On November 8, day 2 of the celebrations for the 25th anniversary of the fall of the wall, I did the unthinkable - took a break from Berlin Wall-related sightseeing! It wasn't by choice - my Cultural Orientation in Berlin course was meeting in the eastern part of the city to learn about Berlin's industrial past.

We learned that in the 19th century, Berlin was actually a heavily industrialized city, and was known for being an industrial center to an even greater extent than the famous Ruhr Valley. We set out to see some traces of this history.

A sunny but cold day... good enough for a walk in the park

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It's perfect that my latest post was about the Berlin Wall: two weekends ago, all of Berlin partied like it was 1989 - it was the 25th anniversary of the day the wall fell! The occasion was marked with a neat art project that made for some fantastic photos, so I had a great time.

Before we get there, though, some updates. I've been super busy, as usual! It's the time of year when I'm trying to compile internship applications but also trying to get some projects for my university courses out of the way. About that - my German has officially progressed to the point where I am contributing to class in front of other German political science students! Very exciting. 

Just today, in fact, I completed a group project in a public policy analysis course in which I had to moderate a half-hour discussion with 8 other students. The subject? Germany's Altersvermögensergänzungsgesetz. In other words, reforms of Germany's pension system. Yes, even just the name was complicated. But I managed! Just 3 months ago, there was no way I could have imagined that I would ever be able to lead a discussion in German about Germany's complex retirement system.

I also took a trip to Prague last weekend, so now this blog is officially behind the times again. Time to start catching up!

Friday, November 7 marked the beginning of Berlin's Mauerfall (fall of the wall) celebrations and was the first night that the big art project commemorating the wall went up. The art project was.... the Lightgrenze! That means "Border of Light," essentially. A "symbolic frontier of lights," the Lichtgrenze consisted of thousands of illuminated balloons that lined much of the Berlin Wall's former path through the central parts of the city. The moment I heard about the art project, I knew it would make for some great pictures. So Friday I soldiered out into the cold, headed straight for the epicenter of it all, and started shooting.

The balloons remind of us of the magnitude and location of the Berlin Wall. Way in the background on the left, illuminated in purple light, is the Brandenburg Gate

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To wrap up our most recent weekend, I suggested going to the Berlin Wall Memorial, which I had read was one of Berlin's most highly recommended attractions. Plus, it's mostly outdoors, and the weather was once again awesome. So to the Berlin Wall Memorial we went! 

If you are getting the impression that a lot of the tourist attractions in Berlin have to do with the Berlin Wall and the division of Berlin, I would agree with you. Sometimes I wonder what all the tourists would look at if there were never a Berlin Wall! Berlin was a small city all the way through the middle ages and into the 18th and 19th centuries, so there are not many significant sights left over from that period of time. Instead, most of the historical landmarks in Berlin have to do with that much more recent period of history during which Berlin was split in two. As such, between all the information about the wall I've been reading and experiencing  lately, I consider myself a Berlin Wall armchair expert. So get ready for some fascinating facts!

The 96-mile-long Berlin Wall was built nearly overnight in 1961 when the East German government wanted to stem the flow of East German citizens fleeing into the West. A total of 2.7 million refugees had successfully escaped from 1949 to just before the wall was built. A mere 2 months before the first barricades went up, the East German government denounced rumors of a wall by announcing, "No one has the intention of erecting a wall!" But as we all know, a wall was indeed soon thereafter erected. As time went on, the East German government continually upgraded the fortifications. At first, the wall was relatively small and in some places consisted of just barbed wire. When you hear "Berlin Wall" and picture the tall, graffiti-ed, concrete wall you'll see in pictures below, you're thinking of a wall that was only built in 1980.

Did you know the fall of the wall was an accident? In 1989, the year the wall fell, East German premier Erich Honecker proclaimed the wall would stand for another 50 or 100 years. But soon, cracks in the East German regime began appearing. Hungary and Czechoslovakia opened their borders, allowing East Germans to pour out. Protests within East Germany broke out, most notably in Leipzig. The East German government tried to quell the demonstrations by announcing looser private travel regulations for East Germans that would slowly and gradually allow for some crossings through Berlin Wall checkpoints. 

