Bonn Soir. And no, the puns will not stop.

Hard to believe, but this is my last evening in Bonn. Tomorrow I depart on the ICE for Berlin.  This past Christmakah, a kind friend gave me the German version of the board game Ticket to Ride. The game involves building train routes throughout Germany and its border countries, and with my Germany-Austria rail pass, I feel almost like I'm living the game these days.

Overall, I would say my week in Bonn has been a success. I found a huge amount of interesting material in the archive -- truthfully, enough to write several dissertations on Beethoven alone, so I have a lot of careful thinking to do when I get back to Chicago. I bonded with the archivists, who seemed to like me and complimented my German, which makes me feel more confident about my stammering (apparently it's better than many other Americans' stammering). When I was preparing for the trip, I thought I would be the Neville Longbottom of archival research; but thus far, my research has been surprisingly successful. Every day this past week I arrived right when the archive opened, sat in the reading room for seven hours, and zoomed through tiny German Frakturschrift like Hermione Granger studying for her OWLs; and I felt exceptionally accomplished today when one of the archivists affectionately nicknamed me "Die Kleine Raupe Nimmersatt," the German version of Eric Carle's The Very Hungry Caterpillar.

Meanwhile, in Bonn, the friendly University student whose living room I am renting went out of town and let me use her bike. I spent much of the weekend and a couple days during the week riding around, exploring Bonn, and enjoying every second. The instant I got on the bike, I felt magically free, like Harry Potter's first ride on a broom, whereas walking around was tiring me out. Walking is just too slow, and your feet always hurt, and you end up seeing 1/10th of what you could see on a bike. Plus, riding the bike makes it look like I know where I'm going, like I'm a real Bonner -- especially since the bike is a cruiser with a fat, squishy seat, meant to be ridden without a helmet at an extremely slow speed, as almost everyone here does.

I've always scoffed at cruisers before, but I now love them. It's like seeing Bonn in an armchair!

First things first: the neighborhood I'm staying in, the Musikviertel (so-called because all the streets are named after composers).

The street I'm staying on: Mozartstraße.

You can tell it's the Musikviertel...

And from here, a captioned tour of photos I took on my various rides.

The scenic and upscale Südstadt.

Suddenly, I was at the Botanic Garden, which seemed to always be closed every time I passed by it. This building is apparently a minerological institute of some kind, part of the UBonn. I think?

I kept following the street the Botanic Garden was on. Gradually, the neighborhood got less and less scenic, and I tried to go back in the direction where I came, got hopelessly lost, and suddenly found myself next to a field with cows and a brewing thunderstorm. This is when I realized two things: 1) I should probably figure out where I am, and 2) Bonn is really small. It's definitely a real city with a downtown and various neighborhoods and it feels large on-foot, but it only takes 15 minutes of noodling around on a bike to arrive at this:

I gradually figured out where I was and headed back to city center. One note about riding bikes in Bonn, and maybe in Germany more generally: the bike lane is always clearly delineated, which is great, but it also criss-crosses between the street and the sidewalk. So half the time you're riding in the street, which feels natural to me (but dangerous without a helmet), and the other half of the time you're sharing the sidwalk with pedestrians. I find it confusing and also got fussed at by a disgruntled woman who didn't know I was behind her on the sidewalk, and explained to me with a strained smile that if I don't ring my little bell next time, the police will arrest me. I played the dumb American and went on my way.

There are lots of churches. They mostly look like this.

The mathematics building at the University of Bonn. 

Bonn paint colors: Easter all year round.

Back in the Südstadt, somehow, mysteriously, for the second time. Riding around without a map is strange.

Cool building.

I'm sure all these photos are starting to look the same, but it was just so pretty I couldn't resist.

I also ended up back at the Botanic Garden for a second time as I tried to get my bearings. 

Even though it was closed, I took this stunning picture through the cast-iron fence, which almost makes it look like I went there!

Entering Poppelsdorf, the prettiest area in Bonn, in my opinion.

A neighborhood corner in Poppelsdorf.

The minerological institute again. These photos seem out of order, but this is the order in which I took them...

Poppelsdorf.

A long pedestrian and bike path along a boulevard.

One of three weddings I witnessed during my ride.

In the downtown center, I prove that I exist, in typical taking-photos-of-yourself-is-awkward fashion.

And finally, on the University of Bonn campus, there is a British telephone box filled with books. 

In the week that followed, I took relatively few pictures, but here are some:

Did you know? Robert and Clara Schumann are buried in Bonn. The cemetary was on my way to the archive.

Old cemetaries: 2 parts peaceful, 1 part spooky.

This is the market square, the market of which I forgot to photograph. Here you see city hall, which happened to have clowns in front of it.

And finally... ice cream. The main culinary attraction in Bonn. It seems like everyone in the entire city walks around eating ice cream at all times of the day.

My overall experience of Bonn has been very positive. It's a charming city that seems like a pleasant place to live. I pictured it being a small town for some reason, but it's definitely a bustling city with an urban feel and lots of students.

Onward, to Berlin...