You’re a wizard Harry !!

When in London, make sure to book a sketchy looking apartment building that the first 10 minutes of finding it feels like the beginning of a horror film. A short man staring down the hallway at you, not saying anything is always a good way to start the night off.

Never judge a book by it’s cover, because the apartment was beautiful inside.
Some how we made it to the Harry potter studio tour though and I already can feel the magic. I’m geeking out just from the hog warts music playing in the back ground.
Experiencing the making of Harry potter and being able to see everything behind the scenes was LITERALLY MAGICAL. The amount of work, detail, dedication, and wonder that went into the design and prep of shooting the movies is something you would never be able to grasp or appreciate if you haven’t gone to the studios. AND I DIDNT EVEN READ THE BOOKS! Haha

Berlin’s welcome to me

Berlin’s welcome to me was a little similar to my welcome in Amsterdam which required me to fear for my life. Except this time, on a much lesser scale. We arrived after an 8 hour bus ride to go on our city tour. The tour began by me getting yelled at in German by an angry lady on a bike. Nothing says welcome to a new city by an insult I don’t know and construction sites everywhere. Hmmm, add in the traffic, and it feels just like home!!

With that nice of a start, the tour only could get better. The city itself is such a clash of trying to establish a unified identity, there’s a strong mixture of new and old ideologies everywhere you look.

We saw the remnants of the division of east and West Berlin and the reminders of communist times. We even stood in the same square that adolf hitler spoke at several rallies. It was insane to believe I was actually at the place of such pivotal points in history.

In order for the universe to balance out some of the horror, the square of the rallies is also the place where THE FIRST POTATO was planted. Talk about a juxtaposition.
We also walked through where the book burning took place and were able to see a haunting memorial of empty bookshelves that the 50,000 burned books could fill. It was an amazing remembrance.
There’s so much more this city has to offer and I can’t wait to experience it.

Red lights

Roxanne, you don’t have to put on your red light, roxaneeee.

This weekend we went to Amsterdam !
After waking up at the crack of dawn to meet up with the group we finally made it to Amsterdam 🙂

From there we went to the IBC conference and saw the future of the film industry as well as broadcast. New technologies that we were able to actually use and test out, like 4k led displays, 3 axis camera designed to keep a steady shot when running around filming the action! I felt like iron woman, but it was awesome. We are the future of the industry and definitely the youngest people out of everyone that was there…so we stuck out a smidge.
Amsterdam as a whole was beautiful, yet dangerous. We did not feel safe after almost being hit by first a train then a bus and then fast bikers!! Crosswalks literally mean nothing there & pedestrians have the last right of way. Bikes the first..
Once I got past the fearing for my life thing…we explored some inspiring places.

We visited the Anne Frank house and it was incredible to stand in the actual spot were she used to live and write and hide. If only walls could talk. You could just feel the presence of all the history and events that had happened. It was inspiring and emotional for me especially watching the video of Anne frank’s best friend recounting their interactions through the wall at the concentration camp. The acts of love and friendship that managed to persist in the most horrible situations, truly moves me.
After this, we then experienced the Van Gogh museum and I loved it! The museum display and color coordination and just the way the gallery was set up gave me a great taste of his work without sensory overloading me. My favorites are Sunflowers and Irises and Seaside. Being able to see his work up close and personal gave me a new appreciation for his work. I wish my sister would have been able to see it! She’d be so proud of me embracing the art world:)

The red light district made me a little uncomfortable and I didn’t know exactly how to react to it. I don’t think ill ever be comfortable with some of the things in Amsterdam though…

All in all I’m thankful for this experience, but happy to be back in Bonn 😀

Gummy

Gummy Wummy was a BEAR! Today after class we got to travel to the Haribo store which is basically Costco of the gummy candy world. It was amazing, yet I had major difficulty in deciding what to buy..no surprise there! Now if only there were as many samples as Costco…THEN we’d be in business. 😀

I can ride my bike w/no handle bars

Not too much to report except for the man on the bus with a razor scooter&bike tire..the tire was nothing special but his perfectly groomed handle bar mustache was superb!!

