HOW THE NEO-NAZIS DROVE ME TO COLOGNE

The clock in the photo below showed the exact time I checked out of my hotel as police started cordoning the Theaterplatz area in Bad Godesberg, the left wheel of my overloaded luggage busting off as police let me off their barricade into an undecided moment whether to take the slow underground train to Cologne or the faster regional train, seeing my first neo-Nazis gathering in a park as I made way to the regional train station, and smelling them up close and personal as I get up the train while they get out.

[The polizei is seldom visible on the street and I have never seen so many of them in Bonn and in serious deep green uniforms too!]

[My first option was actually to stay around and satisfy my curiosity on how neo-Nazis look like, maybe take some photos, until my Greenpeace colleague whose hotel is right in the line of fire decided that the best way is to take off, which I did in deference to my Oxfam sponsors who I'm sure want me to do the same].

I have plenty of time to kill in Cologne.

But I thought I've seen it all so maybe I'll just get a closer look of some of the famous 12 Romanesque churches starting with St. Andreas' near the train station where a bum-doubling-as-usher-for-tips told me to come back after an hour because a mass is going on (that's my camera exposing me which I have to tote like a tourist since the strap of my pseudo-camera bag snapped several days ago), to Great St. Martin's which is unfortunately closed for the hour even as the zipper of my pants joined my busted list while I desperately searched for a place to pee, and then to the Cologne Cathedral which I finally got to shoot with the right camera.

[I first heard about the neo-Nazi action from a UN security officer advising who I thought was a diplomat to avoid the Bad Godesberg area].

[Ate Linda while driving us to a Birkenstock shopping spree told of how the neo-Nazis crashed a Muslim demonstration in an Arabic school which resulted the wounding of several police officers.]

What's new are the 40,000 or so love locks in the Hohenzollern Bridge and an unknown church along the other side of the Rhine which waved to me as I desperately searched for the Chocolate Factory.

[Lando while driving us to the annual "Rhine in Flames" rites said that the UN has issued a high security alert status on the Bad Godesberg event, which means that there is a high probability of violence erupting.]

Tired and wafting of putrid urine from an unrelieved bladder and a 3-day old replacement trouser, I settled for a lunch of pork Schnitzel and a glass of beer which is the cheapest I can find in the menu, retrieved my luggage-with-the-busted wheel crammed with cheese and sausages and my jeans with the busted zipper and the camera bag with the busted strap, and took the Platform 10 S13 train to the airport.

[Except for a bottle of water thrown at the neo-Nazis aka NRW by counter-protesters, no other adrenaline rushing incident occurred at the Bad Godesberg demonstration. I should have stayed.] 

UNIVERSITAT - MARKT

 I was here.

Two years ago, reminded the pleghm-colored tiled walls of the tunnel, on a rush to catch the last train to Bad Godesberg after overspending time with the Oxfam Team in a pub somewhere in Bonn.

The Universitat-Markt Station is familiar indeed.

But not what is outside of it.

The Universitat

I emerged from the station tunnel into the spacious grounds of the University of Bonn and, on this particular day, to tourists being regurgitated from buses and swarms of people enjoying the first real day of summer in various ways.

My way is to steal shots of them, including the biker below who might have decided that watching an all-girl football game is more fun.

The Markt

The Markt is just across the road in the courtyard of the old Town Hall, hundreds of years of history etched in its cobblestones, its portable food stalls competing with the trendier shops of various sizes for the Euros of the descended summer horde.

I lunched along a store corner the saving-for-pasalubong way --- grilled sausage in bread with catsup (the options are mayonnaise and mustard which for me are yuckier) washed down with Coke, before finally tracking down that elusive and equally hundreds-of-years old Name of Jesus Church on narrow Bonngasse Street, bedecked with enamored birch trees being a May Tree day, and from there revisited the Bonn Minster this time for the crypt beneath the high altar where the decapitated remains of sainted Roman legionnaires Cassius and Florentius are allegedly kept, and to the Bonn City Museum where the silence of the artifacts and my lonesome visitation amplified a whirling sound inside my camera which I heard for the first time, before finally gawking at a huge and greened-with-age statue of an Ernts Moritz Arndt somewhere along the Rhine Promenade. 

That's when I called it quits and decided to bypass the Juridicum and Museum Koenig Stations for another time.

That night, I met up with Usec. Fred, Jasper, Yeb, and Lando at the Bad Godesberg Station.

That night, we had pansit and oven litson at a Filipino expatriate's birthday party where Lando took us, and politely refused several invitations to do the videoke.

