RISE Conference: Heidelberg

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The first weekend of July was our program conference in Heidelberg! Everyone who is in Germany for this scholarship program met up in the south for two days of lectures and sightseeing. We learned about other scholarships for continuing your studies in Germany, and some students also gave presentations on what they'd been working on in their internship so far.

We left at 3am on July 5th, so we spent the night of the Fourth of July lighting sparklers and hanging out at a music festival in Bochum! After that though, we just waited in McDonald's until our bus arrived...

Look how cute the streets are!

This is so cool! Maybe I can convince my professor to take us to Germany instead of LA to see the tunneling construction sites next time :)

Heidelberg's history was so fun to learn about, and every building we came across was more beautiful than the last. I'm not totally sure what this one is though... 
This Protestant church in Heidelberg was way prettier than the Catholic one, but it was really cool to learn about the rich religious history of this region.


The bridge!

The bridge tower 
The Catholic church did have really beautiful ceilings though

This is part of the University, where they offer every subject except engineering. What a coincidence :(

Standing on the bridge, you have a great view of the castle!

The river was my favorite part! This is the view from the castle on the hill.


The castle also contained a pharmacy museum, which included "medicines" such as opium, cocaine, and whiskey.

I also got to see one of my friends from Colorado! Her dad is in the Army and is stationed in Ramstein, so she and her friends came over for the day to hang out.

We spent one night with Megan's friend in a neighboring city, and the first thing we did there was get Spaghetti Ice! It's vanilla ice cream, strawberry sauce, and white chocolate sprinkles made to look like spaghetti. Super popular in Germany!

We also went to a 90s themed party with Megan's friends. I think she followed the theme a little better than I did!

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