(For the week of March 26)

This week was thankfully not as stressful as the previous weeks. Due to some students leaving for Hannover on Wednesday and Thursday for their projects, classes were cancelled for those days. I used this extra time to study and try to get back into the habit of running regularly.

On Friday, as a group excursion, we rented bikes and travelled to the nearby town of Remagen. Remagen is perhaps best known for being the town where the first bridge across the Rhein was captured by Allied troops during World War II. In fact, we heard an interesting story about the bridge’s capture from the former mayor of Remagen, who now runs Remagen’s Peace Museum. Unlike in some many movies and video games, the bridge at Remagen was not heavily defended at all. Truthfully, the only actual “defenders” of the bridge were hiding inside a tunnel on the other side when the American troops entered the town. The Germans did attempt to destroy the bridge before the Americans could cross it, but they were not given enough explosives and the bridge failed to collapse. As the story goes, once the first American had crossed the bridge and called out to the German defenders hiding in the tunnel, the German soldiers, being much fewer in number and generally considered unfit for frontline duty, surrendered immediately.

Anyway, after arriving at Remagen, we ate lunch at a local Italian restaurant. While good, I do not believe that the food there was as good as that in Italy. After lunch, we were given a tour of the aforementioned Peace Museum by the aforementioned former mayor of Remagen. The museum itself was built out of two towers that were once part of the bridge’s structure; however, the bridge itself is no longer standing. In addition to other things we did not see, the museum tells of the history of the bridge and its capture. It also features a room boasting a list of all of the major wars fought by every country on Earth since WWII and the reasons behind them. The museum even has a room dedicated to a man-sized, intact, defused bomb, which has been used as an impromptu drum by previous guests of the museum. After the museum trip, we split up into two groups for the journey home. One group was going to bike back the way we came, and the other group, which included me, took the train home. All in all, it was a fine week.