Facebook so I'll be sure to do that.  Gotta sort through em first though, make sure nothing is too incriminating or too blurry =)

Karneval and Mainz Weekends

Once again it seems I have let time get ahead of me and I'm two weeks behind on an update.  Fortunately, the events were so memorable this will still be a complete entry so fear not my young compatriots.

As you can imagine, anything following the skydiving weekend will seem rather bland by comparison.  Fortunately this was not as prevalent as I thought it would be as the next weekend was Karneval, a huge celebration which entails getting in costume, partying and watching a parade while people throw candy at you.  Now whoever came up with getting a bunch of people drunk then throwing candy at them must've been a genius and I wish I could shake his hand but I have a feeling he is no longer alive.  Anyway, so the back story of Karneval, it is a celebration right before Ash Wednesday as a way to binge on all the things you're supposed to give up for Lent and just generally have a good time.  Obviously there is drinking involved but, much to my surprise, even with a large portion of the city drunk it was not rowdy.  Quite the opposite, actually, it was a very friendly environment with people just enjoying themselves.  I'm sure there were some angry drunks somewhere but I never ran into any which is good.  Thursday we started the celebration in the AiB then walked as a group across the Rhine to where the parade was.  After the parade we all went to the old part of town back on our side of the Rhine to celebrate.  I was planning on having a liquid blanket on for a majority of the day because I was dressed up in my MC Hammer costume and it was about 40 degrees out.  This plan did not follow through, didn't really feel like drinking more when I got to the deciding point so I sobered up and, surprisingly, was not that cold for the day.  Anyway, Thursday ended fairly early since we all started at 10am so by 6 most of us had crashed (couple people stayed out till 3am O.o).

For the majority of the weekend everyone else in the group went to Paris but I needed a weekend to myself (and I was too late to get a spot in the hostel/get a train ticket).  I had a comfortable relaxed weekend which was needed for sure.  Hopefully I get to Paris at some point later but I'm not too worried about it.  Yea, I should go see it while I'm here but I'd prefer to go to the places that are less touristy, I can come back later in life and hit the big ones (Paris, Munich, Rome, etc).

Anyway, Karneval goes on all weekend including Monday so all the Paris people came back for that and we all went to Cologne because that's where the big parade took place.  We arrived in Cologne at about noon and walked around to find a good spot to watch the parade from.  To start we were a group of about 10 but Brandon and I both agreed we were tired of trying to maneuver a big group so we slowly held back until we broke off and went to find a place to watch the parade from on our own; it turned out to be a great idea.  The parade itself was as anyone would expect, thousands of people walking past or riding floats in costume throwing candy.  After 4 hours of standing and watching (at around 5pm) we decided we'd seen enough and walked around the city exploring some of the crazy party spots to see what it was like.  As the sun was still up the parties weren't too insane but the streets were still packed.  On that Monday, there were 1.5 million people there from other parts of the world but it didn't really feel overwhelming because the city is so big.  As you can imagine, dressed up in a very thin costume in the cold got me a lot of interesting looks and asking "bist du kalt??" (are you cold?) but, surprisingly I was warmer than I was on Monday, totally sober.  Once the sun dipped it started to get very cold so we decided to head back to Bonn and call it a day.

The next week was uneventful but the Saturday after that we went to Mainz for the day.  On the whole I didn't really enjoy the day because there was no reason for us to be there (as I saw it) but it was mandatory for my World Religions class to I toughed out.  One thing I did enjoy about the day is we got to go to the Gutenberg museum which was awesome.  Got to see ancient books as well as the methods they used to use and a bunch of different presses.  One of the gems of the museum was three Gutenberg bibles with different levels of embellishment.  Also, I volunteered to learn how to use the press (very simple) and I got to print a page of the Bible which the tour guide then wrapped up and gave to me which I enjoyed a lot.  For lunch we were on our own then got a tour of the city and cathedral in town (it's over 1000 years old) then at 5pm we all hopped back on the bus and drove home.

Quick side note, a couple days ago my host family made Mexican food for dinner which was delicious.  It was the first Mexican food I've had since coming here and I was craving it to no end.  Just thought I'd let you know =)

Auf Wiedersehen!

