Cologne/Bonn Week 2, Tuesday

Today we each chose an item from a list of things that annoy people, like dog poop, winter months, bedroom mosquitoes, nude beaches, and lawn mowers.  With this item, we had to play the role of someone who loves that thing, and give reasons why you love it.  I chose rubber trees, which are a popular house plant in Europe.  I decided it would make a good chew toy for a dog, an afternoon snack for a cat, something you can throw out the window when you’re upset, and something you can stare at when you’re really bored. 

We ended class early and went to the LD house and saw the prison cells where 36 people were packed into an approximately 8’x15’ cell.  Here they tortured and hung people in the basement.  Upstairs were where the “offices” used to be for the Nazi organization.  I put that in quotations because that’s what the rooms were officially called, but the true purpose of those rooms is unknown.  We walked through the first half of the exhibits, where Professor Mainka explained them, and the second half, we were assigned to explore for ourselves and present our explanation of the room to the class.  My group’s was one of the last ones, about life in Köln during WWII.  It was a very interesting museum and we learned a lot about the Gestapo and the Nazis and life for the people in Köln during the Third Reich. 

In the afternoon, we left for Bonn to go to a tour of the History Museum of Bonn.  I wanted to get pictures of the city, but I forgot my camera back at the hostel, so unfortunately I have no pictures of today L.  Hopefully tomorrow I will have my camera with me to take pictures when we go back to Bonn.  Anyway, we went to the history museum and our tour guide spoke the clearest German I’ve heard so far here in Germany.  He was a very good speaker and learning about the history of the Cold War was really interesting.  One thing that really helped was they gave us earphones and he had a microphone that he talked into, and we could hear him much better especially with all the background noise.

After the museum tour, we headed straight back to Köln.  The museum is connected to the U-Bahn, the subway system, so we literally didn’t even step outside in Bonn.  I was a little bit disappointed we didn’t get to explore the city, but I know everyone was feeling really tired and wanted to get back to do some laundry at a laundromat in town.  We’re going back tomorrow, so hopefully we will then.

Once we got back to Köln, we were going to go up to the highest lookout point in Köln, at the top of a tall building, but it was closed so we went to the Altstadt to find some dinner.  After looking around for a while we went to the river where the Fischmarkt area is and went to a restaurant that had fish and chips (my favorite dish!!) on special.  It was super good, and was a nice break from sausage and döners.

My belly likes Haribo

My belly kind of likes döners maybe

After our late dinner, I came back and read a little bit before working on some homework and then skyping with Janie.  We’re going through a book together, and I was looking forward to talking with her all day!  I’m starting to feel a touch of homesickness.  It’s growing little by little every day, but I know that’s normal.