0018 | 2023.06.03 - 2023.06.11 (2/4)
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2023.06.03 — Day 1: Saturday
Haribo
We’ve awoken in our newly built tent around 10 AM as its flimsy material would let in the sun as if it was shining directly at us. Not only that, but when going to bed at 4 AM this day I out on a sweater due to it being incredibly cold, that morning at 10 AM I felt like I was cooking. Tents truly have this ability to be either too cold or too hot, but nothing inbetween.
We began our day with tea made on a camping cooker and some good, bread based, breakfast! We explored the campsite and looked where the showers, bathrooms, etc. we’re.
After we sort of settled down, we instantly got going. Nick has a car, so he mostly drove us to places - hence our public transport usage I quite spotty.
We usually drove to a nearby train / tram station and then used public transport from there, as using public transport from Asbach was hell (more on that later).
First order of business was visiting Floyd’s best friend Josh, whom I’ve never met or talked to before. He’s very cool though. We went to his house, petted his dog. He’s studying physics so he got little time, but it was neat seeing the projects he worked on and that he was into the maker scene too.
Around 15:00 (3 PM) we were hungry again and decided to go to an Aldi on our way to our next destination. Now, in a crew of 5 (Floyd, Nick, Martyn [Floyd’s brother], Josh, and me), wanted to go to the Haribo factory. Some of you may not know this, but Haribo actually stands for Hans Riegel Bonn, the names of the founders and the city they started in - to this day a large part of the gummy bear production happens in Bonn. So, the neat part is that the Haribo factory sells reject products (that are still perfectly healthy to consume but just don’t abide by some of their internal quality codes) for super cheap. Multiple kilograms for a few euros. Absolutely worth it. So, that was our plan to get, but before that I was introduced to Franzbrötchen, a cinnamon based sweet morning bread that I’ve become a large fan of, we’ve got it at the Aldi.
Having eaten well we’re walking to the Haribo factory and my friends got copious amounts of gummy bears. We would continue to eat them the coming days, but had so many leftovers they’d still take tons home. I was a bit tight on money at that moment, so I didn’t get anything, but that was okay because the others really wanted to share.
Regardless, that same day the group broke up again and Floyd, Nick, and me went to walk trough the inner city of Bonn a bit, then got back to our campsite. We had a BBQ until 23:30 (11:30 PM) and then fell to bed.
2023.06.04 — Day 2: Sunday
Trip to the Agathalsperre
Waking up in this tent was always fun, because both of my companions are incapable of waking up through an alarm, so they always have 3-5 set (on extreme days 7 or more) with heavy metal music which they won’t wake up from. I’m Instantly WIDE AWAKE at 7 AM as they sleep through several alarms until 10… I love them, but this is not okay :(
Today we didn’t have much in mind except for a trip to the Agathalsperre, or Agathal-Reservoir/Lake/Dam, to go on a canoe / paddle boat trip there!
Josh was a fan of this idea, so he came with us. First, we went to his house and drank some really profound coffee, however, since “we” overslept by a lot we drank that coffee not in the morning but by 14:00 (2 PM).
The ride to the Agathal-Dam took us a bit, so we only arrived ~16:15 and then needed to inflate our boats. We had an electric pump but Nick’s car didn’t have a working on-board voltage socket, so we asked a nearby car owner if he’d lend us a helping hand which he did. It was very nice, only bothered them for 05-10 minutes!
We had our boats ready, got into the Agathal-Dam, tied both boats to one another with a line, then paddled away in the search of a good spot. Josh had his wetsuit which he used to swim even during the paddling action, Nick also pushed the boat(s) from behind in the water. It was very fun.
Also, this happened.
Sooner than later we found the right spot and had a good meal close to the water. Mangos, cooled water/soda, we brought everything we usually carry with us into the canoe as well. No pictures exist of this, sadly, as I left my phone in the car for good reasons.
We had a race on the way back, me and Nick won. We packed everything up, then, when it was already night (23:00) we looked at the dam itself and the water / height difference on the one and the other side. It was pretty massive and beautiful.
