Bonn

This weekend I visited Bonn and Cologne, and stayed with a friend of a family friend, Diana, and her husband and three children. It was a very nice weekend - staying in a home, eating home-cooked meals, lots of fun. I stayed in their youngest son's room - he's a huge soccer fan, and had a Foosball table in his room. I got there on Friday evening, and the whole family watched the England world cup game. They were pretty upset about Germany losing to Serbia earlier in the day. I didn't get to watch most of that game because I had to catch my train, but I did watch some of it at the train station (I got there really early because I was nervous I wouldn't be able to figure the station out. I should remember that I am a public transportation master. I got ice cream and watched the game.) Everyone was wearing flags in their hair, or had their faces painted with flags. It seems like no one was at work during the game.

Anyway, on Saturday, in the morning, Diana brought me first, to the Haribo outlet - a store with nothing but gummy bears. It was like being a little kid on Christmas - I got to fill a box with all the different gummies I wanted. They not only had normal gummy bears, but bigger bears, too, and bats, and soccer balls, and soccer players, and trophies... It was amazing.
Then we went to a German history museum, which I found to be very interesting. It focused on Germany after WWII, rebuilding the country, establishment of a democratic state, the cold war, reunification, etc. In high school history classes, we learned about European history, but we mainly focused on WWII, and then the cold war, not going in to much detail on the rebuilding of Europe after the war. I hadn't realized the extent to which Germany had been completely bombed in the course of the war. Bonn did not get heavily bombed, but Cologne was completely destroyed except for the cathedral. Wurzburg was also completely bombed, with only the Residenz remaining intact.
After the museum, I met up with Friederike, Diana's oldest daughter, who is finishing her 11th year of school. She showed me around Bonn, which was really nice. Because it wasn't heavily bombed, the city still has the old Europe feel, not the 'hastily rebuilt in the early 50s' feel.
First we walked by the university at Bonn. Here is the grassy area where students sit outside and read:

And here's the main university building. European schools don't really have a 'campus' in the way that American schools do - there are a bunch of university buildings, but they're not all together, and not arranged around a quad. But, they are still very pretty.

Then, we went to, I think, the coolest place in all of Germany - Beethoven's house. This is the house in which he was born and grew up. He eventually moved to Vienna to study and do most of his work, but he was BORN IN THIS HOUSE. They had one of his pianos!!

Friederike and I also went to a Starbucks, which, of course, I loved. The frappucino I had was more coffee flavored, and less fake caramel flavored. In related news, the gummy bears here taste a lot more like fruit, and a lot less like sugar. They're not as sweet as American candy, but I think they're actually much better.

On Sunday, Diana and I went to Cologne. First, we went to the chocolate museum, of course.
Inside, they first talk about growing and producing cocoa, and had a little rainforest, so people could see where cocoa comes from.

They also had a display by Lindt, showing how the actual chocolate candies are made - they showed how to make chocolate bars, truffles, and all different sorts of chocolate molds. They gave us some chocolate from this chocolate fountain:

Here are some of their molds: CAMELS! I tried to find camel chocolates or molds to get for mom, but they weren't for sale.


After the chocolate factory, we went to the cathedral. It was huge, and built in the 1200s. Everything in Germany that wasn't destroyed in the war is so old!




I then took a train ride back that went along the Rhine for a while - I must have seen around 20 castles, just sitting on hills overlooking the river. Everything was so pretty. I also finally figured out how to figure out where my reserved seat is on trains. Only took me 3 train rides to do so...

And this morning I gave a brief lab meeting presentation, and have been making bacterial media all day. ew.