Life in Germany

Time to read: 7 min
03 March, 2021
Sourav Kulkarni

This post is constantly being updated. But it's not up to date...Also, it's being updated constantly, not regularly...

Update : 16th March 2021

Recommendation : Alfter Tennis Club Area. This has become one of my go to places for a run. It is very close to where I live(Tannenbusch Mitte) and offers a good gradient. The entire route from the Tannenbusch Mitte shopping center to the top of the hill at the Alfter Tennis Club is about 5km with an elevation gain of about 100m. The route I take goes through the park(Grünzug Bonn Nord), under L1389 continueing onto Buschdorfer Weg, then left onto Herseler Weg and then straight as the road goes till you reach the top of the hill. You can see the old Alfter Schloss and the beautiful St. Matthäus church on your right. As you continue your ascent along the narrow town roads, you will find some really old German houses. Then as you move further ahead, the gradient gets steeper. It is a nice quiet area. You'd see a sign saying that you have to turn left to go to the Tennis Club, but I suggest you go straight to Gorreshof. Once you reach the top, you will find yourself in open fields, with horses happily grazing around. If you look a little distance ahead, past the fields, you'll find the outer boundaries of Waldville, with a lot of tree cover. You can then walk along the Fuchskaulerbahn to the Tennis Club. The entire area is quite nice for a hike or to just get away from the city life.

Update : 6th March 2021

Types of houses/ Architecture in Germany :

Fachwerkhaus : half Timbered half clay & bricks : Seen near Uedorf
Fachhallenhaus : timber framed house with giant sloping roof : Alfter
Wilhemian Style Houses : Pretty Facades with Intricate Details : Bonn Zentrum, Poppelsdorfer Allee
Backsteingotik - Tall buildings in red brick : Alfter
Bauhaus : Normal building - Currently staying in one. Found everywhere

Update : 4th March 2021

Recommendation : Hersel/Uedorf along the banks of Rhine. I had the pleasure of visiting this place at the perfect time in the perfect weather. It was cloudy and cold. The air was filled with mist and was very still. I had gone for a run along the rhine. There was nobody on the path. Just me and my rhythmic footsteps. Occasional quacks of ducks and mallards. Chirping tits, robins and blackbirds in nearby bushes, a bunch of magpies crying in the tree branches up above. Bliss!!

Update : 3rd March 2021

You can go from Bonn Hbf to Cologne Hbf in about 30 minutes with a train like RE5.
Recommendation : Cologne Cathedral. The Cologne Cathedral is so huge!!!! It doesn't even fit in your field of view. Don't even think of getting in in your Camera frame. Well, with the super-wide lenses, it is possible.. But it's still huge. And so intricate. Beautiful.
There's the a bridge across the Rhine in Cologne - Hohenzollen bridge. It has thousands and thousands of locks along it's railings symbolizing people's love for their partners. I won't recommend it as much as the cologne cathedral, but it is walking distance from the cathedral, so there's no harm in seeing it once...

Update : 28th March 2021

There are some beautiful buildings near Bonn central area.
I saw Beethoven Strasse and Mozart Strasse both while roaming around town
Recommendation : Beethoven Statue, Bonn Munster Located in the Zentrum area near the Altes Postamt and Bonn Munster. The Munster is under reparations of some sort..
The University building is a bright yellow building with an open garden area in front of it. It looks a lot better in Internet photos than in real life right now. That might be because there's a (temporary?) Mensa building constructed in front of the University Building. The Hofgarten is surrounded a walking path that is lined by tall trees. It's beautiful.
The Rhine River is very close to the University building. It is a large river. Up north, near Buchdorf, there's a ferry that takes you across.

