FORTUNE COOKIE WISDOM
Even a fortune cookie can read my mind! I must state seeing this written on a little piece of paper crumpled inside the crispy dough really hit the nail on the head – this short sentence describes exactly how I feel.
Or should I state felt? My travel started 36 hours ago with one of the shortest journeys possible. It takes a mere 55 minutes to fly from Gatwick to Bonn/Cologne! Yet even such a short flight was enough (for now) to satisfy my burning, overwhelming desire to look at the world from above in anticipation. I rarely fly in the day; flying, like many other things in life, is ideal enjoyed either in the early hours of the morning, when the sun is just rising and tinting the snowy clouds beneath in all the colours of the rainbow, or in the pitch black of night, with the kaleidoscope of lights flashing beneath. These bright flashing lights are my favourite way to encounter a new city.
Bonn is not exactly new to me, I have been here before, but never with the intention to stay long enough to make this city my friend. At 10 pm on Wednesday, November 3rd, I have absolutely every intention of this.
My brother met me and my excessively colourful and excessively heavy suitcase at the central bus station. His first questions were: am I hungry and do I like Amaretto? Yes, the alcoholic tendencies are a family thing. We cannot help it, being Russian and all. I assured him that I was not particularly hungry, but I loved Amaretto, like every self-respecting human being, and we set off to find his apartment…which turned out to be much closer than I expected, as in pretty much right by the rail station, or the Hauptbahnhof.
My plans for the next day were extremely ambitious and of course I did not achieve all that I set out to achieve. I did, however, get exposed to more spoken German than I could have hoped for, as well as getting quite a distinct taste of life and culture in this region already. I met my first student in Cologne, went to the ideal climbing wall I have so far been to with my brother, got a German mobile for a mere 12.50 Euros and re-discovered the wonders of public transport in Germany.
Lessons learned on the first day include:
• TOEFL is not that hard to teach, especially one-to-one, without any lesson plan at all – score! • There are some very strange people to be found on public transport in Germany, especially on the underground in Cologne, and German people are very good at ignoring a man stomping his feet and screaming for the train to go faster • German people are very much into their climbing! • Having a chat with a German woman in the changing room of the climbing gym can lead to an offer of a translation editing job • Even German public transport can be LATE! In fact, 45 whole minutes late! In a little village place like Wesseling Sd, which is where the climbing gym is located, this doesn’t leave much to do, apart from teaching my brother some German and having a conversation with a German lady about the nearest place that might sell beer.
Before I spend another full day discovering my new temporary home – a few more words about climbing in Germany. The gym is not the easiest place to get to, but I have hopes that the train will not be 45 minutes late every time. It does of course end up costing a small fortune. But…for a 16.5 m tall wall and ropes that you do not even need a belay device for, I am still inclined to state that this really is the ideal climbing gym I have been to so far. It is extremely exciting to climb that high and look down from up there. It will become an obsession while I’m here, I cannot avoid that, so I guess I’ll need to get down to earning some money. So far I’m optimistic that this will not involve taking my clothes off – people do seem to need a bit of English tuition over here 
I cannot wait to discover more things to write about here. If you are still reading – thanks for the interest!
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Submited at Friday, November 5th, 2010 at 2:00 pm on Europe by jessica
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