let it snow.....

Bonn is WHITE!!

BONN is LITTLE

yeah it is, then how does going to the office from home take almost 1 hour every morning even when it would take just 8 minutes by car??
public transportation can suck in this city. especially if you have to cross the river.

drinking sekt before breakfast

The tradition of celebrating stuff in the office with a bottle of sekt (bubbled wine) continues, even if it is before the breakfast!

this happened to me today!

I threw out into a trash can in front of the main station!!! and I missed my train!!! the fish at lunch poisoned me :( I cant eat in this country :((

re-connected

Oh god, I have been disconnected from outer world for such a long time! in the end here I am in my room in a shared appartment (yeap still looking for a one of my own) enjoying the broadband internet with my brand new laptop (dell latitude d430), sitting on my mattress without a bed case watching my big screen LCD tv which altogether look like a weird combination.
you can take this post as an indicator that I will be able to post in a more regular basis ;)

Looking for a place to live

yeah, happy times are ending so it is time for me to look for a permanent place to live in Bonn now.
any suggestions/recommandations about the area to live in is appreciated BONNERS!!

The water challenge

It is rainning almost every 2 days, but still the drinking water is more expensive than beer. They are serving every kind of beverage (coffee/tee/hot chocolate..) for free in the cantine or in the office floors, but not water. Finding the best taste was also a challenge, trying some unbelievably bad tasting brands, I decided one French brand "Volvic" to be the best for me. Something that makes the water challenge harder is that the boggest amount you can buy water is 1,5 liters. Which forces me to buy a 6 pack and return the bottles later on to the shop.

The bottle challenge

Yes, I have been afraid to buy anything that is sold in bottles since I arrived. Why? Because I have to take the bottles back to the shop!! Almost all the plastic/glass bottles have deposit (pfand) which is around 20/25 ct. This means you are throwing away 25 cents everytime you throw a bottle away. For me (no car no bike yet) it is already a problem to shop groceries (yes I am missing the grocery stores in every corner in Istanbul), so taking the bottles back is another.
It is the same issue in the office: since I have to buy my own drinking water (yes I am missing the water springs serving free water in the offices in Turkey) my desk is sometimes a bottle trash.

Alcohol paradise

I have just learned that the legal age limit to buy alcohol is 16, for the light drinks and 18 for the harder drinks. This explains why the German drink practically everywhere:) on the street, on the bus, in the train... I have no problem with that since it gives me the same freedom, but it also causes everywhere smell beer since the people get careless when they get drunk and the bottles are going all around .

Kölner Dom

yes, the famous dom. On saturday I was in Cologne for the second time, The first time I couldn't climb up the tower because there was a service going on. This time I didn't miss (!!) the chance and got a ticket for 2,5 euros and gave myself the opportunity to climb 500 steps up . After that incredible effort, I was expecting an extraordinary view or sth, but I was deeply frustrated. You can see all the city - that's the idea anyway- but there is nothing special on that. Still having the habit to compare everything with Istanbul, the view didn't satisfy my tired legs. On the other hand you can appreciate the architecture which I did.

market at the markt platz

There is a market placed in the city center everyday from 9am till 4pm. when i decide to walk through the makt platz, i can see the sellers putting their stands on in the morning but i can never catch it for shopping because it is already over when i finish at work. so the saturdays are the only opportunity for me to go there. it is not big in size since the markt plazt also not big itself, but has all variaty of friuts and vegetables. didnt compare the prices with the supermarket though -but i never do that anyway- everything is so fresh and looks tempting. so this is my favorite market in bonn, until i find a better one:)

barbecue at the rhein

yesterday was the openning of 3 days bier festival bierbörse. in the program there was a firework show at 10:30 pm. to have a better view of the show, we decided to take places at the other side of the rhein . so we went to the park in front of the t-mobile campus in beuel, and had barbecue on the grass. later we went down to rhein and took places at the beach and enjoyed the show. it was a perfect friday evening and the next plan is to go for the bierbörse on sunday, so details on that are comming later.

after job party.

there is a very popular party organization that is called after job party in bonn-cologne area. There are parties organized in different locations every 2 weeks in cologne and bonn. yesterday it was in bonn and I was invited but there were no tickets to buy anywhere, they were sold out,because it was going to take place on board a ship and would be sailing up and down the rhein for about 3 hours. so we decided to go there 2 hours before she moved and try to find tickets from people who had extras. surprisingly it worked and 5 of us were on board the ship by 19:30. the enterence is 15 euros and one drink is for free, the beers are between 2 and 3,5 euros on board. we danced until 11 pm and were so tired in the end that we barely could walk. even though it is called after job party, it seems like everybody drops by home to change:) one funny thing was that the interviewer of the event happened to come to me with the cameraman and asked it me if I was having fun. I turned the conversation into english and had a few words with her, so I became a 5 minutes star like andy warhol foresaw.

altstadt...

