Bonn Part IV - Sunday

We got up a little earlier on Sunday, ate breakfast, and made some more sandwiches. The Regional Express to Cologne leaves from Bonn every half an hour so we left the dorm hoping to catch a bus. Unfortunately, since it was Sunday, the bus only came very hour before 11am. So we hurried to the Hauptbahnhof.

On the way there, there was a lady ahead of us also rushing somewhere. Fan guessed that she is also trying to catch the train like we are. She said that sometimes when they get lost going to her chess tournaments, she would find people on the streets who look like chess players and ask them. It works. I should give this one a try too! lol.

We made our train with time to spare. It comes very half an hour so it wasn’t a big deal anyway. Once we got to Cologne, we walked along the Rhine until we came to the Chocolate Museum. The museum was very cool. It had explanations of the whole cocoa bean growing and chocolate making processes. There is also a greenhouse with cocoa plants. Fan said that she has a cocoa plant at her parent’s place. But when we went into the greenhouse, we saw that the cocoa plants looked a lot like the mystery plant in her room. This mystery plant was left to her by one of her former neighbors who planted a pot of soil with whatever seeds that she had until one of them grew. Fan had thought the leaves looked like ones on an avocado tree. However her friend said that she had never put any avocado seeds in the soil. So we were really amazed by this discovery. In fact, the trees didn’t really look like the plant at her parents’ place but very, very similar to the one in her room.

Did I ever mention that German people seem to like having plants around? Plants and flowers are very cheap here. My office has lots of plants. They’re very big too. Each office has its own collection of at least 5 plants, many of which sit on desks.

After reading all about the chocolate making process, we got to see it in action. There is a factory inside the museum that makes chocolate. There’s even a huge fondue where one of the museum people dips wafers into and gives them out for free (picture: the melted chocolate comes out of some of the golden cocoa beans on the bottom). We went three times to get chocolate covered wafers. Warm chocolate, yum…

There were also exhibits of modern chocolate brands and such. It was all very interesting. Definitely worth the four Euros. I got a few things from the gift store including a bar of nougat which we ate after our lunch of sandwich and grapefruit.

We got back to the train station with just enough time for me to get a ticket and board the train with 5 minutes to spare. Getting really good at this timing.

On the train, I looked for an empty table with an electric socket. It didn’t exists, of course, even though the train wasn’t very full at all. So I sat behind two of these four people tables hoping that one of the occupants of these tables would leave before Berlin. Meanwhile, I played with my camera and figured out that I can actually take pretty good quality videos and zoom in and out while using camera mode. On one of the intermediate stops, the two guys in front of me left. I was so surprised at my luck! But as soon as I sat down, a family of three came in and sat with me. And they weren’t leaving until Berlin, so no luck there. But it was okay. I got to type up a lot of entries for this blog as well as watch two episodes of Stargate.

When I got back to my dorm, two of the guys were eating dinner. They said they missed me. Awww. They had gone to the lake on the weekend and went boating. Wish I had gone with them. Doesn’t look like I’ll be able to swim in this lake… Anyhow, they also cleaned the house! They mopped the floor of the kitchen with soap. I was very impressed.

Bonn Part III - Saturday

Since we went to sleep so late the night before, we got up at 10am. We went to the grocery store and got milk, grapefruit, sausages, and bread. Fan's mom made cereal for her with granola and pine seeds. Fan added sesame and honey before adding milk. It was really good. I need to try this too. I’m learning a lot about cooking this summer. Hua-Chen and her friends like pasta so now I can prepare pasta without using pasta sauce.

After eating breakfast, we prepared some sandwiches and took them with us so we can picnic somewhere. Fan has a picnic mat. Very handy, need to get one of those too.

We walked to the bus station and took the bus to another part of the campus. The University of Bonn is very spread out. Academic buildings and dorms are all over the city. MIT has much more of a campus than they do. We went to the building that was on the postcard that Fan sent me a couple of years ago. There is a huge lawn in front of the building. Much bigger then Killian. Every first Saturday of the month, they have a bike sale.

We kept walking around the city and after a while we took the U-Bahn to the government district. Bonn was the capital of West Berlin. All the buildings now are UN buildings. Everything for German moved to Berlin after Reunification. There weren’t a lot of people there. Okay, there was practically no one there. There was, however, a cute ice cream shop build out logs. It looked just like those Lincoln log toy houses!

We went back to the U-Bahn station again to take the train to Bad Godesberg, a nearby village. The station connected to a museum and part of the museum was underground. We walked through that and saw a really old DB train that was once used by the first German chancellor. One of the good things about museums is that they always have bathrooms. And these bathrooms are usually outside of the exhibits and are free. This particular museum had a very nice bathroom.

We took the train to Bad Godesberg and walked around. We saw a fortress on a hill but realized that we were very hungry. So we walked to a nearby park, spread out the blanket, and started to eat our sandwiches. Bees and other insects attacked us but luckily they stopped once we finished. We had to trap one in our sandwich box. After eating, we relaxed on the grass. I think I fell asleep for a little while.

