Final Week in Bonn

At 9:30, we had class. I was pretty tired but we learned about 20^th century Europe. In the afternoon, we went over to the Haribo Outlet store. This store had every gummy bear thing I could imagine. They had shopping carts for this large candy store. It only sold Haribo products. I bought 4 kg(about 9 lbs) of candy. Yep that is a lot. We then went to a liquor store and I found the one and only Duff beer. I was excited about this because you can’t find this beer in the USA. The Simpsons have copyrighted this beer in the USA and therefore they cannot sell this beer. I was just thinking of Homer Simpson when I bought this beer. I also bought some small beer glasses. We left the store and headed back to AIB to see Goodbye Lenin. This movie was about an East Berlin family living through the fall of the Berlin Wall. The main characters mother had a heart attack before the wall fell. She got a coma for eight months which was during the time the wall fell. When she awoke, the doctor told her son she couldn’t be excited or she would have another heart attack. This meant they had to shield her from all the western things and keep her isolated from the world. This worked for a while, but the family had to keep lying to her. When she finally found out, her son and a friend lied to the mother (through a fake video broadcast) that West Germans had climbed over the wall because of the tyranny of capitalism. This was funny because it wasn’t like that at all. Goodbye Lenin demonstrated the hardships of capitalism but also showed how communism really inhibits people. After the movie we headed back to our host families house and we had dinner. After dinner, we gave our host family our gifts. They were all very excited. I gave them pecans and an ornament of Texas. Drew gave our family a Disney bag for the girls that had a Texas A&M pen and a “Don’t mess with Texas sticker.” The girls were excited as well as the mother. In fact, the next day the mom cooked pecan muffins. They were pretty good!

The next day we went on the Rhine River Cruise. We took a charter bus to Bacharach. This little town is the typical romantic European movie town. Walking up the cobblestone streets that seemed to be hundreds of years old up me back a few years. The Alte House (old house) is one the most famous medieval half-timbered buildings and has been a setting for many films. After walking through the town, we went up the hill through vineyards. We ended up in an old guard tower up on the hill. Overlooking the Rhine River was simply picturesque. After hiking down the hill, we headed over to the Rhine to catch the boat. We got on the boat and took a seat. I am thankful that this day was so perfect. There was a gentle breeze, 75 degrees and sunny. The rolling hills covered in trees lined with old German towns were nice. To add to the beauty, occasional castles were up on the tops of hills along with old medieval guard towers. We passed the Pfalz im Rhein (built in 1326) which is a castle on an island in the middle of the Rhine. Its purpose was to collect tolls of ships passing on through. After traveling on the boat for a few hours, we got off at Braubach. This town was special because it has the best –preserved castle along the Rhine. The castle Marksburg never was conquered because of its strategic position. Sitting on top of a hill, this seemed like a typical castle of the day. It was able to fire upon enemies with several cannons. Because of its strategic position, it would be difficult for enemies to attack. When I walked in, I noticed the crudeness of the castle. The bottom floor was merely a rock bed. The upper floors were had a bedroom for the knights, dining room, and a blacksmith shop. This castle was built around 1117 but was first mentioned in 1217. While listening to the tour guide, she made me believe that the Romans were better off than the people of the middle ages. Lack of hygiene led to disease. Constant war also drove the population downwards. We saw other medieval artifacts in the castle as well. We got to see the armor the knights used, tools used by blacksmiths, torture instruments, and a chastity belt. One torture used was the wooden wheel. This heavy wheel would roll on people and virtually crushed them. After the castle, we headed over to the study enology. Yes, at the beginning of the day I didn’t know what this was the study of. But I figured out pretty quickly when we showed up at a wine maker. We first toured the cellar and then saw their old wine making tools. We then had a wine tasting. The tour guide taught us how each wine tasted and how to see if it was a good piece of wine. By rotating the glass, I could see how fast the legs of the wine fell. The faster they fell, the more alcohol was in the glass.

On Wednesday, we watched a movie about the events leading up to the Berlin Wall. I learned that when the wall fell, it really was a remarkable thing. Nobody expected the wall to actually wall the way it did. People were ecstatic about crossing over into the West. This event will forever be important in history. The tension and anxiety between the sides had been high throughout the latter part of the 20^th century and now it was over. It was event where people will remember exactly where they were when they learned about it. For example, I will always remember I was in my 5^th grade class when our teacher told us about 9/11. When people heard about the wall falling, they will always remember where they were. The oppression people had in the East was bigger than I ever had imagined. In the afternoon we went to the Haus der Geschichte. It covered the history of the Federal Republic of Germany from 1949-today. We went to this museum earlier in the program with our host mom. I found this time interesting because there was a special exhibit about the youth culture. It was interesting how their youth culture parallels the United States culture. The Beatles, Rolling Stones, sexual and drug revolution took place in Germany as well.

On Thursday, we went to the Cologne zoo. This zoo had an exhibit where it showed the muscles of several animals. This was interesting because it showed that many of the animals are structured the same way as humans. The organs are similar but with different proportions. I also learned that the giraffe is the tallest animal in the world. One reason why it is hard for animals to grow larger than this is because of the pressure it takes to pump blood. It takes 240 mmHg of pressure to pump the blood because its neck is so long. This amount of pressure in a human would pop a blood vessel. After this exhibit, we took a guided tour of the zoo. I thought the best exhibit was of the elephants. The elephants had a large area to roam around in and where able to play with bells and toys.

This was my last evening with our host family. These three weeks had gone by so quickly. It seemed so long ago that I had met my host family, but it was over in a blink of an eye. My time spent with the family helped me gain a different opinion of German families and allowed me expand my thoughts and opinions. It was important for me to discover new cultures about the world and my family helped me see this.