The End of a Chapter

IT'S MY LAST DAY HERE!

It's hard to even wrap my mind around because this place is what I'm familiar with now. Texas seems like such a long time ago! But at the same time, it's amazing how fast this semester flew by. Life needs to slow down please :)

This past weekend in Bonn was seriously so great. It's like the whole town came alive! Within a week, everything bloomed and I swear the population doubled. It's crazy because this is the first time in my life I've actually witnessed the transition from winter into spring. Texas is definitely lacking in that department...haha. Here's Bonn in all its beauty!

This past weekend, Bonn had a huge festival in celebration of the beginning of May. It was jam packed full of people and had a huge stage with bands performing all day, a carnival, booths, fireworks, everything! It was so much fun. Here's everyone sitting on the lawn listening to music that night.

It was nice to see the younger people in the city in a place other than mcdonalds ;)

Jeff, Saif, & I decided to pay to jump on one of those trampoline things. It was actually a horrible idea because I decided to do it right after I had drank a bunch of liquid. But regardless, i've always wanted to do it! Hahahaa. I can check this off the bucket list. 

The fireworks that night were the best I've ever seen! Sorry Granbury, Bonn's gotcha beat. All the fireworks were in sync with music. I specifically remember one of the songs being Beethoven's Fifth. 

The following day, AIB paid for all of us to take a farewell cruise down the Rhine river. It was neat because all of our host families were invited too, as well as the rest of the AIB students from LMU & Penn State. The cruise was about 6 hours long and they hired this German soap opera star to give a speech. Apparently he's kind of a big deal because my host mom was freaking out, hahah.

&that brings us to today! The final day. I went into town early to just kind of soak the city in one last time. It was a beautiful spring day today! We had one last meeting at AIB at 2 and it was definitely weird saying goodbye. Ariane(our main coordinator) was telling us that it was especially hard to say goodbye to our viz group because we're all so diverse in personalities. It's so true! Whatevaaaa, we're clearly just fun ;) Later that afternoon, Teaghan & I went to this area behind one of the universities.

Everyone was reading a book, sleeping, or just hanging out. It was super relaxed and the perfect way to spend my last afternoon in Europe!

Here's one last picture of the cathedral in Bonn.

When I got home for dinner, my host family ended up giving Erin & I little gifts. They gave us these "wishing rocks" which are popular in Germany and a cutting board(I guess I should start learning to cook now, haha). After dinner, they took us to go get ice cream. It was seriously the coolest ice cream place ever. And by cool, I mean I got spaghetti ice cream. 

Also, here's a picture of my host family(Elizabeth & Samir)! They're pretty wonderful.

Erin & I are lucky to get a host family who is so kind & open. Speaking of them, about an hour ago once I had finished packing, Elizabeth walked in my room and was all like "Wow, Alex. I don't think I've seen this room this clean in months!" Which is pretty sad because if she thinks that was bad, she should see my room back home...hahaha. 

During the walk home, I asked them about these decorations I'd seen hanging in the trees this past week.

Apparently during the month of may, boys will buy a certain tree and tie streamers and the girls name to it and leave it outside her house. The girls will do it for the guys every leap year! Just one of those cool(and somewhat stalkerish) german traditions we got to witness. 

So anyways, I just wanted to say one last time how amazing this trip was & how much of a blessing it was that I got to experience it! I learned so much about myself and saw the world in a way most people never get the opportunity too. My expectations had nothing on reality. I'm going to miss you Europe!

Stuttgart, Cannes, & Everything In Between

The day after we got back from Spain, we headed out to Stuttgart, Germany for a class trip. We went there for 5 days in order to attend the FMX Conference. The FMX Conference is one of the biggest conferences on animation & special effects in the world. It was neat to get to go and see so many important people in the industry. My favorite part about Stuttgart though was getting to see my family! My relatives, Johen, Elke, Timon and Doreen, live there annnd my Aunt Hilde & Uncle Kurt drove in from Geislingen to visit. Hilde & Kurt picked up Teaghan & I from the conference and drove us to Johen's house for dinner. For about an hour, we sat outside in the beautiful weather, talked, and caught up. Eventually, Timon and Doreen taught us Americans how to play a common german game before dinner. I believe it was called "Vikings." It basically involved throwing these sticks and knocking down the other teams bricks. Sounds simple but it was actually really hard and strategic! 

Ps, I sucked at this game. Pps, there's a reason I never did a sport that involved throwing things. Ppps, thanks gymnastics. 

The food we had at dinner was delicious! They made my favorite german food, spaetzle and this traditional german pot roast type thing. After dinner, we had dessert. and a little while later, coffee. It's typical of Europeans to have a first course meal, second course meal, dessert, and coffee for dinner every night. How are they so skinny?!

