Daft Musings

I bought a lifetime membership in the American Youth Hostel association over 20 years ago, after my cousin went mental on me and told my mother she never ever wanted me to visit again. I asked her what I’d done, but she never answered, but I knew I wanted to be able to visit Europe…

My tour book had warned me, but neither Peter or I had believed it. Germany is very much a cash country. The only credit card that was widely accepted was the Eurocard, and all I had was Visa. I was able to pay for my lodging with my Visa card, but everything else was cash….

Bonn used to be the capital of West Germany; now it’s simply known for its university, a mile long stretch of worthwhile museum, and for being Beethoven’s home. Word had it, though, that it was so boring otherwise that even Beethoven’s corpse moved out. So I really wasn’t expecting the many bums I ended up…

Oh, how can I ever describe how amazing and moving Bonn’s House of History turned out to be? I wish they’d allowed photography, but I cheated by taking a few pictures from their book, and the rest of the highlights I’ll just have to describe. In short, it’s a history of Germany from the end…

If it hadn’t been for my guidebook, I might have missed out on seeing Bonn. As it was, the day trip out of Cologne was worth it, just for the two museums I visited. The museum that drew me to Bonn, for Neil’s sake, was the Arithmeum. It advertises itself as the convergence of art…

I walked onto the wrong subway line on my way back to the center of town, and while the mistake delightfully took me past the Escher Street station, and bought me more interaction with Germans as I asked for directions back to the cathedral, I didn’t get back there until 11 or 12. And boy,…

My new hotel in the Mülheim district of Cologne happened to be near a store called Kaufland (literally “Shopping Land,”) and having heard a little about it from a flyer, I decided to check it out. It was definitely popular: its parking lot was nearly full of the mini-cars German like to drive, and there…

The German railway system has its own hotel booking service, which I used to book a 50-euro-a-night hotel within walking distance of Cologne’s main train station and the cathedral. It turned out to be a small hotel on top of a Bavarian restaurant & bar in Cologne’s Altstadt. In one way, it was a fantastic…

Thanks to the Cologne Card, I decided to check out the Cologne City Museum, and it was a delightful experience before I even got there. Even though the museum is close to the center of things, I had trouble finding it, and a lady decided to just lead me there. On the way, she told…

While in Heidelberg, I took in the movie Asterix at the Olympic Games. I love Asterix & Obelix, but they’re obscure over here, and I knew that movie would never make it into U.S. theatres, and if I ever downloaded it, it would likely only be available in its original French, not dubbed into German….