An adventure to Bonn, and an abbreviated farewell.

When Monday morning came around, Johannes was lucky enough to have the day off, but he did have other demands, as I imagine the doctor profession typically does, so we went off on our own. We decided to buy the all day pass that was valid for up to five people all throughout the state of North-Rhine Westphalia, and made our way to Bonn.

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I'd been to Bonn once before, last year for an afternoon, and it was the cutest little town I could imagine. While I wouldn't want to live there (likely too boring) it is charming and fun to walk around in. PLUS, it has the Haribo store, which we'd both been dying to visit. Gummy candies (including gelatin-free ones!) in cheap, bulk form?! Who can resist?

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After we got off in the neighborhood, we stopped at pizza place on the corner, which was both cheap and delicious, and then walked the few blocks to the store. We both ended up walking out of there with a ton of candy and other Haribo items for under 10 euros each - something which would have cost at least $30 each back home.

Elia wanted to leave afterward, but we ended up missing our train by one minute, so we decided to walk around downtown Bonn and the square for a bit, where we went into various stores and got some ice cream, before heading back to the train station to catch the next train, which we also just missed.

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Finally we told a lady at the counter that we had purchased the all-day passes good throughout the state, and she told us the next train we could take was in about 10 minutes. So we sat down and waited, and once on-board, of course, a ticket checker came around. I showed her my train and apparently we had been misinformed, because she told me it wasn't valid on this particular train. I was frustrated but calmly asked her in German if she could speak in English, to which she responded, "Ohhhh, nevermind" and walked off. Apparently being American does have its advantages from time to time.

Less than an hour later, we were back in Düsseldorf but with very little to do, so we decided to get on a random train and get off when we saw interesting. Of course, in all our hopes, we forgot where we were and realized that there was not much interesting to see that we hadn't already seen. So we gave in and took the train back to Johannes' apartment, and luckily, he was done for the day.

We decided to take advantage of the daylight and go for a walk through the nearby park, but Elia wanted to take a nap, so it was just me and Johannes. The park was extensive, with paths and trails leading around fountains, flower gardens, in cemeteries and even through peoples' own personal gardens. He explained to me that it's a very German thing to have an area with just a bunch of gardens that people own or rent outside of where they live, to go as a place to escape a bit. The concept was a bit bizarre at first, but it makes sense, and the gardens were quite beautiful.

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We were gone for perhaps an hour, and came back to figure out the dinner situation. We decided to stay in, and Johannes made us pasta while we hung out and listened to music and worked on our journals and such.

After dinner, I took a shower, and then we looked up information on how to get to our airport for the following morning's flight. When I initially booked our flight out of Düsseldorf, I had little idea that there were three separate airports in the area. It turns out we were flying out of Weeze which is an hour by train plus another 15-20 minutes by car. All the shuttles were booked, we couldn't reach any taxi services, and the morning trains didn't run early enough for us to make it on time, so our only option was to leave on the last train (just past 11 p.m.) and somehow get to the airport from there (either getting a cab, or waiting at the station until 4:35 a.m. for the airport shuttle to begin running).

We didn't want to risk missing our flight, so we quickly rushed to say our goodbyes, and Johannes took our heavy backpacks and escorted us to the train station, and saw us to our train. Then we waved through the window and disappeared, and our train was off.

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Dinner with the Minkus family.

After drinks with Andrew, we caught the train to the suburbs to have dinner with Johannes' mother. Since my last visit, she has moved houses, downsizing since all the kids except the youngest are no longer living there, so we were heading to a new part of Köln.

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The new house is about a five or 10 minute walk from the train station, down a beautiful green shaded path, and the house itself is absolutely gorgeous. The old house was large (four stories including the downstairs), with a very modern feel to it. The new one is much older with high ceilings and a lovely interior.

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We arrived and introduced Elia, and it was so great to see Doris, who was busy working away in the kitchen, preparing our meal. As we said our hellos, Marie (who I met last year) and Kaspar (who I hadn't yet) came down to say hello, followed by Moritz (who I also hadn't met). The four kids together are quite the picture: all very tall with stunning looks and beautiful smiles. While Doris worked on the meal, they took me upstairs for a tour.

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Doris has the room on the second floor, which looks out over all the comings and goings of the house, which is quite advantageous for her.

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The third floor is a lot of open space, and also Marie's room, which is clearly the hangout room for when the whole gang is in town. We all sat up there and chatted, and Kaspar taught me some colloquial German (besser ist's) while Marie played solitaire and we discussed topics like the World Cup and Arizona.

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Before too long, a friend of Kaspar and Marie stopped by and the three went out to watch the game downtown. Meanwhile, Elia and I joined Johannes, Moritz and Doris downstairs for an absolutely delicious and completely vegetarian meal with all kinds of vegetables and breads and wine and water. It was definitely the most enjoyable meal I've had in Europe, filled with good food and conversation.

