Castles and Cruises (Week 3)

The thought that this is my last week in Bonn is really tough. It’s going to be so strange to not see my host family again. I’m planning on keeping up with e-mailing my host mother, but it will definitely be a change to not have a warm meal and happy family waiting for me each night. Oh man, I’m going to miss those meals. Aside from this being the last week in Bonn, it also marks the halfway point of the program altogether. This is a scary thought since it really seems like we’ve just arrived. Time seems to go by so quickly in this country. The weekends are even quicker for that matter. Anyway, the halfway point seems like a good time for a small break, and that’s what this week was about (or as much of a break as this program allows). Don’t get me wrong. The week was jam-packed with activities. Most of them were just a little less strenuous and offered me a time to really just enjoy myself and prepare for the coming weeks.

Maybe the most relaxing part of the week was the Rhine River Cruise. We got on the cruise ship at Bacharach, a small, historic town on the river. We sailed down the Rhine all the way to Braubach. On the two hour cruise, I got a chance to just relax on the deck of the ship. I chatted with friends throughout the ride and really just tried to take in all the scenery. The surrounding area was really beautiful. This was wine country, and vineyards lined the sides of the Rhine. The area was very hilly, so the vineyards were positioned on steep slopes which only allowed them to be managed by hand rather than automated. That seems like some tough work to me. The other thing which stuck out about this tour was the huge amounts of castles dotting the banks of the river. It seemed like everywhere I looked, I could see at least one or two of these medieval buildings. I was excited enough to take pictures of everything at the beginning of the cruise, but by the end, these castles had become so common that I didn’t even look twice. Admittedly, they WERE all very cool though.

Once off the Rhine cruise, we arrived at Marksburg Castle, a medieval castle and fortress that was now open to tours. The castle was big, but not especially overwhelming. In fact, compared to some of the buildings we had seen earlier in the program, this was one of the smaller ones. It was definitely cool for its history. Basically everything was stone, and I could easily tell that it was made as much for defense as it was for pleasure. For a castle, it actually didn’t seem especially lavish or ornate. We also got a good deal of history with the tour. The best part was learning about the bathroom policy in these castles. Apparently they left the door open so that they could talk while doing their…bathroom stuff. I guess that’s…efficient. Among other medieval artifacts, we got to see a chastity belt. That’s definitely something I didn’t expect to see on the trip. I guess the trip is just exceeding expectations.

Later we got to go on a surprise tour of the Mayschoss Winery. For the first thirty minutes or so, we took a tour of the winery’s cellar. It was really cool to see the barrels of wine lined up. Some of them were huge. I can’t seem to remember the exact volume of the biggest one they had there, but it was probably around ten feet tall. That’s a lot of wine. The cellar tour was definitely cool, but next up was a wine tasting which was AWESOME. I expected a wine tasting to be made up of a couple of sips of each wine with maybe a bit of bread between each one. Instead, I got a feast. We were in a really fancy room and got served five full glasses of wine along with a large plate of meats and cheeses and vegetables. I really felt like I was royalty. It was definitely a cool feeling for the day. By the end of it, we were all a little bit tipsy. That was okay and just made the bus ride back to Bonn that much better. In fact, the bus ride back was definitely my favorite transportation experience of the entire program so far. I still can’t believe that this was the last week in Bonn, but it was a truly great ending. I’ll miss my host family, but maybe this will just give me an excuse to come back to Germany in a couple years. Like I even need an excuse...