Up and Running

So this is my new official blog site but, once again, I've run into the problem of not enough space for free accounts to hold all my pictures so I'm just going to revert to my Facebook.  All of you reading this have access to it (or should) so you'll be able to see my photos there.  Sorry about the inconvenience of multiple sites but this is my best option.

On to more important things:
Switzerland!

As I'm sure most of you have heard, I went skydiving in Switzerland a couple weekends ago.  Just as I had hoped and predicted it was amazing.  We couldn't have asked for a more beautiful day (in winter that is) and after a slight delay due to fog we were able to get up in the air.  It was Sam, John, Bianca and I all jumping as a group.  Since the plane was small and there were a number of extras that needed to accompany us for the travel we have to jump in two groups, John and Sam and Bianca and I.  After getting suited up we watched John and Sam go up and leap out (they were tiny little dots in the sky) then gradually grow bigger and bigger.  Upon landing all Sam could say was "that was awesome" and John was speechless from his amazement.  As you can imagine, that just got me more excited so for the entire plane ride up I was smiling like a big idiot anticipating what was to come.  When we were at the right altitude the other jumpers in the plane went through their usual pre-jump routine of giving high fives and the likes then out they went.  Bianca jumped first and hearing her nervous "oh my God's" followed by a scream and a laugh when they jumped made me laugh out loud.  When it was my turn we scooted to the edge of the plane where I got into the position seen in the photos.  Right before we jumped he gave a countdown then leaned out.  We were in free fall for 45 seconds (which is actually a really long time) and I'm pretty sure I was yelling with joy for the entire thing *sorry tandem jumper dude*.  Anyway, it was probably the best experience I've had to date which is quite a statement I know but it's true.  The rest of the day was spent recovering (got back at noon and I was exhausted so I took a nap) then we went out and roamed around the small city enjoying it.  It was a very picturesque town which I had expected but was still shocking in a way.

After a late lunch we all went back to relax before getting picked up again at 6pm to go night sledding.  This was the first time I'd ever been sledding (for real), much less night sledding so it was, once again, awesome.  At the end of the day, it was agreed that that day had been the best ever for everyone in Switzerland.  Sledding took about an hour to get down the hill (though I wish it had been 2) and was ended at a restaurant where we were served cheese fondue and beer then brought back into town.  Some people went out that night but I, for one, was exhausted and didn't want to push myself too far or I wouldn't have loved the day as much as I do.  The next day we didn't train out until 1 in the afternoon so Sam and I did homework on the computers provided which lead to a very relaxed travel experience as well as evening at home.

Again, Facebook for pictures (might have to go through more than just my album to see the sledding ones, I didn't bring my camera).

RAVE

To those of you that don't know, we have now jumped one week in advance since the last post and I spent that Saturday night/Sunday morning at Energy, huge trance rave in the Netherlands.  Don't remember the full lineup but the important ones were ATB and Tiesto.  It. Was. Fucking. Amazing.  There isn't really any other way to describe it.  I didn't bring my camera because I didn't know what the atmosphere would be but O.O

O.O

O.O

It started at 9pm and lasted till 7am Sunday morning so, obviously, I stayed for the full thing.  The whole night I was being shaken by the bass kicks which, as I'm sure most of you reading this know, was indescribably amazing.  This is a short entry because I don't really know how to transfer all the feelings of the rave into words but one last thing I wanted to add is that by the time I got to bed on Sunday night I had been up for 34 hours straight, record for me.  I was loopy as hell and slept like a baby the second my head hit the pillow but made it the whole 10 hours of the rave which I'm quite proud of.

Brussels

So this entry is a couple weeks late *whoops* but better late than never right?  This'll be one of 3 entries today I think to catch up on what I've done these past few days so BUCKLE UP KIDS!

On the Saturday after the Berlin/Prague excursion I got to go to Brussels with my host dad and sister.  I got up at 8:00am which was earlier than I had hoped but it turned out to be well worth it.  We left at around 9:15 and arrived at our first stop, the Tintin Museum at around 11:45.  Tintin, for those youngins who don't remember it is this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Adventures_of_Tintin.  It was cool to see how the characters were introduced into the comic and developed as they went along.  The comic strip was also heavily influenced by film in terms of both content as well as shots and angles used which I hadn't noticed before.  After the museum we drove across town to the brewery where they make beer that doesn't use yeast to ferment.  There is a special kind of spore in just this section of Brussels that ferments the beer on it's own so they have a huge trough that sits out for a few hours so the spores can land in it.  It is then casked into huge wooden barrels for 3 years before it's ready to drink.  Naturally, we got some free samples when we were there then my host dad proceeded to buy 12 bottles of it, 2 of which we enjoyed that night.  There are 4 flavors, original, cherry, raspberry and flower (local flower used for flavoring).  It's hard to pick a favorite but I'd say raspberry was my favorite.

