#4 Chocolates & Romans

Monday, February 1, 2016

#4

I feel like the euphoria has worn off a little and I have accepted I am actually here to study. Shucks. It’s not that class isn’t interesting, even review material seems wondrous and new somehow, it’s just that unreality has finally melded into reality. I no longer stop and gaze at the statue of Beethoven like some grinning idiot of a tourist, and my eyes don’t dart back and forth between the elegantly adorned buildings searching for something new to gawk at. I can’t recall the last time I so much as glanced at Münster Cathedral. Weaving in and out of the streets of Bonn I’m very much focused on the mundane: when shall I complete homework A, maybe I should work on homework C, oh god you undisciplined fool, no more pastries! And what about those exams, huh?

Yesterday we darted about Köln, taking shelter in her museums, and all at once it seems a year ago, but somehow also a second ago. In the Römisch-Germanisches Museum I felt an odd sort of contentedness, we’re so lucky to be able to gaze upon the past, if only for a little while. For hundreds upon hundreds of years those objects were buried & lost to humanity, & you feel like you’ve learned a thousand things just by looking at them. Precious perfumes were locked away in glass doves, only to be accessed by breaking their tails. Romans partied on the finest mosaics known to man, & dedicated pretty nifty mausoleums to themselves (at least the rich ones). The famous mausoleum housed in the museum was discovered by a bunch of German kids back in the ‘50s. Basement party rooms were all the rage, and while their parents were on a cruise the kids decided, by golly (lol), they were going to have one. So they broke out the hammers and went at it, only to find the bust of a very important Roman guy staring back at them. The parents returned to find the bust perched on their kitchen table, & were quite impressed—until the kids lead them down to the basement, hehe!

In Köln we took a tour of the Lindt Chocolate Museum, which was surprisingly amazing! Obviously it was yummy, it was always going to be, but it was full of Aztec & Olmec artifacts, 1700s European porcelain (replete with locks for the sugar bowls, it was that precious!), and…. CHOCOLATE VENDING MACHINES!!! Why, why, why do those not still exist? My world is now incomplete, I’ve been deprived my whole life, I’m suffering… we need to bring ‘em back guys!

We also ate at a burger joint in Köln, & I shamed us all with my messy eating, as per usual. Seriously, I pretty much, somehow, destroyed it. On the bright side though, I have learned how to use chopsticks!  Not at the burger place though;)  

Ta-ta for now!

Ashleigh Kozicz