Beginning in Bonn

Welcome back everyone!  Because I did a post so early yesterday, I still have a lot to say about last night.  Also, I updated the itinerary page so  Firstly, Bonn is lovely.  We all gathered around noon yesterday, with this dude named Bjorn as our guide.  So very German.  So we marched onto the bus and rode on die Autobahn up to Bonn.  Not as exciting as I had imagined, but the German countryside is way prettier than the Spain.  Lots of green, pleasing rolling hills, little towns with red roofs clustered on said hills, and many windmills.  It's nice to look at for sure.

We arrived in Bonn, settled our stuff in the hotel (which follows that good old european tradition of no air conditioning... it's not as hot as southern united states or Spain, but its still uncomfortably toasty).  Then, around 5:30, we began our walk to our evening dining place. 

Before I get into that, I feel like no one knows what Bonn is, or its significance, or anything like that.  It was one of the farthest out roman cities, and it sits comfortably on the Rhine.  It's seen a lot of wars, mostly with the pesky French that keep trying to extend their border to the Rhine... but it's also survived a lot of wars too.

It was largely ignored during the world wars, thus it was one of the few major cities to remain intact after WWII.  That might be the reason it was established as the capitol of West Germany following the split, maybe it was because of how inconspicuous it was... that seemed to be what was implied.  It was where a lot of people doing coverty stuff with East Germany holed up, or something.  Anyway.  It isn't the capitol anymore, and so all Bonn's really got going for it is......... Beethoven.

We walked into this pub-like place, except it was way more expensive than any pub... not to worry, our meal there was already payed for.  This place is called "Gafthaus im Stiefel", and it was apparently where every musician's favorite fan of the repeat used to drink and play piano.  Which we didn't know at the time, so we walked in and saw a piano that you can play at and thought it was a super neat idea.  Some of the people in our group play piano, so they took turns serenading the restaurant.

It was a really fancy restaurant, but I eventually got some smoked salmon, potato cakes, and some kind of weird herb sauce.  I liked it all right, but I wouldn't get it again.  Even the potato cakes were a bit too fancily done.

Most of the group stayed behind to drink from their vast beer menu, so the few of us that don't drink decided to FINALLY go to bed.  We wandered back to the metro... and couldn't find the entrance.  After a walk, we managed to get on the zippy underground choo choo and made it back to the hotel where we promptly crashed.

NEXT DAY!

I intentionally left the curtains open so the morning light would wake me up.  Clever me!  I woke right at 7:00 and had just enough time to dress and eat before we met our other guide lady.

We got back on the choo choo to make for the history museum, and met our lovely tour guide.  The museum in question is a history museum that covered German history from 1945-2013.  Probably because during most of that time,  Bonn was the capitol so it makes sense to have that period in focus.  We explored the different arguments in favor for and against both political systems of East and West Germany... why the former ended up not working and while the latter still more or less functions.

Of course, other things were talked about, such as the Munich olympics, Volkswagen's noble history (hahaha), the formation of the EU, and that Germany is quite sad that their formerly close political buddies seem to be leaving them in favor of a different path.

We also saw a bat house.  That's a thing here in Bonn.
Bat houses.  Everywhere. 

Then we met with a different tour guide and walked around the historic portion of Bonn.  All of it.  All four streets.  Yep.  Big city.  It used to be bigger.  Then a few fires and some big wars came, and it got chewed up and spat back out.  People forget just how torn up Germany was after World War 2.  That's why most of the major cities are so modern looking- very little was left un-kaboomed after the war.

We saw the Rhine, pretty river, nice and big.  Lovely mountains in the background.  We saw the home of the very popular bishop that governed Bonn for a while, it's now a university... we saw Karl Marx's apartment from when he studied in Bonn, a bunch of pigeons, the remains of a medieval wall that got torn down to build the metro, an "old Catholic" church that was smushed into the city after one of their many fires, and Beethoven's house.

Old Catholic Church.  Not called old because the
church is old- though it is.  Old Catholicism is a mostly
German branch of  Catholicism. 

 We ate at a fancy burger shop for lunch.  Fancy, meaning the burgers weren't greasy and gross and were made with probably real meat.  Unless you got a veggie burger like me.  They had some weird choices, such as walnut patties, olive patties... whaaat?  I got a spinach burger with pesto and some hard cheese.  I also had a tasty mango-ginger lemonade that was to die for.

Then we went to the Beethoven house.  It was stupid hot in there, and the museum itself was disappointing.  It had nothing about him as a person and just showed some pictures and stuff that he owned from his other house.  It had some pianos and violins that he played too, which was cool, but it was a self-guided tour through a house with limited signage, and the signage that they did was in pompous german.  Whatever.  Was cool enough.

Then we came back!  We have the rest of the evening off, but since we have to wake up absurdly early tomorrow, I'm hitting the hay early again tonight.

Beethoven's first home.  Although he never
actually owned it.