East German government spokesman Günter Schabowski announced these new gradual measures on November 9 with a press conference, although he was unfamiliar with the details of the new regulations and unaware that the prepared statement he was reciting was making it sound to the world as though East Germans would be able to cross straight into West Berlin without restriction. When he finished his statement and the shocked journalists asked when the crossings could begin, he shrugged and guessed "unverzüglich" - immediately. When the press conference aired on the nightly news, East Germans took it to mean that the border crossings to West Berlin were open and appeared en masse at the wall's checkpoints. The overwhelmed border guards were also unfamiliar with the new regulations and unable to hold back the enormous crowds that had gathered. They simply opened the checkpoints, and East Germans streamed through and met equally ecstatic West Germans, who were waiting with champagne and flowers. The peaceful revolution was complete.

The wall disappeared fairly quickly from the cityscape, even before the official date of German reunification on October 3, 1990. Today, only 3 major sites still have the original wall standing in its original place, and the Berlin Wall memorial is one of them (I blogged about another here). Even in these places, the wall has been heavily damaged by wall-pecking tourists. If you want to take a piece of the wall home with you, simply head to the nearest tourist shop - nearly every tourist outlet has a pile of small concrete pebbles with a smattering of paint that are claimed to be part of the original wall. While there are plenty of legitimate, full-size sections of wall left over (including full-size sections available for sale), I don't trust those pebbles one bit.

And now, to the pictures!

The Berlin Wall Memorial, with poles marking the former path of the wall. It's hard to believe that this peaceful stretch of grass used to be heavily guarded

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Last Saturday, Berlin was miraculously blessed with awesome weather for what will probably prove to be one of the last times for the next 4 or 5 months. I knew it was time to head out and grab some sweet shots.

Destination of the day: Charlottenburg Palace, first built from 1695-1713 as a summer residence for the Prussian Queen, Sophie Charlotte. As far as palaces and castles go in the city of Berlin, this is the only major one. 

One can still find the symbol of the Prussian empire, an eagle

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Last week started just like every other week for the next few months will - a meeting with my tandem partner! Tandem partners are a great way to practice your speaking skills. You simply find someone whose mother language is the language you want to practice, and who wants to practice your mother language. Then you meet once a week and speak for an hour in one language and an hour in another. I successfully found a super nice German tandem partner, so I'm ready for my German skills to go through the roof! She already has perfect English, of course. Looks like the language help will be flowing in one direction in this relationship.

Last Friday, as Americans know, was Halloween. I almost forgot that was a holiday since it is not really celebrated here, at least to the extent in the U.S. One does not see Halloween decorations in the stores or on the facades of houses and apartments. Germans are actually somewhat skeptical of Halloween merchandise, since they see (probably correctly) any attempt to import holidays like Halloween as a way for companies to make more money of unwitting customers. 

But nevertheless, turns out the young German generation here knows full well what Halloween is and is willing to celebrate. My younger host brother went off to a Halloween house party with friends, and I heard other Americans' host siblings went trick-or-treating in residential neighborhoods. Additionally, advertisements for Halloween-themed parties suddenly popped up. We Americans went bar-hopping with some other American program alumni who were in Berlin and saw a decent amount of other costumed party-goers. So to an extent, Halloween definitely has taken root here.

I started out that weekend by following a walking tour (mapped out by none other than Rick Steves, of course) that passed through some of the significant East German and Nazi historical sites in Berlin. 

The weather was absolutely perfect, so I stopped to take some pictures in Viktoriapark first

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Back with more updates! Lots is going on, as usual. Since my last post, two additional courses have started up - handball and German! 

Handball is one of two sports classes I'll be taking this semester (the other is ultimate frisbee, which starts this week). While the sport is pretty much nonexistent in the U.S., lots of Germans are either handball fans or players, including one of my host brothers. I had no idea what handball consisted of before I took the course, so I had to head to YouTube for some demonstrative clips. Check it out! It's a fast-paced combination of basketball and soccer. So far I've taken to it pretty well, scoring a few goals each week during our scrimmages.

