Locking your heart…times a million

My general plan for this weekend was to travel to Cologne alone on Saturday and visit some touristy places, to stay in a youth hostel for the night and then to travel to Düsseldorf on Saturday morning to meet up with other RISE interns in the area. I did some research on the city of Cologne prior to departure and both the Ludwig Museums (modern art) and the NS Dokumentationszentrum (old Gestapo prison) received good reviews on the internet. The latter was said to be much underrated. After getting to Cologne in the morning, I walked across the Hohenzollernbrücke, the bridge reserved for train traffic that links the two shores of the Rhein. There were hundreds, if not thousands of padlocks of love attached to the railings, and I can only assume that couples would throw the keys into the turbulent waters of the Rhein after declaring eternal affection towards each other. After, I stayed a couple of hours in the Ludwig museum. Modern art is very boring to look at if you’re not the one creating it. What I think happens before a piece of art is created is that at first, there is the symptom that the artist wants to say too much, then gets lost in his/her train of thought and ends up scribbling over everything. The Ludwig museum has a large Picasso collection which I enjoyed and I also found a stunning painting by Dalí, by far my favourite painter in the world. Each time, I am stunned not by the oddness of his themes but the precision of his paintbrush strokes.

The old Gestapo prison was very interesting, although I arrived 30 minutes before closing time and it was of course too late to get an audio-guide. There were prison cells in the basement, tiny rooms that were fully-furnished with a cold stone bench and white walls that must have left the prisoners feelings hopeless and very claustrophobic. In some, there were still pencil markings of calendars, evidence of the prisoners counting down the lengthy days. I highly recommend that museum to everyone who plans on visiting Cologne (though you should arrive early enough to get an audio-guide since most descriptions are in German). Although I made the arrangements for a hostel in Cologne on Saturday night, I decided to cancel my reservation and take the train back home as it merely takes one hour to get back to Jülich. Truthfully, I was very bored by the end of the day. Too much of “traveling alone” happens in your head.

The next morning, after some debating, I decided to brave the torrential downpour and head over to Düsseldorf anyway. It was a very good decision in the end because even though the weather report was announcing rain for the entire day, it was in fact mostly sunny. Always give the weatherman the benefit of the doubt. After meeting up with Andrew, Alli, Kate, Devon and later, Alex (all from the RISE program), we walked across the Rhein towards the bustling carnival sounds and vivid bubble gum colours of the Rheinkirmes. As the name implies, this amusement park is set-up right on the shore of the Rhein and its skyline from the opposite shore makes up a great view. The moment I set foot there, I got hit by the happiness bug and it was difficult to contain my urge to skip down the streets packed with food-stalls and attractions in flashy circus colours. The entrance was free but each separate attraction costs from 3 to 5 euros to ride. There was even a fortune teller sitting in her infamous caravan who could glimpse into your future for 15 euros. By the end, I only went on two rides. First, a haunted house, which should go down in history as the worst haunted house ride ever made. There was sunlight coming in from all directions and the props didn’t inspire much creativity. But I shouldn’t complain because the target audience was obviously not adults and come to think of it, I would be scared too if I were 5. The second was a thrilling log ride that made up for the first one and got us all soaked! It was a really fun day (how could it not be, it was an amusement park!) with a great group of people.

Now on to the topic of the Heidelberg meeting last weekend (has it been a week already?). I will keep it somewhat short because I think all the other bloggers did a pretty good job of describing everything that went on. All in all, I loved it and felt very well taken care of by the DAAD. However, I must say that I was overwhelmed at first by the amount of people there. It was like having a back-culture shock for me to be among so many North Americans as I have been away from home for almost 7 months now.

The DAAD welcomed all 370 of us inside the beautiful Alte Aula of Heidelberg University. We were offered a buffet of finger-foods after the welcome speeches, which were delicious but perhaps the estimations fell short of curbing the appetite of starving students. The next morning, we left for the company tour at Evonik-Degussa. From what I understood, they produce speciality chemicals such as catalysts, perform purification of precious metals, and have a large analytical department. Experiencing a first-hand visit at a successful chemical company somewhat reinforced my will of not working in industrial chemistry. However, I enjoyed listening to our tour guide, a funny and wacky professor, and I was glad to be in company of a nice group of people. In fact, I met April who, as you may know, is also a blogger for RISE!

On the third day was the Heidelberg guided tours. Our tour guide was a lovely English lady who told us that her husband brought her back to Heidelberg as his “prize” from London. She also loved to point out that the Heidelberg castle was bombed by the French and not the Americans, a recurrent theme it seems in all of the tour groups. I learned that it costs more than a million euros per year to preserve the castle in its ancient state as the soil underneath is slipping, but it would be much less expensive to destroy and reconstruct everything. After the guided tours, a friend and I quickly caught a bus heading to the Hauptbahnhof to meet up with a group of friends who were going to Basel, Switzerland for the day. That city really impressed me, as I was expecting something close to Jülich and not a place so picturesque (now I know Basel is Switzerland’s third most populous city; picture on the right). Spending the day exploring that city was definitely a highlight of the weekend. The next day, on our way back to North-Rhine Westphalia region, a couple of friends and I stopped in Frankfurt and spent a lazy Sunday there. Finally a city with skyscrapers – I have not seen those structures for quite a while now. We promised to come back when the shops are open for some shopping.

I don’t like getting sentimental about good-byes, but I must say that this time, it was difficult to depart from new friends that I wish I had the time to know better, especially when they come from far away. Hope to see you all again one day!

That’s it for today’s post! Next week : Hamburg!!! (I am going with Kelly, who is, as you may know, another blogger for RISE J)

Have a good week everyone!