So, it’s not quite been a week here in Bonn, but I’ve had plenty of time to gather some impressions of the city. Though I don’t feel quite as displaced as I did when I first arrived, Bonn is significantly different from Berlin, or even Magdeburg. It’s hard to explain, though. Though Bonn is the city located in the former West Germany, Berlin and Magdeburg feel more familiar, more… “American”, maybe. The layout of the city here, the architecture (old and new) and culture of pedestrianism all seem to set Bonn apart from the German cities I’ve spent significant amounts of time in, and reminds me more of other German cities I’ve only visited.
This has brought me to a startling conclusion: though I’ve spent plenty of time in Berlin and Magdeburg, maybe I haven’t really spent as much time in Germany as I though I had.
My own personal slice of Bonn has required some adjustment on my part as well. A bare room, a cold bathroom, a microwave and a fridge were here; clothes, an air mattress, bedding and various electronics are what I brought. My own impatience with the internet situation led me to go out and get a 5 gigabyte internet plan for my cell phone that I can use with my laptop, too, but now it turns out that starting tomorrow or Tuesday I will probably be able to share the landlord’s internet. Not the end of the world, the mobile internet will still be handy in the archives I’m visiting, which tend to have limited internet access (no wifi, only certain computers). But it will teach me not to be in such a hurry.
Besides a lack of shelves, drawers, and closets for my clothes, though, I think I have everything situated. Found a laundromat, found the good supermarket–it’s a little further away, but worth it–and so on. Learning the maze of streets that make up downtown will take a little more time, of course, but I’m sure by the time I head back to Berlin I’ll have it down.
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