I really enjoyed getting to see them & it was nice reminder that I actually have family over here in Europe! For the past 4 months, I've kind of forgotten that and have been trying to survive over here all on my own!:) Gotta love family. 

The next couple of days were pretty repetitive. The conference allowed you to pick which lectures you wanted to attend based on your personal interests. I went to some of those and also hit up the local Starbucks quite a bit(our hostel, although having an amazing view overlooking Stuttgart....didn't have wifi).

On the night before we left, we all went to the biergarten(beer garden). The weather in Stuttgart was about as perfect as it gets and I loved getting to sit outside with everyone and people watch. Stuttgart is in the lower part of Germany and I'm convinced that if anyone ever wants to go visit this country, to head south! Stuttgart, Munich, Geislingen...they all just seem to be more green and lush compared with the northern part of Germany I've been located at this semester(Bonn, Cologne, Berlin...). Also, the atmosphere seems a lot different. Stuttgart had a huge community lake with a bunch of fountains and green grass surrounding it. SO many people would just lay in the grass, have picnics, walk their dogs, enjoy the outside scenery, etc. Such a stark and relaxed contrast to Bonn, where it hasn't been that sunny and most people stay busy throughout their day! Everyone here lounged around outside and enjoyed the day. Stuttgart is a fantastic city! Not to mention it has a giant outdoor theater screen which is pretty cool. 

We left Stuttgart Friday evening and caught the train back to Bonn. On Saturday & Sunday, Teaghan, Thomas, Ethan, & I starting putting together a video project that was due a week later. We were supposed to have been working on it all semester buuuut you know how that goes. (As I'm typing this, it's actually due tomorrow and it looks great! It's a miracle). Monday, Teaghan and I left for Cannes, France! He decided to take me there for our one year anniversary. How did I get so lucky to find a boyfriend who takes me to the French Riviera for this? Like seriously. I'm super lucky. Thanks Teaghan :)

Anyways, Cannes was stunning! Most of you probably know of it from the Cannes Film Festival, which is actually being held 2 weeks after we went. The first night we got there, it was raining slightly & we just explored the town. Cannes is known for the shopping and the beaches! A lot of people call it the Beverly Hills of Europe. The main street on the beach, La Croissance, was packed full of major fashion house stores so it definitely made sense. A surprising amount of European families vacation there as well so that was pretty neat to witness! There were so many "perfect" looking/wealthy families on the beach with their kids. Kind of reminded me of how the Hamptons would be. 

this is the building where the cannes film festival is held each year!

The following day, we caught a boat from Cannes to a small island about 12 minutes away from it. The island was called Iles Saint-Marguerite and it seriously was like a baby Hawaii. As soon as you stepped off the boat, you were immersed in a tropical jungle with the ocean, a bird sanctuary, palm trees, a lake in the middle of the island, and super old/beautiful old homes that were up on a fort on top of the hill! We hiked around the island for about 3-4 hours and were in awe of it. Who would have known a place like this existed in France! Gorgeous. 

That night, we ate a delicious French dinner and went up to the mountain overlooking the city to watch the sunset. 

Sidenote: French food is THE BEST food in Europe. Seriously. It's so unbelievably good. Paris and Cannes have validated this in my mind now. Howeverrrrr, the people here are SO RUDE! So yes, the stereotype is true. For example, Teaghan asked these native french people to take our picture. The lady laughed, spit at us, and continued walking. Her friend awkwardly took our picture after and we were completely shocked! Also, it was around 6:30pm and we were searching for a place to eat dinner. I saw this cute little cafe that was full of people and stopped to look at the menu. The waiter started rudely saying something to me in French and I looked at him and asked what he was saying since I had no idea. He then proceeded to mimic my voice, make fun of me, and shoo me away. 

So yea.   R U D E   P E O P L E   L I V E   H E R E.

The following day we left Cannes to return to Bonn. It was a short trip but totally worth it! I loved getting to see the French Riviera. As soon as we got back to Bonn, we went straight to AIB to continue working on our project. Talk about a lonnnnnng day. We're actually up in the studio right now completing it and we all present tomorrow for our final show! 

Today marks 5 days until I head back to Texas and 7 days until Hawaii! I can't decide if I'm happy or sad to be leaving. I guess I'm basically a mixed bundle of emotions. I know that I'm going to get to the USA and see our lifestyle in a completely new light. There's definitely going to be things I miss about Europe. I also know that I'm probably going to step off the plane and instantly melt onto the pavement so that's cool too. Regardless, Texas...I'm comin' for ya! (soon).