Bonn-ding

I'm in love with Bonn. It's like the Madison of Europe.
Classes started this week, I went to a really scary and intimidating lecture on Monday with Janina...she said it was really interesting, which it probably would've been had I understood more than 40% of what the teacher was saying. I did find out, however, that a famous German actor is in that class...so I was graced with fame on my first day of school!

I went to two classes yesterday, one was an actual German class and the other was from the International Office covering German politics and geography, etc. It was really interesting, but I'm having trouble actually enrolling in the class so I'm not sure if I'm going to be able to take it. I also went to a class called "Bilder in den Köpfen" which is about stereotypes and identities...it's a smaller class and it seems really interesting and thankfully the Dozentin said that the 5 American students who want to be in the class could work together on a Refarat. It's 15 pages long and a 10 minute verbal presentation...I might ask her if I can write the paper in English just because it sounds so intimidating.

Today I had a Conversation and Vocabulary class from the International Office, which was really helpful. The teacher just makes us describe things in German. It sounds easy, but it's kind of hard in English when you think about describing what the difference between a list and a form is.
I've been spending a lot of time just exploring Bonn these past few days...it's weird to be in school and yet still have so much time on my hands. Today I'm going to try to find a job around here teaching English, not only because I need the money but I also feel like I need something to do.

I'm getting over the drinking and partying phase of my time here, although I understand I am on an extended vacation and I should live it up more than I think I want to right now. It's not good for my health and it's kind of a nasty, expensive little habit to keep up with. I always overestimate how much partying I'm doing though, so I'm still trying to be at least a little outgoing and open to those kind of experiences. I'm going to Barcelona this weekend though, and I assume there will be some partying going on so I'm not too worried about missing out on the Europe-in-your-early-twenties experience. I've been doing a lot of exploring and walking/running around the city. I ran over the Rhein a couple times now, and today after class Zerina and I took a leisurely stroll around the UN Campus and all the way back to the center of Bonn. I feel like my experiences here are mostly contained in the Innenstadt (equivalent to the campus/downtown Madison area, probably, maybe smaller) even though Bonn is a little bigger than Madison.

Tomorrow I have a super long day, class until 7:30pm or something, but I'm happy to be flying to Barcelona on Friday to see Sarah! There have been some problems with the plans, but hopefully everything will work out well. And I'm also really, really looking forward to a big hug from my Dad on Tuesday :)