Second, I'm taking another German speaking course to further develop my skills. German class has been a great way to get to know even more international students from countries like the Czech Republic, Poland, Korea, Italy, Switzerland, France, and, of course, the U.S. - there are two other Americans in my class, one of whom is from California as well. But you won't catch us speaking English to one another!

On Friday, October 24, our German class split into groups and went out all over Berlin to check out different destinations and report back what we saw. My group headed to Pfaueninsel (translation: Peacock Island), a small island on the outskirts of Berlin with lots of nature and, as the name suggests, peacocks.

The island's gardens were designed in the early 1800s, but the island's history goes back farther than that

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Of the five university classes I'm taking at Freie Universität, I definitely think Kulturelle Orientierung in Berlin will be my favorite. This class promises an overview of the history and cultural evolution of the city we're in, and is exclusively aimed at exchange students just like me. It's been a great place to meet others from all over the world!

Last Saturday, we took the learning process outside and went on our first excursion as a class through Berlin. 

The Church of the Franciscan Monastery dates from the middle of the 13th Century. In 1945 the church structure was badly damaged and left as a ruin

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My first week of classes at university is officially over. So far, so good! German university classes take place just once per week and are generally only 90 minutes. After having to go into a classroom 2 or 3 times a week for 50-110 minutes for just one class at USC, it's a welcome change. I'll be taking a class on Berlin culture, a German language course, a policy analysis class, an introduction to the German government system, and a class on Germany's foreign policy. All in German, of course.

Here are some shots from my most recent extracirricular activities.

The Berlin Festival of Lights features big colorful projections on a variety of landmark buildings around town. Here is the Bibliothek (library), which has words of colors projected onto it rather than actual colors

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Some great news: between this and my next post, my blog will FINALLY be up to date! I can finally start writing about what life here in Berlin is like.

First, I have to mention that I really enjoy my host family. I'm appreciative not only for the chance to speak lots of German every single day, but also for the fact that dinner is cooked and laundry is washed for me! It has been 4 and a half years since that was done on a consistent basis, and boy, if it isn't a welcome adjustment. My 9-year old host brother and I still enjoy playing soccer together, the cat and I are getting along well despite the fact that I'm no cat person, and my host dad is hilarious. When he's not at work or biking to or from there, he loves talking, giving me handshakes (I've gotten at least 10 since I've moved in), putting on funny accents (in both English and German), talking, reciting German poetry, watching South Park, playing online computer games with his son, talking, and making stupid typical "dad jokes." His teenaged kids seem tired of his act, but I love it!

Next, my political science classes at Freie Universität (FU) have officially begun. All my classes are in German, so I have quickly found out that I have to finalize what classes I want to take based not purely on the class topic but instead on how slowly and clearly (or not) the professor speaks. In only two classes have I had a rapidly speaking or mumbling professor, so for the other 5 courses I will be taking instead, I have made sure I have no problem with understanding the lecturer. Three months ago, though, I know I would have been pretty lost listening to any of these professors talk. I've made some major German progress!

Already I've ascertained that FU is an incredibly diverse place. Classes are generally pretty antisocial settings, and I haven't gotten the chance to meet too many people yet, but I already know students from England, Iceland, Canada, Japan, Belgium, Russia, Korea, France, Germany, and the Netherlands. It's a cool environment, and I think I'll enjoy it even more as time goes on.

And now, to the pictures:

I saw one of Berlin's major landmarks already on one of my first few days here. A young German guy named Alex, who is a "tutor" hired by my program to help me and the other program participants here in Berlin adjust, took us on a long walking tour of the city early on

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And now, before my blog finally becomes somewhat up-to-date by covering my experiences here in Berlin, I present my last excursion I took while in Cologne - we went to the Middle Rhine Valley!

Sure, it's not a household name, but this stretch of the Rhine River south of Cologne is absolutely gorgeous and full of picturesque castles and towns. It was unbelievable to see. The entire 65-km stretch of this part of the Rhine is on the UNESCO World Heritage list.