Fan saw a chess player that she knew and they talked for a while. I think she asked him if there’s anything to see around Bad Godesberg and Bonn and he said that they’re just villages and that we should go to Cologne to see the cathedral. But I had already been to the cathedral. We had planned to go to Cologne on Sunday anyway to visit a chocolate museum. This would be more convenient for me since the ICE to Berlin goes through Cologne.

We got back to the university building with the big lawn, found a nice spot, and ate a grapefruit. There were lots and lots of people playing soccer. There were also a couple of people in one corner juggling and a few people playing Frisbee but mostly soccer. When we sat down, a family next to us started their own soccer game. There were lots of little boys. Not all from the same family but they were all about 6-8 years old. They had a very good game going. I took a picture. Aren’t they cute? Fan and I talked about the various sports in Germany and US. This was when I realized that I hadn’t seen a single basketball hoop the whole time I’ve been here. Not a single one! Fan said that people usually go to the gym to play basketball.

Fan showed me some more academic buildings around the city and we stopped by the library for Fan to borrow a book. They don’t have to buy any textbooks. It works like Cambridge where the professor provides a long reading list. You can check out the books from the library, which has many copies of the books that you need. It’s great that they don’t have to buy any books. But Fan said that it makes it hard having all these books since you never know which one is useful.

We went back to the grocery store and looked for ice cream. They didn’t have much variety so we ended up getting chocolate pudding instead. Once we got back to Fan’s room, I showed her things about MIT on the internet. I showed her a map of the campus along with pictures of Stata and Simmons. She was very amazed at the architecture. I asked if she had facebook and she said that they have something similar for German students. When she showed me, it looked exactly the same except that it had a red theme instead of blue. They don’t have all these new applications that facebook now has but maybe they will get them soon? I showed her facebook and some pictures of my friends.

We saw people setting up for an outdoor concert in the courtyard of an academic building earlier. There is a nice lawn in front so we thought we can go back and listen outside. We weren’t the only ones trying to free load outside. We ended up sitting near the trash can and a portable toilet but it was a good concert. We cooked dinner after getting back. We ate some peaches after dinner and were too full to eat the chocolate pudding.

After I took a shower, I showed her pictures from my computer. Life at MIT, ESP, pictures of Yalu and of my family, yup. Tired from all the walking and wandering, we slept at around midnight.

Bonn Part II -- Arrival

I saw Fan from the window when I was getting off. But there were a lot of people and I was the last one off. When I got off she had already walked away. I caught up with her and finally, after 8 years of writing to each other, we met in person.

From the train station we walked to her dorm. It wasn't far and I got to see part of the town. Bonn is a pretty small city and is very nice. The streets are pretty small, which I liked. I can't stand these 6 lane things that are in Berlin. They're so wide that they have to put an island in the middle for pedestrians. It takes a full minute to get across to the other side. Horrible.

Her dorm only houses 30 people. There are bigger dorms but she said she likes the smaller ones because you get to know people and it’s like a family. Her room is on the top floor so instead of a window, she gets a skylight. I thought this was pretty cool. She said that it makes her room very hot, especially in the summer. She has a view of the church from her window. The bells of the church ring every 15 minutes. It starts at 6:15am every morning. Her room is pretty big. It has its own sink. She shares a bathroom with a couple of other people. There is a bathroom with a shower and a kitchen on the floor below. The school has a cafeteria so not everyone cooks. Their meals are actually at reasonable prices (2-3 Euros).

It was getting late so we cooked dinner. She put cheese in one of the dishes and it was really good. I need to try this sometime. We talked for a while. After we both took a shower, she showed me pictures of her trip with her former neighbor, Jenny. Jenny is an exchange student from Wisconsin but had left for home last week. They went on a trip to Austria and southern German cities with Jenny's parents. They seemed to have had a lot of fun. I think we went to sleep at around 1am that night. Fan had another mattress and bedding for me.

On the Way to Bonn

I had planned to leave Berlin on Friday around 10am getting to Bonn at 2pm. I even emailed Fan with the train schedule. And then my boss finally showed up to the office on Thursday and asked to meet with me Friday morning at 10am. I couldn't really say no, especially since I haven't met with him in about two weeks. So I took the train that left Berlin at 3pm instead and got to Bonn at around 7pm. Luckily, Fan got the email and did not wait for me at the train station.

My supervisor gave me a new project that involves soil, biomass, and contamination. It's another one of those "what does he want?" things. I tried to get more information out of him but I get the feeling that he doesn't really know what's going on either. This really sucks. I'm stuck doing research again. I want to do something real. Is that so hard to ask for?

