What? It’s Sunday? How did that even happen? Honestly, my week went by so fast that I can’t even remember what we did on which day, so bear with me here. It was a weird week full of strange recreational activities, random field trips, and sore legs, but good nonetheless.
Strange Recreational Activities
So my host mom and her boyfriend like to go motorcycle driving. A lot. Not particularly strange in moderation, but when she’s gone for four days, I start to think it a little odd. Four days is a lot of time to be riding around on a motorcycle. Actually they went to some kind of convention or something that was at some place that somehow revolved around motorcycles (gimmie a break, everything’s in German). I guess I’m not the one to criticize. After all, I spent a week last summer doing nothing but playing French Horn. Oh, and next week she’s going to be gone too, doing the same thing for a few days again, but I’ll be at my brother’s wedding then anyway, so it doesn’t affect me (Not gonna lie, I’m super excited).
As a result of all that, I was fending for myself at the end of this week, sort of. I had microwave dinners for a couple meals, but I found ways to get some better food, like going to dinner with my real family who are now living with my brother in Bonn. It was Italian, and it was heavenly. I now know that I don’t really like wine, however.
Not only was my host mom gone, but also my German teacher, except she was going rock climbing. Not just rock climbing, but extreme rock climbing. For a whole week. Without food or water. And without using her feet. No, but seriously she went rock climbing for the entire week while she left our class to do random things that were not learning German. I think we were supposed to learn German, but our sub got sick the second day he was to be covering for her, so we went on random field trips, which brings me to topic number 2.
Bonus Question: What involves beer, man powered vehicles, and a bunch of crazy Kölners? The beer bike of course! Six or more hop on this moving bar powered by the pedaling of the drunk guys sitting on the barstools, enjoying the scenery around them while they move up and down the streets of downtown Köln. Or maybe they’re just enjoying the beer. Only in Germany. . .
Random Field Trips
While our teacher was gone we had this super awesome sub, for one day (just my class of about 8 people). On that day we visited the Federal Center for Political Education which is a place where anyone can go and pick up some information about political stuff. There are tons of books to choose from so that one can be well informed about hot political issues, government organizations, history, and other related subjects. The books are cheap, informative, unbiased (as far as I can tell, they are in German), and cover a wide range of topics. It was created after WWII for fairly obvious reasons considering the position Germany was in after that war, and is, in my opinion, a great way to make reliable information easily accessible for the common citizen. I personally found the material very difficult to read, but I try anyway. I got a book about protest songs that were created from after the war until today. It came with CDs that had the 43 songs on them too, so I was very happy (only six euros, I might add).
The next day our sub was sick, so we went with another guy who works at the AIB, our school, to a modern art museum. Turns out we were there an hour before it opened, so he bought us coffee. Yay! The museum was . . . well. . . modern art. You know how that goes. Apparently the people that make sure nobody does anything wrong there are really anal. They wouldn’t even let me take notes with a pen, only a pencil.
As if that wasn’t already too much standing around and walking through exhibits, we went with the whole group after that to a technical museum, a quite cramped one for 25 people at that. This was actually really interesting. There was stuff like a video of someone’s intestine that had a round worm, a liquid that was magnetic, and an electron particle accelerator. I thought it was fun, at least. At the end of the day, my legs were kinda tired, but I’d actually started getting used to all the walking that comes with the lifestyle here in Germany. Little did I know that my legs would really be put to the test in the near future.
Sore legs
I guess they’re not as sore as I’d like to exaggerate them to be, but I did have a very active couple of days recently. On Friday, our group went south along the Rhein by bicycle to a historical location where a bridge used to be during WWII. The side that we were biking on was pretty flat, so it made for a nice ride, but the opposite side had the Sieben Gebirge and other beautiful hills (or small mountains, I suppose) that were absolutely stunning. It was perfect weather too, the only problem was that Germany doesn’t really have drinking fountains. I brought a bottle, but it soon ran out, so I filled it up at a bathroom tap (it’s usually ok to do that, I swear). Little did I know that that was not entirely the most potable water. It came from the Rhein without being sanitized. It was clear, and looked like it was good to drink, so I drank it unknowingly. After drinking about half of my bottle, I was informed of the sanitation issues it had. Too late. Here I am at home with dysentery. I’m typing this in the bathroom right now, in fact. Too much information? All right, I’m just kidding, everything’s okay. Anyway it was 21 miles round trip, unless I’m mistaken, and I enjoyed every bit of it.
Let’s see, I pretty much walked all day Saturday, too. I explored Cologne, where there are always interesting things going on. A bounty of street performers are ever present. Musicians, magicians, statue people, people that just paint themselves and don’t really look like statues, because it’s too windy, you name it. And then there’s the Beer Bike, but I already told you about that. After Cologne, I had a wonderful dinner with my real family, since my Dad just came into town. It made my tummy happy. Oh, and I got my French Horn back! Hooray!
Ende
So, I guess that’s it. Oh wait, there is something else. I don’t think I’m here entirely legally for the year yet. I need a visa, but since I was born in Germany there were complications. The German government needs to find my papers from where I was born and dig up any records they have of me being in Germany. You know how governments run: really slowly, so I haven’t heard anything back yet. I feel kinda like an illegal immigrant however. Or like I should have some mysterious past that I can’t let the government know about or else they’ll kick me out of the country. Oh well, nothing to do but sit and wait.
Oh, and here’s one more thing that I found interesting and strange about Germany. At least in Bonn and Cologne, they are really not that particular about recycling as I had assumed. I remember in Hamburg all the trash cans were split into parts, but here there are much more regular trash cans and a surprising amount of litter. Nor are they particular about bike paths. As a pedestrian I try to stay off of the bike path at all times in fear of getting run over, but I noticed during the bike ride that a lot of Germans ride on the pedestrian path, which is kind of annoying. Oh and one more thing that I wrongly assumed about Germans here. While they all have little bells on their bikes, hardly any of them use it. I don’t know how many time a bike snuck up on me and passed me, startling me as they passed. Again, kind of annoying, but I’m not one to complain. This country is awesome, and I love it.
Peace out,
Skez
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