our story
our study abroad
We had technically met one time the summer before while we were both interning in Austin, but for all intents and purposes, we’ll start the story here.
This is our very first picture together on our very first weekend in Bonn, Germany! We found a flea market with a huge American flag. We were not expecting to see that in Germany!
Adam deliberately sat himself to Kayla in class, and she conveniently asked him if he wanted to be in the same group… for every single class project.
Here we are on a bike tour through Bonn, Germany, the city where we were staying during our experience. This was one of the first things we did as a class, and we conveniently stuck together the entire time. Kayla even gave Adam a friendship bracelet she had found in her bag. She says she wasn’t flirting, but she definitely was. This is about the time when our classmates started secretly placing bets on if they thought we would get together.
Here’s our first official trip with our friends! We went to Brussels, Belgium. It was quite the adventure. Here we are in the main plaza where we stayed out until 5 am talking to these French people who weren’t scared to jump right into politics! Thank goodness for the kind French lady on our journey home who saved us on the 2 hour turned 8 hour train ride home back to Bonn.
Once we were more experienced with the trains, we ventured down to our second group trip of the semester to Triberg, Germany, in the Black Forest. Here’s all of our friends enjoying a Pilsner at our hostel, which had a bunch of different themed campers for all of our friends to stay in! Adam stayed in a yellow submarine, and Kayla stayed in a Route 66, American-themed camper.
Next stop… Berlin! This is the profile picture Kayla took of Adam for his Instagram account that she “strongly encouraged” him to get. It was really just so she could have an excuse to exchange funny videos with him as a method of flirting.
We immediately hopped on a train after our class trip to Berlin to Prague. Here we are sitting next to each other at a restaurant that brings your food by miniature trains! How cool is that?
This is the very first time Kayla and Adam ever held hands! They were walking home from a bar called Karlovy Lazne and Kayla grabbed Adam’s hand. Now, Kayla knew Adam liked her but she was being careful to hide the fact that she liked him, so she decided it was about time to make her opinion known! Her classmates were very excited for this moment and immediately began to capture it!
The next day, we toured a castle, and our friend gave us her AirPods to listen to this song she recommended (which was conveniently a love song). Adam grabbed Kayla’s hand, and they strolled down the hill that the castle was on, listening to this sweet music, and made their way to the park where couples picnicked under beautiful shade trees. It was probably the most romantic moment of both of their lives. Love was in the air!
Now that we had made our public debut as having “mutual romantic interest”, it felt like a movie. We had so much fun doing things together and with our amazing friends who were with us on the trip! All of our friends camped out in tiny little tents on the ground for two nights so we could go to Oktoberfest for cheap. It was a crazy experience that we only want to experience once! Kayla dressed in a Dirndl and Adam wore Lederhosen. He even bought a fun hat with a feather! We got into the HB tent, talked to some cool people, rode some rides, and shared our very first kiss!
When we got back from Oktoberfest, we had our first date! It was at this Greek restaurant called Olive. We didn’t want the date to be over, so we took a stroll and stumbled upon the Rhine River! Walking along the Rhine quickly became a staple of our time in Germany together! The only bad thing was all the rats! Yuck!!
Then we had our second date: authentic German food!
And our third date: Ethiopian food!
Our fourth date: Turkish food!
Our class took a field trip to Rotterdam and we ventured to Amsterdam for the weekend! We went to the Van Gogh Museum and went all out to rent the headset and listen to what they have to say!
We went on a beautiful paddle boat tour of Amsterdam and got to see the beautiful city! Our friend Lauren was in the back, third wheeling. We were happy to have her along!
This is our class after our fieldtrip to go see a big pile of trash that they turned into a park! There was a trampoline so we worked all of our energy out and needed a nap!
Speaking of fieldtrips, we went one one earlier in the year and both of us lost track of time and were the last ones on the bus. We ran through the parking lot into the bus and when we got on everyone starts yelling “OOOOO” really loud including our professor!
Our whole class painted our faces like Spiderman to go to Cologne for their famous Carnival! It was a culture shock to see everyone in public drinking at 7 am! Our class got there too late and everyone was drunk, and the streets were disgusting. We still had fun though, and got some silly pictures!
This is us outside the Bonn Minster church! We went there just about every Sunday! We went to so many beautiful churches while we were there, including the Cologne Cathedral, which was breathtaking! We enjoyed sharing our faith on our trip and had many, many, MANY theological discussions and deep talks that drew us very close.
This is Adam playing with Kayla’s host family. We loved both of our host families so much and were sad to leave them. They were so welcoming and kind and very supportive of our relationship!
Here we are at our favorite hangout spot in Bonn, Dubliners. They had karaoke, and we got to sing a bunch! They played some good songs from the early 2000s, and the DJ was British!
This is us at our very last date in Germany: a walk along the Rhine River! It was so sweet to talk about all the things we had experienced and how grateful we are for having the opportunity to go on this trip. We were ready to head back to the U.S. and continue our relationship throughout our lives back home!