From the brewery we met up with a couple of Michael's (host dad) friends at Moeder Lambic, a bar that has 46 beers on tap.  Both his friends were from the states which made for much easier conversation.  I tried 3 beers while there, which were, again, delicious.  The three I tried were V Cense, Equinox, and Val-Dieu Grand Cru.  The first was a delicious bitter beer followed by a heavier, again bitter Equinox.  The third one made for a great ending point as it was very sweet, like dessert.

After the bar we walked to the old center of town which was beautiful, all the buildings are old and amazing.  Snapped a bunch of pictures then we said goodbye to the Americans and walked around Brussels stopping for a waffle with chocolate and strawberries on it.  Also got to see the famous peeing boy which was a very popular statue, it was surrounded with people taking pictures.  We ended the night roaming around a little more then drove home.  Once there, the beer tasting was still not over, got to try 4 more.  2 of them were from the brewery we went to that day.  The other two were stouts which were delicious.  My favorite one (by both taste and description) was one that had "one out of a dozen ales that is black as hell, filthy rich in the nose and with massive spoiled taste" written on the label.

All in all, a successful day as you can probably imagine.

Berlin and Prague

Oh man, this is gonna be a long post.  Here goes an hour of typing:

Our trip started early Saturday morning, I had to be at the train station at 8am to catch a 5 hour train to Berlin.  Fortunatly, I caught some sleep on the train so I could fully enjoy the bus tour we took when we got there.  We arrived at around 1 then went on a bus tour of the whole city for avout 4 hours visiting all the main sites.  As you can tell by my album, I got a lot of pictures on this trip and a majority of them were from this first day.  After the tour we got dropped off at our hotel and we had a couple hours to relax before going to get pizza at a really cool restaurant.  On the menu were a couple pizzas with horse meat so, being the adventurous kid I am, decided to try it.  Overall it was pretty good but didn't have much flavor, just generic meat but I'm definitely glad I tried it.  One of the girls on our trip is obsessed with horses so I tried to keep it a seceret that I was ordering it but, as news is difficult to limit, she found out and overracted to say the least.  After dinner some of us were too tired to go out and wanted to save our energy for the next day because it was going to be another full day so we went back and slept.

On Sunday we left the hotel at 7:50am and got a tour of a concentration camp until 1:30.  Our tour guide knew a ton about the camp and the era in general which was awesome.  It was strange to walk in the same camp on the same ground that prisoners had.  Afterwards we got lunch and went for a tour of the parliament building which was quite cool.  That ended around 6 which ended the planned events for the day so we all went back.  Unfortunately, a combination of imperfect directions and our lack of paying full attention lead to us taking the correct bus but in the wrong direction.  After about 40 minutes of bussing around we finally ended up in front of our hotel.  My roommates and I went out to get dinner at a Vietnamese place right next door which was delicious.  At around 9:30 we walked over to an American bar to watch the superbowl (which didn't start until 12:30) and have some drinks.  After half time most of us were done, wasn't invested in either team, so we walked back and passed out at 3:30 only to wake up again at 8:30 the next day.

Monday we left at 9:30 and went to an old Stasi prison from when Germany was split into East and West.  It's inmates were political prisoners or people who tried to escape from East Germany.  Our tour guide was again not only knowledgeable in the subject matter but very fun to listen to.  He was by far the best tour guide we had on the entire trip, in my opinion, because of the way he talked.  He put inflections and pauses in just the right spots to keep our attention.  After the tour we went to the Pergamon museum which was breathtaking.  Unfortunately the first time I added comments to all the pictures the site decided it would crash on me so I'll have to go back a little later to add that in.  Anyway, we got to see the Ishtar gates, the Pergamon from ancient Greece and pieces of the frieze that ran all around it and a Roman gate that was the entrance to the market place.  If anyone gets a chance to visit Berlin and only has time to visit a couple places, the Pergamon has to be one of them.  When we were done in the Pergamon we rushed to get a quick lunch before going to the Jewish museum which showcases German Jewish history for the past couple thousand years.  It was an architectural tour which was quite cool, the building was very interesting and even though the guide struggled immensly with English he gave a very good tour.  At around 5 when we were done with all our tours everyone was beyond exhausted so we went to an Italian place for dinner then hit the hay.