First up was visiting a castle called Marksburg, which is the only hilltop castle in this valley never to have been destroyed. It was probably founded in the 12th century and wound up changing hands many times as each family that came into its possession wound up selling it. 

Marksburg was in a town called Braubach, a tiny, sleepy, old town with many houses dating back to the 16th to 18th centuries. 

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One of my last trips while still in Cologne took us to the medieval town of Bad Münstereifel, population 19,000. As we expected, it was super small but full of historical buildings almost 1,000 years old. What we didn't expect was the torrential downpour for the first several hours while we were there, as evidenced by the fact that 2 out of the 3 of us were umbrella-less. But we fought through and I managed to snap these pictures.

Looking down the one main street in town

The wall was erected in the 13th and 14th centuries, and in certain spots one can now walk along it. Here is one of the surviving gates

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In my last 2 weeks in Cologne, I visited Dusseldorf twice - once with my friends on a Saturday, and once with my German class on a field trip. But as a Cologne resident, and given that there is a fairly serious rivalry between the two cities, I am obligated to not like Dusseldorf and everyone who comes from there. Since I've been told I'm an overly competitive person, I'll go ahead and embrace that and say - Dusseldorf sucks!

Actually, we had a hard time disliking Dusseldorf. It is certainly smaller than Cologne but has more green space, rich people, exclusive shops, and super nice cars. But it doesn't have a Cologne Cathedral! My friends would disagree, but I think Cologne is still the better city. But don't take my word for it - here are some photos!

First stop - the late Baroque St. Andreas Church, built in 1629

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I'm wrapping up my recap of our trip to Belgium now with shots from our last stop - Brussels! 

We slept overnight in a hostel in Antwerp and headed to Brussels bright and early, even though we only crashed at 2:30 am the previous night. But there was sightseeing to do!

Brussels is the capital and largest city of Belgium, with 1.2 million inhabitants. It's also the de facto capital of the European Union and the headquarters of NATO. It's pretty enormous, so we did what we could with the half-day that we had.

Brussels is far from the prettiest city we've ever seen. Outside of the city center, everything is fairly modern and dull. But the center square is absolutely gorgeous and more than makes up for that.

The Royal Palace, built in 1783. Although the monarchs don't actually live here, they still use it for official ceremonies

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Continuing coverage of our weekend trip to Belgium from September 13! That day, we arrived in Antwerp and wasted no time getting out and exploring. It was pretty easy to start sightseeing right away, after all - the main train station itself is a major attraction!

The station was built in 1905 in the Baroque style, and is now known as the finest example of railway architecture in Belgium

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By the end of this program, the weekend of September 12 - 14 will definitely still be one of my most memorable experiences. We embarked on a three-day, two-night, three-city tour of a country which none of us had previously experienced - Belgium! We can now definitely count ourselves as big fans of Belgium - the trip was a blast, and we saw an amazing amount of interesting sights. 

We left directly after language school class on Friday for Bruges. After a near-mishap where we somehow couldn't track down our train, we safely made it to our destination and trekked to our hostel (my first ever!). After checking in, we headed out to do a little nighttime sightseeing. 

One of the train stations on the way to Bruges looked pretty neat

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Sure, it's been 2 weeks since I've arrived here in Berlin. But I still have tales from Cologne to recount! We are almost completely up to date, though. Since university classes here in Berlin have not yet started, Berlin has been quite relaxing so far. Down time is just what I need to get this blog caught up! But I've made sure to do some sightseeing, play football (soccer) with my 9-year-old host brother, and check a few bars out.

I also rang in my 22nd birthday just a few days ago! My generous host family made me a cake, gave me champagne, bought me candy and snacks, got me a Berlin sightseeing book, and also bought 2 tickets for an ice hockey game next month!

