Strasse Fest

I was riding home from work last Saturday night when I heard reggae music and party noise pumping out of a side street.. the people who live there were having a Strasse Fest.. block party, so I stopped for a beer and took some pics... besides the beer and music there were jugglers.... grilled sausages of course and foosball... fußball.. pronounced foosball is the German word for football (soccer), so I have a theory the table game was invented in Germany, except here they call it... Kicka!!!.. (always in an exclamatory tone.)

Germany's gayest city

Cologne is said to be the gayest city in one of Europe's gayest countries.....

... so the gay pride parade, or Christopher Street Day, as it's called here is a pretty big deal. Almost a million people lined the streets. I was working that day and was sent into Cologne to get some tape and do a story.. it was a blast, it was the first sunny hot day after a couple of weeks of rain and cloud so people were in a good mood, pumped and ready to party.. and happy to do interviews, so it turned out to be a good story with lots of sound... perfect for radio.. the only bummer was I had to head back to Bonn ASAP to do the story for the late afternoon news run.

Tour de France

I went over to Ghent in Belgium to see the second stage of the Tour de France come in. So after standing for hours along the fence about a kilometre from the finish, taking lots of bad photos, when the racers finally came, my camera was dead. Nevertheless, it was all effing awesome and I'd to see more of the tour. Before the riders even come there were probably a couple of thousand competitive and recreational riders coming in waves throughout the afternoon.... including these two little guys racing for the finish..... they got lots of cheers...




Then were lots of sponsors cars and floats with beautiful young French women on them throwing out loot...


These teenagers across the street had the bright idea of holding their umbrella out upside down and it paid off, they got tons of free crap.

Watching the non-Tour riders on their bikes around town after the finish I really came to realize how riding a bike for many Europeans isn't much different than walking, they have so much natural control over their bikes, it's not uncommon in Germany to see people riding their bikes with a beer in one hand and a smoke in the other crossing the trolly tracks and weaving through traffic all with no hands on the handle bars.

Where I work

This is the Deutsche Welle building in south Bonn, just up a short slope from the Rhine River. There's actually 9 buildings of varying sizes altogether, housing the radio and on-line operations of DW. Television is based in Berlin. The buildings were originally built as offices for the West German parliament which was just down the street, but has of course now moved to Berlin. Many of the other former parliamentary buildings are now used by the United Nations, including its Climate Change Commission headquarters, and a huge convention centre is being built nearby. I've heard that when the capital was being moved to Berlin, Bonners were lucky enough to have a real tough mayor in office and she browbeat the federal government into putting a lot of money into finding replacement employers for the government offices that were moving. DW radio is the foreign service of German public radio and broadcasts in 30 languages around the world. Natch, I work in the English service. The work day is done in English and German. Most of the people in the unit, well everybody but me, understands German pretty well. The big tower in the background is the Deutsch Post building. When I first came I was sharing this office with Eric and Victoria, he's from the States, she's English. I was so, so lucky to be with these two. They were super about helping me find my way around here when I came and settle into the community as a whole. For instance, if it wasn't for them I wouldn't have known I was supposed to register at city hall and also get a foreign resident permit from the 'Auslanders' office. There's a big atrium right below our office window. It's where people go have to coffee, shoot the shit, and have a smoke. You can even get beer from those vending machines below. God Bless Germany.

Where I live

I live in two rooms in the top floor of this house in north Bonn. It's also the attic so there aren't any windows on the front, just the side. It has sloping ceilings and so if I walk far enough across the room without ducking I'll hit my head on the ceiling. You might wonder how many times I have to bump my head without learning to duck. I don't know yet since I keep doing it. My landlords are the Mechlinskis. They're super nice. When I moved in and they realized I didn't really have any stuff, they put in dishes, blankets, sheets, pillows, towels, etc, which was great. Also on about the third day they put my name beside a door buzzer which for some reason I found very touching. They're not really visible, but there's also chalk markings above the door buzzers. At Christmas time kids go around putting up numbers and symbols on each doorway. I'm not sure exactly what it's about, but apparently it's related to the Three Wise Men, or Kings, whatever they were. There's also a photo of the landlords son's Porsche Boxter. I keep telling him how nice it is hoping for a fast ride on the Autobahn someday. No luck so far.