Warum ist der Mensch?

Long overdue greetings to all of you, my family and friends.  The weather here has finally taken a turn for the better… I went outside to a sunny-skied Bonn with temperatures in the high sixties low seventies!  (that’s about 20 °C for those of you using the better temperature system)  I can hardly believe just how nice it is… and just how crazy people are here!  I was walking around the Stadtzentrum (city center) in jeans and a light t-shirt, and I was burning up, while the locals were taking their Sunday strolls in sweaters, wool coats, and scarves.  Then again, I get warm whenever I’m doing something other than sitting still, so maybe I’m just genetically disadvantaged to cope with warm weather, but man.  They were wearing the same clothes that I’ve seen them wearing when it’s thirties. 

So in typical Bonn fashion, I just stepped outside and it started to rain.  Mother Nature needs to calm down…

I’ve been pretty busy on this end of the deal, hence the hiatus in Blog updates.  It’s hard to sit down and spend 45 minutes hammering out something mildly interesting about my adventures in Deutschland when I’ve got a test to study for, but fortunately that’s out of the way, and now I just have the business of registering for classes. Mensch.  I can’t believe how fast this first month has gone by.  The realization has recently hit me that so far I have just been doing an orientation course, and starting in about a week I will actually be starting real school, real university.  I have beaucoup viel (that’s a lot) stuff to do prepare myself for, and I’m not quite ready for it.  I think I’ve experienced an overdose of school the past year and a half, and I’m dragging my feet starting it up again. 

On the other hand, I love learning, and I’m looking forward to getting to meet new people that aren’t just other exchange students.  I’m hoping to meet some more Germans and get more practice in with my German.  So if English is my mother language, is German my father language?  Muttersprache und Vatersprache?  Hmmm. This notion will have to sustain some contemplation.

In addition to the typical day to day life of an American chemist in Bonn (that’s me), there have been some interesting goings on.  Friday we had an Exkursion to the fair city of Aachen, which rests near the border of Belgium and the Netherlands.  There one can find the Aachen Dom (cathedral), a beautiful church erected by … uh, King Karl?  I don’t remember his name.  Karl der Grosse?  Something like that.  Man, I better check on that.  I was once again in awe of the beautiful German architecture.  The church was a good example of architectural motifs that have been used throughout the ages, considering different parts of it were built at different times.  It also had the biggest stained glass windows that I have ever seen.  Boy am I a sucker for stained glass.  I can’t imagine how much that would have cost!

Friends Jennifer and Jessica in front of weird fountain in Aachen...

In other news my friend and roommate from back home, Bryan, came to spend the weekend with me in Bonn.  I was to meet him at the Hauptbahnhof (main train station) at 9 PM on Friday, and naturally he rolled in at about 11:15.  I was starting pretty worried once it hit 10:30, and I was envisioning him stranded in Dusseldorf or something with no means of communication and no German speaking capabilities.  It turns out that there were just some complications of getting shuttled around from airport to train station, so it all worked out, but I was very relieved when I finally arrived.  The train station is not someplace that I recommend hanging out alone at night.  The station itself isn’t so bad, but underneath is the subway station, which is about the equivalent of the armpit of Bonn.  I’m pretty sure I saw a prostitute while I was waiting for Bryan…I know, exciting!  A real prostitute!  Gramma, don’t worry, she was wearing clothes.  Kind of.

Bryan and I had a pretty chill weekend here.  I gave him the walking tour of the fair city of Bonn, and the weather cooperated marvelously.  It was a perfect day to see the city and the surrounding sites.  We were even able to sit at a “biergarten” down by the Rhein and enjoy a beer.  For dinner we met up with a group of my fellows and had a good typical German dinner sitting outside in downtown Bonn.  It was a beautiful night, and for some reason there were all of these strange musical acts around us.  On one side there was a dude playing bag pipes and some people juggling flaming torches, and on the other side there was someone playing guitar.  And it constantly changed.  New musicians came and went, but the bagpipes stayed.  Unfortunately.  He was not doing a very good job, and from the sound of it he only knew a handful of songs; we were blessed with Amazing Grace about 5 times over the course of the evening.  The food was fantastic… I had the “Bayern Teller”  which featured leberkaese, fried eggs, potatoes, and salad.  Fantastic.  Leberkaese is kind of what Spam dreams of being; it sounds kind of gross, but it tastes really good.  I love the food here. 