Keep it up & thanks for making my day!

Sunday is funday/recap day

Sunday is officially fun day and I’m so thankful for my host dad and sister to take me to my little kid fantasy land of the chocolate factory in köln !!!
It was literally raining chocolate from a fountain and out of faucets! I can’t explain my enthusiasm except that it was like me at Disneyland !

Not to mention the perfume museum where we were asked to smell a plethora of things that I had no idea what the German tour guide (dressed in a full out wig and 16th century proper attire) was explaining to the rest of the group. I basically wafted and smiled along which made the whole group laugh because he apparently had asked me what the difference in smell was and I simply smiled and said “mmmhm”…I’d like to point out how he was dressed and then ask if he is allowed to make fun of ME..
We also got gelato along the rhein and it was beautiful to see an old cathedral where a couple spontaneously harmonized in Latin.

This weekend we went to Köln also and climbed to THE TOP OF THE HIGHEST CATHEDRAL IN ALL GERMANY! It was amazing to be that high and frightening at the same time. The view from the top is quite a sweet one though I must say.

I also want a lock on the love bridge someday. I’m not opposed to locking myself to a huge heavy piece of metal when the time comes 🙂 it’s just amazing to see how many people are and believe in love still. Faith in humanity officially restored.

If you had one shot

After two 14 hour days and acting out the same sides for two days straight, I finally know how it feels to be a casting director. Although, I absolutely loved it!! & it’s good practice 🙂
Today we had another long day with our first ever German quiz…woo! As long as I don’t have to speak it there’s hope.
We then went on a walking historical tour with Reiner who gave us lots of fairtytale myths and told us none of them are real…Way to ruin little red riding hood and rapunzel for us.. 😝
Then we had to rehearse for our performance on Saturday at the big welcome party! However, it wouldn’t be complete with a hand opened keg with an authentic German hammer.

School is pretty awesome the way they do it over here! Haha
Not to mention I’m extremely excited to rap eminem and time warp-it up for everyone to see 🙂
Once we catch up on sleep our delirious minds might rethink our craziness…..NEHHH
😀

((Also, I dedicate everything today in honor of my wonderful sisters birthday because I wish I was there to celebrate with her))

What you can do all in one day

1. Eat Belgian waffles multiple times
2 find where you wish you could get married. Coincidentally there’s a wedding happening as you discover this
3 find the most awesome play structure and climb it. safety regulations clearly don’t exist where we were…

4. Accidentally find an awesome record store with only the greatest

(Can’t help thinking of your amazing cousin Lauren who introduced you to the classics of rock! :D)

5. Find the famous naked boy//cherub peeing statue known in Brussels only to discover it’s a lot smaller than you imagined..
Also see THE GREATEST MUSTACHE EVER GROWN on the face of the man pushing around a cart spraying water out of a fake cherub statue

6 get lost trying to find the hostel and end up wandering an amazing city so it doesn’t even matter it’s been 6 hours

7 tackle the night life (pink elephants and kebabs possibly included)

8 dance your pants off with the 4 body guard guy friends you travel with. & have everyone else watch as we gungnam style the crap outta Brussels!!
9 plan to do it all over again with no regrets
🙂
Oh and this was the spark notes version.

And in the morning I’m makin waffles!!

Brussels definitely stole my heart and there’s no where else I would have rather been my first free weekend here. It was insanely beautiful and I kept asking my friends to give me more adjectives because I’m sure “omg guys this is so pretty! Isn’t it pretty?” Got very annoying and repetitive. But take a look for yourself at the beauty . I found where I want to get married even. Not to mention killing 2 birds with one stone by getting: a Belgium waffle WITH chocolate on it. Yep pretty smart 🙂

Harass meredith award goes to max this weekend for pushing & climbing over me on the bus back to Bonn.