Since I arrived, Altstadt (old town) was a mistery to be because I couldnt figure out where the hell it was even if I looked into the map. At last, after a deep research I found out where exactly it was, as always not as far as I antisipated , it was just round the corner after the city center, starting from max straße. Why I was so obsessed with altsatdt was that everybody was telling me that it was full of turkish shops. Since I was very much willing to find myself a proper turkish style yogurt, I headed to the altstadt. My first trial was a disaster since there was a little storm goning on and I was close to get frozen on the streets of altstadt, until I found a REWE to heat my body in. I couldnt complete my shopping list from rewe but I could get the strength back to walk until the tram station. Yesterday I gave it another shot, now knowing the area better and having a temperature over 20. It was true what they said because every 10th step, I came accross a shop with a turkish name. there are also many spanish, indian and italian shops and restaurants around. I got into "la tienda latina", owned by a colombian, and I got ready to eat black beens (frijoles negros), pickeled jalepenos and a big pack of cheese tortilla chips. After some time I realized that I was going around the same streets like a labirent, so I decided to end the journey. On the way back I dropped by a big turkish supermarket and I got, fresh mints, ready to cook frozen "urfa kebap", yougurt, "yufka" to make borek, and some classical turkish snacks.
more review on the Altstadt is coming later.

immigrants..

yesterday it was freezing as usual and all I was thinking aboout was to get into the hotel and warm up. it wasnt possible since the air conditioner was not willing to heat the room, but just cool. called the reseption and she sent a guy up to the room, who I was guessing , was arabic. he tried to communicate with his english like "what wrong?" "ok ok!!!" "one minute" and so on.
after 15 minutes of trying he left saying "I come ten minute". he was back like half an hour later with a turkish guy with him, also guessing that I was turkish also. he was happy that at last he could communicate me but we were all confused altogether that, I started to speak english to the turkish one, he started to speak turkish to the arabic one, and the arabic started to speak german with me. at last we figured out that it wasnt working and needed repairing, they gave me an electric heater and left. and I found myself thinking: the power of language!!!

Ok, not really so live :P

Ok, this is the 20th day that I landed Bonn, my new habittat for an unknown amount of time. this is a short summary of what happened so far:

I packed my stuff into 28 kg's and took the morning plane to Cologne/Bonn airport, waving to my friend Selen in the Istanbul Atatürk airport.



I was picked up by a lady in the airport who was sent by the company to help me with the registration stuff. We approximatly visited 5 offices and more people in 1,5 hours and by 12:oo I was a resident of Bonn in the address of the Kanzler Hotel.


The hotel is a 4 start hotel besides they are special since they are also providing apartment rooms which contain a kitchen and access to the laundry. the kitchen looks sth like that:

there is a dish washer (thanks god) and a microwave and a little fridge. They are cleanning the rooms twice a week and changind the sheets and towels if you ask them to do.

There were "welcome" haribo's (which are originally comming from BONN ) on my bed which I consumed in the first minute.

Europe is always surprises me when I see hotels providing internet connections for high prices like 5 euros/min. Yeah it was aagain a shock realizing that there will be no internet surfing in the hotel for me whatsoever.

that day was over with a little going around and exploring the supermarket in the neighborhood and realizing how close the hotel was to the city center.

the next day I went to the office with a connection of subway and bus (thanks to the receptionist). which took 30 min including wait-betweens.

Cant help mentioning the weather: It was sth like 30 C the day I arrived which was a very big gift to me but unfortunatly took only until the weekend to start rain and cool down to 15 C. It has been the same since then, somedays up to 20 but thats all. now I am very much looking forward to the hot weather that is said to be coming from spain over germany tomorrow, so that my nose and hands can warm a little bit.

So welcome to Bonn, the city of Beethoveen.