Tuesday was "My Berlin Day" which meant we had picked a topic and would spend the day getting tours and roaming the city learning all we could about it.  I chose multiculturalism and got up early to get breifed on where were to go and the likes.  We ended up in Kreuzberg, a district of Berlin, and got a tour by a lady who had lived there her whole life, she was about 30.  After getting an introduction to the types of people living in Berlin and where and why they came, we walked around and got to see the layout of the area.  In this district there is almost no police presence, most law enforcement is done by the community itself which I thought was very cool.  For example, the subway station in Kreuzberg is known as the area of Berlin where you go if you want to buy or sell drugs so a group of mothers get together to go to the station at night and clean it up so kids don't see the needles when they go to school in the morning.  At midday we went to a Mosque to witness the midday prayer and learn a little about Islam.  That was the conclusion of our tour but we still had 5 hours before we had to go back so we roamed around visiting shops and seeing the city more.  When we got back to the hotel we made our presentation for the rest off the group and gave it.  We were supposed to put together a presentation of some kind telling the other students about what we did during the day.  It wasn't a graded assignment, more so that all of us could experience all the four different options of the day in some reguard.  Since this was our last night in Berlin most of us went out to enjoy a night on the town but, unfortunately, it failed because we were following the lead of someone who claimed to know the city but turned out to just have us walking around finding nothing.  Finally at 2 I got fed up with his lack of knowledge and decided to call it a night.

Wednesday morning we had to get up early again (6:45) to catch a train for a 4 hour journey to Prague.  When we got there we went straight to the hotel to drop off our bags then got a "tour" of the city by a local who is a friend of one of the directors.  At around 3 the tour was over and we got dinner on our own before going back to the hotel to get ready for the opera.  My friends and I went to a British pub and I got a shepard's pie which was delicious.  At 6:30 we all left for the opera which, much to my surprise, turned out to be a very cool experience.  The first act was painful (literally, the female role kept singing too loud and high pitched and it hurt my ears) but the second and third were very good.  The opera was called La Traviata which is apparently a famous one.  Anyway, back to the important stuff, the building itself was beautiful.  Unfortunately I was only able to get one photo because I checked my jacket and left my camera in the pocket but I'll try to download some other's pictures of the building.

Thursday was our last day in Prague and it started at 8:45 where we met up with our guide from the day before to get a more official tour of the city.  It is a very cool city that was much smaller than I thought it would be.  At around noon we took a break in a coffee shop to get hot chocolate, which was amazing, before continuing on to the castle where the president of the Czech Republic lives.  At around 3 we were again done for the day so we all went to get lunch at a street vendor and Mike and I went souvineer shopping (got something for you Mom).  For better or worse I don't know any Czech so I didn't understand that the sausage I ordered was blood sausage until afterwards when one of my friends told me.  That was the one food I was planning on avoiding because the concept was too gross but it was actually pretty good.  I don't intend to repeat the experience but I'm glad it happened.  After a quick nap we all went out for our goodbye dinner at a very nice restaurant and I got duck and dumplings which was a-mazing.  After dinner we all went back and proceeded to enjoy the last night away from Bonn.  Unfortunately, much like the last night in Berlin, a couple people wanted to find a famous club while most of us wanted to go to the one right down the street but, since no one wanted to make others unhappy, we all ended up roaming around and found nothing.  All in all, I had a good night with my friends so I'm not worried about it.

Friday was a very low key day, all of us were exhausted and ready to be back.  Some, instead of coming back to Bonn, went on to visit Budapest, but that would have been too much for me and several of the others.  After a quick flight and a cab ride I was back in my room in Bonn and mentally released all my thoughts which felt wonderful.

If you made it to the bottom of this article, bravo.  I probably wouldn't have =)

I'll write the article about what I did in Brussels with my host dad and sister in a few days once people have read through this one.  Don't want to flood you guys with too much information!