Nick sadly has a job at the DENIC eG, so he had to leave right after bringing us to the campsite from the Agathalsperre and drive to Frankfurt until Monday to… work… ew
HOWEVER! He would make a comeback on Wednesday and stay for the rest of the trip thanks to the national holiday Corpus Christi (Fronleichnam) the day after.
Also, Nick promised to bring a server cooler to deal with the MASSIVE heat in our tents during the morning - we’ll see how that turns out…
I don’t remember doing much for the rest of the day, the ride home probably took long, we reheated leftovers from the BBQ, the usual.
2023.06.05 — Day 3: Monday
Learning for the Driver’s License
Floyd doesn’t have a driver’s license and was about to take the theoretical exam, so this day we mainly spent with walking through a beautiful park and me giving him my phone so he can go through the ADAC driver’s license app. In Germany there are around 1000 questions that could come up in the theoretical, many of them video or image based where you’re asked to judge a specific situation or what to do here or there, etc. I never found it entertaining, I only passed my theoretical exam on the third try! Hah.
Throughout the day I also called a really good friend of mine from Hannover many times and it was nice to catch up on things and hear how they were going.
Regardless, in the evening we made a really awesome stew from whatever was left from the BBQ, Floyd’s incredibly hot chili sauce, self made Chili Sin Carne, Noodles… It was a feast!
2023.06.06 — Day 4: Tuesday Attending the Driver’s License Theoretical Test, an Impossible Task
We had a great breakfast, black tea again with cereals and RHABARBER CAKE! This was a highlight for sure.
As Nick was still gone we needed to rely on busses connecting to Asbach in order to allow us to go to Bonn, this, sadly, often had complications, as they were often late and only came once an hour.
Floyd had to take his theoretical driver’s license exam today and we needed to be at the testing station in Brühl by 15:00. We got into our first bus ride by 11:46. The ride from the Bonn central station to Brühl only took 12 minutes, and we arrived at the Bonn central station 13:53. What could go wrong?
Well, the train was magically delayed by an hour. It’s a 12 minute ride, how far could it be? There gotta be other trains taking that same route, right? Absolutely there were! But all of those were delayed too, because the specific route itself was broken / blocked. We only got into a train going to Brühl by 14:54, best we could do was get there at all.
I let Floyd use my phone to continue study through the app. He studied a lot the past couple of days, used the app the first time the day prior, but actually got 99% of all questions tight, so I had a good feeling about this.
We arrived in Brühl ~15:06, took a bus to somewhere nearby the TÜV testing station, and literally ran there. Against all odds he still made it in time, or rather they were okay with a 10-15 Minute delay. He got in, and, to the best of my knowledge at that moment, took the test.
I went away, drove back to Bonn, took a seat somewhere outside the central station and had a call with Nils @ilohi_uwu! It was great and he told me of his travels and what crazy things once again happened.
Something weird happened, however: Floyd wrote me that he wasn’t allowed to take the test because some form his driving school needed to transmit was missing. Floyd was certain that he told his school to send it, and that he was eligible etc. etc. but there was nothing he could do. All that studying and this immense journey of rushing in time to the testing station for nothing.
Since we didn’t really have a motive for this day beyond the driver’s license thing so we just went and got some essential food items and had a slow, relaxed time.
Throughout the day Floyd told me so much about the Bonn public infrastructure network that I made this meme.
At ~19:51 the doors of the tram we were in broke, as they would remain open due to an issue with the sensor. The conductor himself needed to come into our wagon and do some funny stuff with the wires (???) on the top next to the doors. It was great to witness, yet sadly caused a delay which meant we’d miss the connecting train.
Thanks to this error, however, we’d be stuck in some beautiful place for some time and were able to witness the sunset:
https://social.uden.ai/@Erik/posts/AWQWLJO8ZnxWoYwWf2
We arrived home soon after, went to bed, the usual… Me and Floyd were of course frustrated about what happened, but there was nothing we could do about it and he’ll have to take the test another week.
#train #trains #travel #camping #haribo #asbach #bonn
Erik Uden => 
oldfartjmb says FREE PALESTINE