Anyway, it's probably good that I left early. Absolutely no one was at work. Both of my officemates are out. Even the secretary wasn't there. There might've been two other people besides my boss and me. I got a ticket for the ICE from Berlin to Bonn. There were some very confusing announcements on the platform. Well, confusing since I can't understand German. Anyhow, I figured out that the train is going to two different places and I should sit either in front or in the back, depending on where I want to go. It was good that I was paying attention to the signs since the train separated at one of the intermediate stops. One part of the train went to the Koln/Bonn airport while the other part continues onto Bonn and Koblenz.

The train was more than half full. I had read on an earlier trip that the seats facing each other have electric sockets available for laptops. None of those were available but I wanted to verify whether this claim was true before I sat in one of these seats anyway. I sat across the aisle from one of these seats and pretended to look for things in my backpack for several times trying to spy the electric socket but with no luck. Finally, when I was getting off the train, I found these sockets. There is only one socket for each table (4 people). I was a bit disappointed. I guess it's better than Amtrak where they state on their website that there are very little electric sockets available in coach.

The Simpsons

Carolyn and I went to see The Simpsons last Thursday. Well, since Thursday is free museums day, we went to the Music Instrument Museum first. They had some really interesting stuff. Too bad their postcards sucked so we didn't get anything. After this, we went to eat ice cream at the mall at Potsdamer Platz and had the burger ice cream. It was just as good as last time. Then we went to the 8:00pm showing at the Sony Center. I think the Sony Center only shows movies in their original version.

We got there half an hour before the movie started and went right inside. We walked into the room and it was completely, utterly empty. I'm not sure if this is true elsewhere but at the Sony Center, you get assigned seats. So because of this, no one arrives until the very last moment. Some people even come during the commercials. So Carolyn and I were feeling really stupid at this point and walked around. There weren't any place to sit that wasn't a cafe. Finally we found a Legos store and stayed there for a while sharing Lego stories.

About 10 minutes before the show was supposed to start, we went back into the room. This time there were people so we decided it was time to find out seats. We had the middle of the very back row. There was hardly anyone else so we thought maybe we can change seats. Carolyn even thought that maybe people would be watching the German version at the theater next door. But it turned out that everyone arrived right before or during the commercials. There were a lot of commercials. Next time we know, huh?

The seats were really, really comfortable and soft. We had so much legroom, it was amazing. The chairs don't even fold up. I wish American theaters were like this. It makes sitting for 2-3 hours so much more enjoyable.

So I didn't really write about The Simpsons at all. Can't be posting spoilers now, can I? All I'll say is that I liked the movie. Hope you weren't disappointed.

Dinner

I'm not sure why but whenever I cook for other people, the food is never good. And then when I just want to fill my stomach, I end up with the most delicious thing I've ever tasted. On Wednesday, I realized I have a ton of food that I need to eat in 3 weeks. So I decided to make fried rice with some carrots, scrambled eggs with tomato and green onions, and some kind of meat. I got pork steaks pretty cheaply at Penny Markt and started cooking. The food was soooo amazing. Okay, it was steak so I didn't have to do much. But I managed to cook it just right, tender and juicy. The rice tasted great with ketchup and carrots and the eggs were delicious. No pictures, sorry. I ate everything too fast. I was really, really happy afterwards.

Roommate

Hua-Chen moved to her new dorm yesterday. I miss her already. Monday night she invited two of her classmates over for dinner. I helped make the fried rice and joined them for dinner. One of her classmates, Hua-Dong made soup and the other, Anna, brought ice cream. It was a really good meal.

This is basically the end of their Masters program. For the next few months, they're supposed to be writing their thesis. But since all their classes are over and many people have to continue to do experiments in clinics back home, not many people are staying in Berlin. It's kinda sad for them, I guess. They spent more than 10 months studying, traveling, and living together. Both of Hua-Chen's friends were leaving the next day. Well, it's not as bad as it sounds though. Many of them will be coming in and out of Europe. There's a conference in August that a few of them will be going to. Hua-Chen's new room is filled with luggages from six different people.
The plan for Tuesday was that I come back from work at 5pm and Hua-Chen and I would move everything to her new place by 6pm. She had an appointment with the housemasters to get her key. But Anna needed a place to store her stuff so she got the key for Hua-Chen. Anna and another classmate, Artem would come at 8pm to return Anna's bike and help Hua-Chen move. So in the meantime, the two of us made dinner. Hua-Chen made pancakes which we spread with Sarah's caramel and whipped cream and ate like crepes. I made some noodles that weren't very good.

On the way to Hua-Chen's new place, I got to know Anna and Artem some more. They are both really cool people. Anna's Russian and left for home right after we helped Hua-Chen move in. I'm not sure what nationality Artem is but he speaks a lot of languages including English, German, Chinese, Arabic, and probably more. They are linguists but I continue to be impressed by the amount of languages that they know. Hua-Chen speaks Chinese and English fluently (no accent) and 5-10 minutes of Italian, German, Japanese, Korean, Catonese, Spanish, Dutch, and probably French too. Wei-Ming speaks French as well and is living in France for the next month. Jealous. I never really realize how useful it is to speak many languages.