On Monday, classes start up and life will get hectic again. So before that occurs, here's what happened in my last weeks in Cologne:

On September 11, we had a cultural training seminar in Bonn. We were pretty well prepared for the cultural differences thanks to the material we received while still in the U.S., so we didn't learn a great deal, but one part of the session was particularly satisfying: the German moderator asked us to anonymously write what about the German culture bugged us most. 

Don't get me wrong, I think we are all loving our time here and we highly appreciate the German culture. But it being a new country, there are still some things that are hard to get used to. I personally wrote that  I couldn't stand how commonplace smoking is and how hard free water is to come by when you're out and about. Some of the myriad other complaints our poor moderator read to us included how terrible customer service is, how annoying it is to pay for bathrooms, how strange it is that Germans stare so much, and how there's too much bread in the German diet.

Afterwards, we let loose by visiting a store dedicated to Haribo candies. Haribo is a wildly popular brand of German candy. You have probably seen their famous gummy bears on U.S. shelves. 

Unfortunately this life-size gummy bear wasn't edible

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Continuing my blitz towards the present! A month ago, on September 6, a few of us visited Münster for the weekend. Located two hours north of Cologne by train, Münster is a bike-centric university town of 300,000. 

Our stay in Münster was especially enjoyable since we had some German hosts for the weekend! I briefly mentioned that the previous weekend we had met a nice German lady named Annette on a train... and it turned out she had traveled to the U.S. through our very program 28 years earlier! She was generous enough to let us stay with her family for the weekend.

But first, we had to get there. This turned out to be much more challenging that anticipated. As I rode towards the main train station at 6:30 that morning, my tram driver stopped in the middle of the route and announced it was time for him to join the train driver strike. Train driver strike?! I had no idea this was coming, but once I checked my German news app, I found that train drivers were striking from 6 to 9 am that very morning. That's convenient. I frantically found a subway route (subway drivers weren't striking, only their above-ground brethren were campaigning for a wage increase) to the main train station and met my friends there, only to find our train to Münster was delayed by no fewer than 186 minutes thanks to the strike. After thinking on our feet and desperately searching for any train that was leaving Cologne in the general direction of Münster, we actually managed to escape just 40 minutes later than we originally planned.

But Münster was worth the trouble! It had a small town charm, but it was also historical and had plenty going on.

Münster's historical town hall (right) was built in the mid-1300s. Much like (literally) every single other historical building we saw in Münster, it was destroyed in WWII and subsequently rebuilt. On the left is the city wine house, where the city's wine was kept

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Class at Freie Universität doesn't start until October 13, so in between hanging out with my new host family and fellow program participants here in Berlin, now is my chance to try to get this blog up to speed! We'll see how far I get.

On September 4, Cologne residents were able to go into any municipal museum for free. As official Cologne residents, we were eligible! After language school class, we did museum day right - we headed out and hit four landmark museums.

Museum Ludwig hosts modern and contemporary art

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And now, to continue my recap of what I was up to on the weekend of August 30 by going over Sunday, August 31 - which will definitely be one of the most fun, action-packed, and memorable days I ever had on this program! After hearing about Burg Eltz from a friend and from trusty travel expert Rick Steves, we knew we had to visit.

Boy, were we in for a treat! 

We settled on meeting at the train station at 6:30 am. I quickly found out that no trains run at such an hour from my house to the main train station, so I had to sprint on my borrowed bike in 30 minutes to make it. After that obstacle, a friend of ours who promised to come didn't make it in time, so we missed the early train. 

With an hour to wait for the next train, there was plenty of time for pictures. But when isn't there time for pictures?

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I have made the move - I'm now here in Berlin with my new host family! Berlin is an enormous and happening place and my family is fantastic, so I'm off to a great start. My host family consists of a father (a lawyer), a mother (a doctor), and a 9 year-old, 15 year-old, and 16 year-old. Like me, they like music, bike riding, and sports. We live in a calm and tree-lined section of Berlin called Friedenau, which is not far at all from both my university and the middle of the city.

Some of the other program participants and I met up today with a German guy our program has hired to be our "tutor" for our time here in Berlin, and he was nice enough to show us around the city (by foot, of course, it's Europe) for a few hours. There is a ton to see here! I can't wait to get the photography started.