That night, we built a bonfire boy scout style along the Rhine to cut the evening chill and watched as ferry boats paraded for the big moment when the Rhine will rise in flames, failing miserably in our attempt for a tripod-less flash-less low light photography, and somewhat disappointed that high-tech Germany would be a letdown in terms of a fireworks show.

But other than that, it was a big exclamation mark for an otherwise dull week of a workshop and round table discussions...

MUNSTERPLATZ, BIRKINSTOCK AND HOCHKREUZ

Suddenly, we have time.

Which is unusual for a UNFCCC session.

So for the morning, I decided to ride all the way to the Bonn Central Station to revisit the grandeur of Munsterbasilika and find that ecclesiastical tower protruding from the city skyline from a distance as we grappled with our over sized Chinese-noodles-with-fried-duck dinner from the Asian Wok some time back.

Munsterbasilika is easy but I have to wait for the soft light of the morning sun to wash the whole structure.

But when the sun did, its shadows submerged the Evangelical Church not far away leaving me no choice but to shoot against the light.

The next day, our chief negotiator gave us the time off in the afternoon so I hooked up with two lady colleagues for the (in)famous Birkenstock outlet in Bad Honnef.

And then the Siemes Schuh Center on the way back.

And the Hit Supermarket for a guided shopping of German sausages after a heady dinner of paksiw na galunggong, daing na espada, lumpiang gulay, and pinakbet German-style at Ate Linda's who kindly drove us around.

Today, I thought there are more to those city rail stations and decided to find out.

That's how I discovered the Hochkreuz (i.e. high cross) in the station of the same name that was erected on a crossroad as a monument to penance in the 14th century.

Tomorrow, I will attempt to surprise myself by exploring Museum Koenig, Juridicum, and Universitat-Markt beyond just being train stations  on my way to kill time in the Hauptbahnhof area.  

THE LONG HAUL TO BONN

-I-

They will take me to the airport and along the way passed by the office and do some last minute shopping at the MOA and at the same time celebrate Balong's upcoming birthday that I will be missing.

That was the plan until a passenger jeep lost its brakes and softly dented our car along Espana.

We did make it to MOA, buy me long socks, lunched at Sbarro as Balong's birthday treat, and made it to the airport.

Just the same, the stress from the accident sweated my shirt that was supposed to be on me for two days of travelling.

And we were not able to find a 46-52 mm lens converter for Bulan's camera.

-II-

It was supposed to be a comfortable 13-hour flight to Amsterdam until I found out that the seat I paid an extra $37 does not recline and with a malfunctioning entertainment system too which does not align with my natural viewing posture.

And we had a stop at Taipei which is not reflected in the electronic ticket.

That means plus 4 hours on top of the 13.

I did made it to Schipol after a marathon viewing of "Argo", "Broken City", and "Gangster Squad" with patterns of sleep in between.

And finally cold and balmy Bonn.

-III-

The next day, paisano Lando Velasco of the UNFCCC invited us to dinner in his place.

That took the cold out momentarily, and soothed away the weariness of travel with heaps of grilled pork, chicken wings, fish, zuchinni, and eggplant; cauldrons of paksiw and sinigang na isda, carnivore kare-kare, bicol express, paradosdos/bilo-bilo/tambotambong; and a liberal flow of Riesling with green grapes, Dutch cheese, and chips on the side.

PHOTO CREDIT: Last two photos taken by Usec. Fred Serrano.

FINALLY, A 2-YEAR SCHENGEN VISA

May kapalit daw na suwerte ang bawat kamalasan.

Katulad ni Kuya Raffy na biglang sumulpot sa NLEX sakay ng ambulansiya ng Licab nang pumalya ang matanda nang sasakyan ng opisina habang papaluwas para sa visa interview ko sa German Embassy.

Sa matuling sabi, nakarating ako ng maayos sa Embassy kung saan madali namang tinanggap ang aking submissions at hindi na ulit siningil sa visa fee. 

('Yung unang application ko ang medyo mahigpit. Ganun pa din sa pangalawa pero hindi na ako siningil ng visa fee).

Lunes 'yun. Dumating ang visa ko ng Miyerkules at ang magandang balita na ang kahilingan ko para sa 2-year Schengen visa ay natupad na. 

Ang ibig sabihin n'un ay malilibre na ako sa makonsumong proseso (sa panahon, effort, at gastos) ng visa application ngayong taon.

Para sa mga nagkaloob ang isang bilaong pansit sa ibaba mula sa Cuyapo.
 
Danke!