upon arriving, we headed directly to the birthplace of ludwig van beethoven, a site that was a must-see on my list. we
entered the house, which has been converted into a museum that houses all sorts of writings, pictures, scores and instruments from beethoven's life. although his family only lived in the house for the first few years of his life before moving to another home within the city, the house (and one adjoining it) were purchased and preserved.the tour itself was self-guided and not the most interesting or enthralling, but still something i definitely wanted/needed to see (although, truth be told, i am more of a bach fan than anything when it comes to german composers). the house was also creaky as can be (as johannes said, no wonder they moved!) and it housed two of beethoven's pianos, which i would have touched (kind of like when my father touched the rosetta stone at the british museum) were it not for someone in the room watching my every move. in the adjoining house was a computer lab with all kinds of beethoven-related activities...following along with copies of the original scores was pretty awesome but also crazy difficult.
when we were done with the tour, we were met by johannes' cousin, anna, and her boyfriend matthias. the four
of us then wandered through a town square of sorts, which was absolutely beautiful, full of buildings with stunning design and architecture. the town hall in particular reminded me of rococo kind of style. kind of cool to note is i saw someone with a new trust t-shirt. random! anyway, we all got ice cream (i had blueberry...mmm!) and then ventured down to a grassy area just next to the rhine, where we sat on a blanket and talked. the weather was perfect for afternoon vegging.before long, anna had to head to class, so we walked with her, and i was blown away by how
gorgeous the university was, particularly when compared to the buildings at university of köln. apparently, the school used to be a castle that was built for some prince of sorts. talk about awesome. we said our goodbyes and anna told us if we walked about 900 meters further we'd run into said castle. so off we went.now köln is an awesome city, but bonn is simply just so beaut
iful, with many homes and buildings preserved quite well...it appears as though destruction from the war was rather minimal in the area. i could totally see myself living there, and the walk down to the castle was serene as can be. the courtyard of the castle had cars (faculty?) which was kind of silly to see, but still very cool. we didn't look at it for long though, as we had to make it back to catch our train back.once back, we stopped at the store to get food for our bbq later that evening. all i really wanted was corn, but got potatoes as a back-up, just in case we couldn't find corn. as luck would have it, there were ears of it available at maybe the third or fourth store we went in. we went back to the house and johannes had a snack while i took a shower, and then it was time to head out. so we stopped at the store to pick up more beer (beck's for j - mühlen kölsch for me) and headed back out to nico's place.
what followe
d next was perhaps the most genuine german experience i could have hoped for. i suddenly found myself in the company of five or six german fellows who were bbqing meat, drinking beer and finding themselves united over the love of the game - football. or, soccer to us americans. yes, yes, it was the uefa final, and ukraine played germany. unfortunately, the country we were rooting for lost (2-1), but they put up a good fight for sure.more importantly, we all had a fantastic time, and much prosting (yes, i made up a verb) was had by all. post-game, we listened to the sweet tunes of die fantastischen vier before it was time to head back, in ord
er to catch the last train. so i paused for a quick snapshot with our gracious host (nico, the aforementioned superhuman) and then it was back to the city. and twenty minutes and some beers later, we arrived back in barbarossaplatz - happy, drunk and sleepy. so it was off to bed in preparation of an early rising the next morning. suffice to say, i slept like a baby.
No comments:
Post a Comment