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After dinner was over, we sat ourselves down in front of the television with some Reissdorf and watched  the Brazil/Ivory Coast match. We had plans to have some strawberries for dessert later, but we lost track of time and, as soon as the game was over, said our quick goodbyes and then Doris drove the four of us to the train station. But not before we ladies got in a shot together.

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Unfortunately for us, once at the train station, the Minkus boys took off running, and Elia and I had no idea where they were, so we got separated. We eventually found Johannes but Moritz had (we assumed) already caught his train, so we opted to take the next train, which was a much slower, inner-city one.

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The ride back was enjoyable though, as there was a lot of "your team"-age and it ended with a walk to Johannes' place while my brother sang the German hippo song for him and he sang the German seal song for my brother. Once back, we all got ready for bed, and Elia and Johannes both turned in, while I stayed up another hour or so and got some writing done, before doing the same.

Back to Köln.

Sunday morning was another sleep-in day for us, in theory, although it didn't quite work out that way. I wanted to attend mass at St. Peter's but that was a bit ambitious, and in the meantime, I couldn't find any Lutheran churches in town that were close-by, so I decided to sleep in. Unfortunately, the church next door has the most out-of-control bells that go off at random times and never seem to end, so that woke me up around 9 a.m.

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Since my clothing was done drying (see below), I took a shower and got dressed and then we were on our way to the train station.

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At the train station, there were groups of guys all over with bottles of beer, talking loudly and celebrating. It wasn't for World Cup so I wonder what it was, or if perhaps that's just the thing to do in a place like Düsseldorf.

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After getting on the wrong train on accident (actually the proper train, but the high-speed one as opposed to the longer one) we made it to Köln, just as Johannes arrived at the train station to meet us. Having not had breakfast, and considering it was past noon already, we decided to head over to J's old haunts - Barbarossaplatz - and get some falafel for lunch. It was superfantastisch, and another one of the better meals we ate. I also got a Bionade to go with it, cause that's what all the hip kids do.

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After lunch, Elia and Johannes stopped quickly to work on their California tans...

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And then we continued on, back to Kölner Dom (which, I'm sorry, is really one of my favourite cathedrals ever, but that could just be because of what it represents to me).

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Next, we made our way past the train station and down to the river for a river boat cruise/tour of the city alone the Rhine, during which we enjoyed some delicious Sion Kölsch in proper Colonian tradition, and I nearly redeemed myself in Johannes' eyes for my transgression of drinking Alt Bier the evening prior.

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Once the river boat ride was over, we walked around the old area of town alongside the river, checking out the cute little store-lined streets and underground museums, as well as going ornament shopping for Elia.

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Eventually, this path led us to Früh for some more Kölsch and to meet up with Andrew, a friend of mine from back home who has been living and working in Germany for the past year.

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We spent a couple hours catching up and drinking, and finally around 6:30 p.m., we parted ways, because Andrew had to get home and we had to get to the Minkus household for family dinner.

Night on our own in Düsseldorf.

Once we returned to Johannes' apartment, he left for Köln to attend a family event, leaving the keys to his apartment with the two of us. Elia settled in for a nap and I began looking up information on the internet about things to do where we were. Unfortunately, the pickin' was slim.

After a few hours, we decided to head out to see a movie. I had called one of the movie theaters in town and spoken with an employee, who told me that all the American movies were in English with German subtitles. The theater wasn't near a train stop that I could tell, so I looked at what was playing at another theater four stops down and a 10-minute walk away from the train station. I called them to confirm that they had English movies, but no one answered (just a recorded message) so I assumed that it shouldn't be any different from the other theater, and we were on our way.

We had originally planned to see "Robin Hood" but Elia wanted something a little more lighthearted, so even though I'd already watched "When In Rome" while on the plane, I agreed to see it. We waited in line and once we got up to the counter, the adorable movie ticket seller informed us that at this particular theater, everything is dubbed in German. Boooooooo.

In the spirit of making the most of things, we stopped into the bar at the movie theater for drinks (beer for me, Prosecco for her) and just chatted. Although the town was boring, it was definitely nice to have some down time. Afterward, we made plans to stop off at the Thai food restaurant we'd seen on our way over.

Turns out that was one of the best decisions we made. We stopped in and the place was relatively busy, with World Cup games showing, so we sat so that I was facing it and Elia wasn't (since I was mildly interested in the match and she didn't care).

Since the beer selection was minimal, I ordered an Alt Bier (just to try it), which ended up being just as un-delicious as Johannes had brainwashed me to believe. But the food more than made up with it, because we got tofu dishes, and they were mindblowingly fantastic and super cheap (and to date, one of the top contenders for best meal eaten on this trip).

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When dinner was finished, we headed back to the train station and made our way to the apartment, and I stopped for candy and beer while Elia called Rich, and then we spent the evening watching "I Love You, Man" - which is one of my favourite movies these days.

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