Speaking of photography, I have pictures from August 30, when I went with my friend Amy to the  Schlösser Brühl - or Brühl palaces. Brühl is a city just a short train ride away from Cologne, and it has a really fantastic palace complex that we knew we had to see. 

First up was Augustusburg Palace, which was the favorite residence of Cologne's elector and archbishop Clemens August of Bavaria (he had 19 others to choose from). It was built from 1728 to 1768 in a classic Rococo style.

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Today marked our second-to-last day of language school! I've learned an incredible amount of German over the past 2 months, but it's still scary to think of how much I will be relying on it from here on out - I'm far from fluent but my university courses will be in German. 

We also presented today our final project for the language school phase - an individual presentation on a topic of our choice, in German of course. As you might have noticed from the endless pictures of historical architecture on this blog and the detailed captions that accompany them, I like old buildings. So naturally I spoke about Cologne's most historical structures.

And now for the usual blast to the past, since I'm still about 4 weeks behind on pictures - on August 23, a number of us in Cologne traveled to Frankfurt to crash a CBYX (our program) alumni barbeque. We met some real live Germans who just came back from their stay in the U.S. (which they all loved, if you had any doubts), including one who briefly lived with a host family in... FOOTHILL RANCH! (For the uninformed, Foothill Ranch is a part of my small hometown of Lake Forest, CA). What are the chances? She legitimately enjoyed our suburban paradise. We also met the U.S.-German Consul General for Frankfurt, Kevin Milas, and his wife. It always feels nice to get some recognition from the U.S. State Department, which is our program's ultimate administrator. 

I love a good group picture

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It's official - I'm moving this Sunday the 29th to Berlin! I can't believe my awesome time here in Cologne is already over, especially since I'm still processing everything that I've experienced - and blogging about it. Oops.

So as for the week of August 18, on Monday we headed out after class to  the botanical gardens to see some serious foliage and enjoy the not-so-great weather. Lots of cities here in Europe that we've visited have botanical gardens, and Cologne's garden is one of the very best. The plant lover can find everything from cacti to old, thick trees to tropical plant life in its enormous grounds. But the gardens do more than just provide plants for a place to grow - they are also fertile grounds for great pictures!

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Before I continue my attempts to catch up this blog to the present, some news: my time here in Cologne is almost up. On the 30th of September I'll be moving to the Friedenau district of Berlin, which is where my next host family lives. They have already contacted me, and they sound great! I'll be sad to leave my current host dad, in all of his motorcycle-riding, super-healthy, super-environmentally conscious glory, but I'm definitely looking forward to the big move. 

And now - for the events of August 16. Many of us students headed to Maastricht in the Netherlands for the day. Maastricht has a rich history and many historical monuments, and you can get a sense of just how old this city is just by walking down the cobblestone streets and admiring the medieval architecture. These days, it's a major shopping destination - all of the streets in the city center were dedicated to fancy stores of all types. Many Germans come here just to shop. But we aren't German, nor were we there to shop - we had some exploring to do, and just a half day to do it before it was time to head back to Cologne.

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Slowly but surely, I'm catching up to the present day in this blog.... sort of. Let's take a quick look at August 7-14.

Almost every day after class we take the opportunity to explore our city, which always inevitably leads to me taking photos of whatever we're seeing. Our host mom also led Sarah, the fellow program participant who also lives with my host family, and I on bikes to a local bar, where we had a chance to talk about travel plans and language school auf Deutsch.

The Fernsehturm (TV Tower) in Cologne from Media Park. Cologne is a major center for the media industry

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So much happening in so little time! I'll start out with a quick update - I officially found out I will be living, come October 1, with another host family in Berlin! I will be there for the rest of the program, and from October to December I will be attending Freie Universität, one of the 2 major universities in Berlin, to study Politikwissenschaft.

These past two weekends I've been to 5 castles and 4 new cities in Germany! And I have officially taken 3600 pictures since being in Germany, and almost 5000 if you count pictures I took during in Washington, D.C. at the start of this adventure. So there is a lot to go through.