After a good meal and bizarre entertainment, the group made its  way back to the dorms to watch Arnold Schwarzenager in Predator, which is one classy flick, I have to say.  A great time was had by all.  Bryan took the train out at around noon today and headed his merry way to Berlin.  It was a lot of fun having him around, and I think he had a good time hanging out with a bunch of people who have a hard time completing sentences in English without inserting a random deutsche word. 

Bryan posed for the stereotypical uni-bonn foto!

Today I had one of my more interesting experiences in Bonn.  My friend Jake and I took advantage of the beautiful weather to head downtown and get coffee and kuchen at a café.  It was a perfect day for it, and we enjoyed our German coffee and fine bakery.  As we were sitting and talking and soaking in the experience, a raggity guy, maybe 26 or stumbled over to our table, knelt down, and start mumbling something to us in German.  It was pretty obvious that he was trying to work us for money, but he spent about five minutes giving us this spiel that neither Jake nor I could understand.  His eyes were all red, and he couldn’t hold his head up, and he wouldn’t look at my face as he talked to me.  The only words I really pulled out of it were girlfriend, medicine, pay, money, and overall something about him needing money for his girlfriend or the like.  When he finished, I told him that we couldn’t help him, and he got upset and told us that we could help him, but that we just don’t want to.  As he was saying this, he stood up and started backing away, then turned around and opened a beer, took a swig, and walked away.  The beer makes it really hard for me to take the man's story to heart, and I chuckled a little bit.  Apparently the man heard me because he whipped around and asked me if I thought he was funny.  There was a really tense moment as I told him “nein,” but he turned around again and walked down to give his story to the next group of people who were sitting outside.  At that point Jake and I decided we’d had enough of the downtown, and we headed back to our dorm building.

It's tough dealing with situations like this, and I'm never quite sure what the right thing to do is.  I feel very sure that we did the right thing; I don't feel bad at all not giving money to a person who is not sober enough to stand up and look at my face and then walk away drinking beer.  The thing is that I feel like I have so many blessings that I take for granted that it almost seems unfair that I'm able to sit outside and drink a 2.50 Euro coffee and a 1.50 Euro cake because I feel like it, not because I need it.  Hell, I'm studying in Germany right now, I'm getting an education at a good school, I have a place to stay.  I don't have to worry about clothes I put on my back, let alone how I'm going to find my next meal.  There's just this ring of truth to what the man said: We don't give money because we can't, we don't give money because we don't want to.  Whether or not that's a bad thing is a tricky Frage (question) with no easy answer.  I wish I could say I walked away a new man with a new perspective or with great ideas, but I just have more question marks floating before my eyes.  It's reminiscent of my time in Jamaica...these experiences really show me how much of my good life I take for granted...but God knows we're never all happy all the time.  Right now I'm worried because I don't know what classes I'm taking this semester at Bonn, and I have to register for classes next semester at Ripon.  In the grand scheme of things, I think I will survive.

I just think that I need to make sure my life doesn't move so fast that I can't appreciate where I'm at and how I've gotten there.

Okay, that's it for now....this one has taken the better part of the afternoon to write; I've been letting it sit and coming back to it.  I hope that it all flows, and please forgive minor spelling/grammatical errors.  Sending you all thoughts and love!

Bryan and I were talking about this....you guys should leave comments on our Blogs, we like that : )  It's good to hear your thoughts, and it's proof that people read what takes us hours to write.  You know.  Just a thought.

A little eye candy yet...

I. Hate. Hummers.  Curse whoever brought this hell-spawned beast to Germany.  Curse them.  I would have spat on it if there weren't witnesses.  I still might if I ever see it again.  Driving this would be horrible in Germany, where gas is priced around 9 dollars a gallon.  Think about that when you get 9 miles to the gallon.  Curse them.

In contrast we have the Smart Ka.  Nobody taught me how to perpendicular park in driver's ed!

The sun exploding over Bonn!  Another cool view from my room....

Curse Hummers....