Update : 27th Feb 2021 : General Bonn Stuff

Bonn is very small. Just go about 5-6 kms away from the centre and you are out of the city.
There are homeless people and beggars in Bonn too. I've had more people approach me for money than I've had in Kothrud. There are more weird(drunk? high on drugs?) people here as compared to back home...
Cars have to stop when you are using a zebra crossing. So you can fearlessly cross the road. I used to thank people for stopping. But I've stopped doing that now. You don't "have to" use a zebra crossing to cross the road. I was hesitant at first, but I saw some (German) people just casually cross the road from anywhere as long as there were no cars around...I'm not aware of rule pro or against jaywalking...but I think it is kind of allowed to just use your sense and cross when safe..
The cars here are normal, I would say. This will be a recurring theme in my notes. Bonn, or Germany is not that dreamland that people(including me) from India, or similarly placed countries think. The cars are normal as in average cars similar to Maruti Swift, Alto, i10 and so are the most commonly used. I've only once seen a Tesla(near Romerstrasse) and some fancy supercar(near Hbf). Where I live, in Tannenbusch, I would say the driving is..weird? People press their entire foot on the gas pedal of some average car. It doesn't go fast, just makes a lot of noise..Idk what sort of kicks do these people get from this..But it does happen..
People here smoke a lot. Cigarette butts are littered here and there. I find a lot of them near my dorm building, near the stations, and so on. Fortunately, smoking is prohibited inside the Hbf.
Beer is cheap. Cheap beer tastes okay. Not great. Okay.
Cola is cheap and also available in generic brands. The bottles can be recycled to get 25cents.

Update : 18th Feb 2021

Turns out my phone(Samsung Galaxy S9+) is somewhat useless for this weather. This has something to do with Li-Ion batteries not being suitable in cold climate. I was really bothered by my phone randomly dying out on me. I thought it had something to do with the 4G eating up all the battery. So I throttled the data speeds to 3G. :(. What sort of stupid technology is this?!
This reminds me, the phone plan I've taken is "O2-Prepaid S". Which has Unlimited calling/SMS. But the internet is limited to 3.5GB. Per month. And it costs 10Eur. Coming from India where mobile data is dirt cheap, this is really painful. Anyway, the dorm gives me Wifi included in rent and as the current Corona situation stands, I don't think we'll be going out anytime soon..So it's fine.
Coming to the dorm and the utilities. The rent is 255Eur. All included. I still have to pay some 17Eur Radio Tax, which is odd in 2021, but German systems are notoriously old fashioned.

Update : 3rd Feb 2021 : All about day 1

I arrived in Germany on the 8th of January 2021 at the Frankfurt Airport.

I was taken aside by the police for a further questioning. I was one of the people randomly selected for catching fraud Visas...(?!)

It was really really cold when I arrived on the Frankfurt Airport. Maybe around 1-2C. May not be a lot for Germans, but coming from India, this was a lot.

You need 1Eur to get a baggage trolley at the Airport.

I had to wait a lot of time to get my last bag, which had my PC in it which had me worrying. But it finally came out after the baggage track had completed many, many rounds. Note from experience : Travelling with an entire desktop PC is not recommended.

The train station is just below the airport. Just take an elevator down from the airport.

We had booked a flexi ticket of ICE1020. The ticket price was ~40Eur. Departure 9:15AM.

We(me and my friend) were waiting for our train. We had heard (horror) stories from our friends about how the train door stays open for just a minute or two... We were ready, on our toes, to board the train as fast as possible. But the problem was that we weren't standing at the right place to board our particular bogey. RUN!! This is when I had my first experience with the people here (apart from the Immigration officers and the police). (I suspect these people were students, just like us..). They helped us carry and board the luggage into the train.

The train journey from Frankfurt am Main to Bonn Hauptbahnoff was one of the best train journeys I've ever had!! The train track runs parallel to the river, with by beautiful scenery all around.

We arrived at Bonn Hbf Platform 1 at around 11:45AM. Bonn Haupbahnoff building was the first taste of German architecture I had in Germany. I had asked a friend to come pick me up at the Bonn Hbf. Before we took the U-bahn that would take us to the Student Hostel at Tannenbusch, we first went to an Indian Shop to get some frozen rotis(polya). It cost a whopping 6.9Eur for 20 rotis...Just for comparison, one soft fluffy poli from Sahasrabuddhe Girni costs...wait for it....5 Rs!! Anyway... we have to live with the consequences of our decisions...

The U-Bahn station is underground. We can take buy tickets trains at the red kiosks on the platforms. I got a 2Eur ticket from Bonn Hbf to Tannenusch Mitte.(My experience with living here for a month is that nobody checks your tickets in the U-bahns. I've seen signs that warn of a 40E fine if you are caught without a ticket.)

There's a short walk from Tannenbusch Mitte to the Studentenwerk building. At this point even this short walk looked like a huge undertaking(even for the two of us), when it came to carrying that bulky PC bag around. But we finally made it the hostel building.

I had arranged for the keys to be kept with one of my dorm-mates. We rang him from the ground floor phone and then we got access to the building. First impressions of the room. Small. Eh. First impressions of the kitchen. Dirty. (Now I'm living here for about a month. The room is still small. The kitchen is still dirty. I just don't notice it anymore I think)