Three countries in two weeks... Part 2: Germany

First, I guess I have to say, that this doesn't really count since I live in Germany all the time, but since this was a brief interlude between my two other trips and I never actually went home, this does count as traveling! So, I got off my plane in Frankfurt Hahn (the Ryanair airport about 2 hours outside of Frankfurt) and since there was actually no way for me to get back to my town that night, I decided to head to Cologne (also about 2 hours away) and visit H who also has a fellowship from the Germany government. I guess it is now worth having a little aside about German transport since I didn't include my epic train journey in my introduction to Sweden's post. I know I said in an earlier post that I loved German trains because they are never late, are clean, etc. Well, I have learned my lesson! Since it is about a 5 hour journey from my town to Frankfurt Hahn I decided that I would catch an early train just to make sure that I arrived with plenty of time. I am so glad I did. My train was a hour late! The Deutsche Bahn had no other alternatives for me so I just had to wait around and hope that I would be able to catch the last possible bus for me to get my flight. Fortunately, I made all my connections and arrived at the airport about 30 minutes before my flight took off. Thankfully, the airport is tiny, I had already checked in, and only had hand luggage. Looks like I'll be getting my money back for the ticket which is exciting but it was way more stress than I needed at the start of my trip.

So, back to Germany. I arrived in Cologne on the first night of Carnival (the main part occurs in February but it's basically a 4 month party). The town was insane. Having spent most of my time in the last 3 years in small towns I wasn't really ready for a big city. Also, it was quite a culture shock since my limited experience with Germany has been in the East and a trip to the West is almost like being in a different country. Thankfully, I was staying with H and we just toured around and had another nice 3 day holiday. First stop was the Roman Museum. Cologne was a Roman colony (which I got to write a bit about in my thesis) founded by Agrippina the Younger (sister of Caligula, wife of Claudius, mother of Nero). Since I do a lot on provincial religion and Roman colonies it was really fun to wander around the museum and find all the stuff I have read about over the past couple of years. In the city there is also the Praetorium (the provincial governor's residence). They have some amazing Roman stuff and it was great to tour around and see stuff but not really have to work.

Our next stop was Bonn. It's about 30 minutes away on the subway (or by Train). It was the capital of West Germany until the capital was moved back to Berlin after unification. Our real reason for going there was to see Beethoven's house. He was born there and his childhood home has been changed into a museum. H and I spent far too much time in there just playing with some of the computer archives. They have also made a 21st century version of his only opera, which was 3D and consisted of particles rather than actors. Kind of neat but I think I prefer staged opera. After, we walked down the Rhine, then headed back to Cologne.

My last day consisted of heading to some of the shops, and one last stop, the Gestapo headquarters in Cologne. The museum is mostly in German so H and I just sort of looked at pictures and such but probably didn't get as much out of it as we could have. The basement was turned into a prison and there is still all the graffiti from the prisoners on the walls.

To catch my flight to Scotland, I had to leave Cologne at 2:15 in the morning. I was slightly worried by this since the bus left from the Train station and areas around Stations are not usually the best place to be late at night. However, Cologne seems to not do the whole sleeping thing. The streets were still busy just like it was the middle of the day. People were still sitting in restaurants and pubs and, since I was going to be by myself at the train station I figured I'd hang out in the 24 hour McDonalds, the McDonalds was packed with 13 year olds just hanging out. It was surreal. No problem getting the bus and I headed off for my next adventure..... Scotland!