Germany, Good Memories

by Bashar (Jordan)

No matter how hard you tried to research a matter, there will be always something missing, something that could be as little as not knowing how trains operate, should I research that too before I go to Germany?

As expected, I was lost, took the wrong train, went to different places, places that I shouldn’t be at, but what the hell, its part of experiencing something new, in fact, I enjoyed being lost, German people were too friendly, yes a bit cold by our standards, but friendly, so where did I go exactly?

Basically, I landed at Frankfurt airport, then took a train to Sieburg, which is a village that is close to Bonn, its full of old people, I guess I was the youngest there , the buildings were super nice, you can sense the quality of them, its so quite, you barely hear anything, but silence, silence rules which is nice for a change !
The difficulty was trying to talk to locals, the minute you start speaking English then answer in German, even if you tell them that you don’t understand German, they just keep going and going, so you have to listen to show some courtesy and then you say (Danka) which is thank you , end result is talking to them without getting what you want.

I called my Jordanian friend, Najwan, who lives in Koln, as she was my guiding light, I knew Najwan for almost 10-12 years, but didn’t see each other for like 8 years, and all of a sudden she was there, an hour away, what a small world.

Najwan took me to a lot of places, including the cathedral, which took around 750 years to be built, yes 750, of course that was on and off, of course I had try different kinds of beer, I hardly recall them now , no I wasn’t drunk its just that I tried almost everything.

Koln is a cosmopolitan city, full of universities and it’s a charming tourist city, I didn’t expect to see German people from different kind of races, you have everything from black to white, not to mention Marlin Manson freaks, with their cute and funny hair, green, yellow and blue colors, I have to say that I enjoyed talking to those people, never expected that, but they were entitlement, but they just couldn’t believe that I was from the middle east.

Night life was amazing too, although my dad nagged and nagged that I shouldn’t walk alone after midnight, of course I did the opposite, I went from one bar to another, good and quality ones to shitty ones, that is what I call traveling, trying everything and anything, 2 punks came to me at 4:30 am requesting money, I said I don’t speak German, then they asked in English with some hostility, at the back of my mind I was thinking, no way I’m going to give them anything and I was willing to do whatever it takes, hey we are Arabs, and no way I will let those bastards to take anything from me , so I said “Go away” the guy stared at me, I went closer to him and said “GO AWAY”, surprisingly, he moved back, then I was like, hmmm it would be nice to take a picture with them, so I said” lets take a picture”, I bet they felt they are some kind of celebrities , after taking the picture a gave them 2 Euros.
As for the cost of living, you can sense that Amman isn’t cheap at all, of course Germany is expensive but not that expensive, the main difference is the taxes, other than that it is so close.

I have to say that I have seen quite a lot of things at Koln, but still, I haven’t seen a lot, and maybe one day I will be back to Germany.