We'll continue with August 6, when after class some friends and I scaled one of the tallest buildings in Cologne, the Triangle Tower. It's only 103 meters high (30 stories), but there isn't much competition for the "tallest buildings in Cologne" category. (As I mentioned before, many buildings in Cologne are subject to height restrictions in order to protect the view of the cathedral). 

We took an elevator up to the top and were rewarded with quite the view in every direction. 

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Slowly but surely, I'm getting this blog up to date... Now I'm writing about Sunday, August 3 - the second half of my first weekend in Germany.

My day started quite early thanks to the incessant ringing of church bells right outside my window at 8:30 am (which is pretty early for a non-morning person). The church responsible for the racket isn't even particularly old or historical (by European standards - it's about 60 years old, which would make it a monument in L.A.), so I may still be a bit bitter.

Sarah, the other program participant living with my host family, and I live way out in a northern part of the city called Longerich. It feels like a suburb but is still within the city limits of Cologne. After a walk to the station and a quick train ride, we were in the center of the city, where we met up with some friends and explored our new stomping grounds.

The exterior of the Cologne cathedral, which has fast become one of my most favorite buildings

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Today's the 24th of August... but I have yet to write about July 30th, the first day I arrived in Germany! Oops! Here goes.

We flew Luthansa, of course, into Frankfurt and bussed to Budenheim, where we were to have our orientation sessions with our German program administrators. We had the afternoon off, so I took the opportunity to play some Kegelbahn (German bowling, which is much harder than the American sort), try my hand at foosball, play table tennis (a major pastime here, with many competitive clubs and leagues),  and take a walk in the surrounding area. 

Only in Europe could you take a short stroll and happen across an old stone tower built in the 1800s - and that's just what we did! I found a German webpage that tells me a local painter and stuccoer named Adam Allendorf constructed a platform that still offers views of the Rhine River and the nearby city of Mainz.

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Continuing with the retro-blogging, live from Cologne!

On  July 27, I spent my last free day in D.C. seeing what few things I had not gotten to already in the previous three days. Ranjani and I started out in the National Gallery of Art, where we saw works from the likes of Titian, Van Gogh, Raphael, Monet, and Picasso. 

I love this sort of art! "Multiverse" by Leo Villareal

Still can't believe I saw some of Van Gogh's work!

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As usual, everything here in Cologne is still amazing! Just in the last 5 days I sampled some German wine's at the city's Wine Week, headed out to dinner with another program participant and her host family, visited the city's botanical gardens, and took a day trip to Maastricht! Lots of excitement over here. But there are still events in the U.S. about which I have not yet blogged, so here goes - some of my last memories on American soil for the next 365 days.

On July 26th, I continued my pre-orientation sightseeing blitz through D.C., this time with my host Ranjani by my side. I started out at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History. From neanderthal skeletons to a preserved giant squid, this place has it all, including a hall full of countless rooms displaying innumerable gems and crystals. It also had an installation where you could touch a meteorite that fell from Mars. Between touching that and the moon rock in the Air and Space Museum the day before, I think it's safe to say I've basically been to space.

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Life here in Cologne is as awesome and busy as ever! I can't wait to blog about it. But the reality of the situation is that, once again, my progress trudging through the thousands of photos I've taken since the start of my experience is lagging way behind the pace of real life. So, it's time to continue with retroactive blogging! 

On Friday July 25, I continued the world's fastest sightseeing blitz of D.C., starting at 6:30 a.m. as I took the train back to the National Mall. A quick note about D.C. residents - every last one of them loves reading the newspaper or a political novel during their commute on the train. In L.A., everyone on the train simply zones out or listens to music. Not so in the nation's capital. It's been 2 days and I'm already spotting cultural differences! Neat!

After a 2 hour wait to snag tickets for ascending the Washington Monument later, it was off to see over a hundred years of aviation history at the country's most frequently visited museum - the National Air and Space Museum! But first, there was still time to snag some morning shots of the Washington Monument. Priorities, people.

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