2 months!

 Well ladies and gentleman, sehr geehrte Herrn und Frauen, its been two months and I havent cracked yet. Actually the opposite, I am having such a better time here than I could have ever imagined. I am actually thinking about staying an entire year now, it only makes more and more sense the more I think about it. This past week I played soccer for the first time here for the University's team, and not to be too cocky, but I think I showed those girls a think or two about Fussball. I was actually quite surprised at how bad the girls were, or perhaps bad is the wrong word, it was more "inexperienced." They were surprised to learn that I was not on the varsity team for OSU, and the coach explained that many girls from the Bundesliga go to America to play for the colleges there. Yesterday was the VWL party, which stands for Volks-Wirtschafts-Lehrer which is the major of my Bonn Buddy. The turned an entire building of the University into a club-like setting with multi-colored strobe lights and multiple DJs and a cover charge. One of the weirdest things was when we entered they gave all of us snuff, like the tobacco product, I guess they are really laxed about that sort of thing here, because I could never imagine in a million years OSU giving me a pack of cigarettes or anything like that. It was very fun though, the party, and it was really weird to think that my Bonn Buddy has classes in the building.

Here is a picture of my Bonn Buddy Katharina (she is the one on the right) and her friend Laura (left). Laura studies Psych, and she was actually considering studying abroad at OSU next year, before she even knew that is where I was from. On the way home, we found this advent calendar with chocolates in it, and it was too funny to not take a picture of:

 

Today I took a boat ride with my coupon down the Rhein to Koenigswinter, even though it is so close, it still took just about an hour to get there. I took a video of it:

Below they tried to do a "Titanic" reenactment, but for safety reasons, decided against it ;P

After we got to Koenigswinter, we had a little coffee and cake to be really German on this lovely Sunday afternoon. We were at a quaint little cafe on the Rhein that was sort of a French-Hipster type hangout, which I thought Anthony Bourdain would be reluctant but pleased with. I had the best coffee Ive had since coming here and the most delicious cheesecake with raspberries. The cheesecake was really whipped, so it wasnt what one would normally think of. If you look at the picture below, Hanna (the person to my left) got a hot chocolate and they gave her the cutest little spoon with  a bend in it to rest on the cup. I thought of Dad and his new Sunday morning espresso routine and how he would think that was really cool.  

The weather has been really cooperative recently, around 60 degrees Fahrenheit, and I am hoping it stays too. I am so excited for these next two months especially with planned trips to Berlin, Oslo, and Paris, not to mention Model UN and Coldplay followed by the visit of the rest of the Corcoran clan, which may bring about trips elsewhere. Small possibility of Cork, Ireland for New Years. Also a ski trip to Austria has been set up by the study abroad office, it would be so cool to say "oh I just learned to ski on the Alps, maybe you've heard of them." My next door neighbor here is from Budapest and now I am talking about visiting him sometime as well. I really feel like studying here makes me in the center of the world. Everything that seems so far away is suddenly just a train ride away. It is one of the coolest feelings in the world