Bonn, Germany

Hello, all!

As per usual, I'm backed up on posts, so this will be part 1 of 4 for this weekend.

I didn't have any travel plans at the beginning of last week, so naturally I booked trips to go to four different cities in five days a couple of days in advance. Yay for Europe and easy travel.  I was recently informed about a lovely little thing called the regional train ticket, which pretty much means you can travel as much as you want in the region for one day for about 8 Euros if you have a small group.  It's hard to stay put when there's so much to do out there for so little money.

My first city of the weekend was Bonn, former capital of Germany.  A nice thing about semi-spontaneous travel is learning as you go, which in my case often means pulling up Trip Advisor's list of top attractions on my phone while on the train.  Through the tourism cyber-mecca, I learned that Bonn was the birthplace of Beethoven, so his childhood home was the first stop.  Taking pictures in the house/museum wasn't allowed (as I was told rather forcefully by a woman who pulled my arm down and then proceeded to stalk me for the rest of my visit), but I prevailed and managed to take a couple anyway.  I'm getting good at this.  

The console of the organ Beethoven played in a Bonn church from age 10.

We went to a beautiful church after that, but I'm going to try really hard to not post every church I enter on here.  This is going to be difficult as churches and cathedrals are my favorite things to visit when traveling, but I suppose that's what my Facebook pictures are for (check em out!). 

Our next major stop was the National Museum of Contemporary German History, which covered from the end of World War II until now.  It was also free, which is one word guaranteed to brighten my day lately.  We were lucky enough to catch the last weekend of an extremely interesting exhibit called "The American Way." It was all about the US's relationship with and influence on Germany from World War I to present day.  It included propaganda posters, German approval ratings of the US, WWII memorabilia, a section about Elvis and blue jeans, pieces of the Twin Towers, Lady Gaga, and Snowden.  It was interesting to gain an outside perspective of our country and an inside perspective of Germany.

Reagan: "Is This Man Dangerous?"

Picture sent to US from German schoolchild after 9/11

"Alone Against America, Edward Snowden: Hero and Traitor"

The final stops of the trip were a giant Haribo store (gummies...gummies everywhere) and the Bonn Minster, a Roman Catholic church (welp, that didn't take long).  It is one of the oldest churches in Germany and was built sometime between the 11th and 13th centuries.

After a long day, I returned back to Vallendar to sleep and prepare to do it all over again the next day.  And the next... and the next...