For only the second time this trip, we had alarms set to make sure we got ourselves up at an appropriate time today. Whatever for, you may wonder? Because, dear friends, today we were heading out of Hattingen for the next three weeks to venture around more of Germany, and some of its surrounding neighbors, ON OUR OWN (dun dun dun!)! The first stop on our three week “round trip” had us (eventually) on a train to Bonn, the former capital of West Germany…
Construction/Maintenance work began today on some of the tracks in Hattingen and the surrounding area, so we knew that our options for getting to Bonn would include some adventure. Our plan was to take the S-bahn out of Hattingen to Essen Hauptbahnhof, and then we would be transferring at Essen to an IC (intercity, but not express..that’s ICE) to Bonn. However, construction was happening between one of the other Essen stations and the Hauptbahnhof, so we were going to go Hattingen --> Essen Steele, then Essen Steele —> Essen Hauptbahnhof. Then, of course, shortly before we left, that course got cancelled, so we decided to get our initial train out of Hattingen and then figure it out from there. Alina very kindly offered to drop us and our things at Hattingen (it is about a 90 second drive by car to the station), but Peter’s early meeting ran short and so he took us instead. As he dropped us off, he said if anything changed or trains didn’t come to let him know because he had a gap between meetings and could probably get us to Essen to get our train to Bonn. We thanked him and said we should be okay…which, naturally, turned out to be a terrible thing to say. The alternative train we planned to take once out of Essen Steele was now running behind and we would NOT make the train to Bonn we had planned, which was mostly a problem because we reserved seats and didn’t want to eat the (very insignificant, to be fair) 9€ we spent to do that. So, we spam called Peter in a panic until he did come to our rescue and got us instead to Bochum, which was the stop prior to Essen Hauptbahnhof for the train we were taking to Bonn. So, once again, thank you very much, Peter, for humoring us in our panic :) The train ride to Bonn itself was fairly uneventful. Lovely, but uneventful. We got to Bonn just before noon and had to grab a Straßenbahn to the station closest to our lodgings, which is called BaseCamp Bonn. BaseCamp is SUPER COOL! I don’t remember how we found it, but Brandon had come upon it in an internet search about a year or so ago when we started considering using hostels for our trips away from Hattingen. It is an old converted warehouse made to look like an indoor RV park, basically. All the “rooms” are refurbished transports, including Airstream trailers, a Swiss cable car gondola, train car, and others. We rented the gondola, and it is a DELIGHT! Despite check-in being at 3, BaseCamp also let us check in right when we arrived, which was nice because we were just going to see if we could stash our bags while we got some lunch. As I’ve noticed so far, the current occupants are us and a handful of older couples, including one who came in on their bicycles! BaseCamp has really nice bathrooms and shower areas, as well as some snack offerings at the front desk. It is smaller than we first thought based on pictures, but it’s homey :) We found lunch at a restaurant called Different. Brandon got tortellini and I had grilled chicken mac and cheese. The waitress picked up fairly quickly that we spoke English, so we didn’t get to use much German then, but we’ll have more opportunities :) We then headed back into the city to explore for a bit. There were a lot of cool shops and beautiful churches. One of them was having some work done, though I think it was open for exploration. We found the area of town (because there were lots of signs lol) where Beethoven’s house was, and we briefly listened to a little spiel about the start of his life. We didn’t tour the house, though we could, because I just wanted to walk around outside. After a few hours, I was starting to get a little tired, so we got ready to head back to BaseCamp to chill before getting some dinner. We explored the upstairs area when we returned, which is where we’ll get to have breakfast tomorrow. BaseCamp also has a few shelves of books and a seating area with some nice vintage leather couches. We laid down for a bit and then decided to find some dinner. There was a sports bar less than a block from us called Dotty’s that looked good, so we walked there quite quickly (it was almost directly across the street). We both had some Flammkuchen, mine was a veggie one and Brandon’s was bacon and onion, and we shared some fries with ketchup, mayo, and onions. A very sweet dog popped up at one point, and we eventually figured out, we think, that they belonged to the restaurant, but that is still unconfirmed. Back at BaseCamp, we got some showers and settled in for the night. I am looking forward to seeing how it is to sleep in our gondola tonight, and I am excited that we are here still tomorrow, too! Brandon and I have decided we have to get some of our friends and family to come here sometime because we’re sure they’d love it! Until tomorrow, friends, enjoy the pictures!
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