Koblenz

Quynh came back to visit me last Friday and we travelled to Koblenz on the next day for its city festival. She knows two guys there who showed us around and even offered a place to stay for the night, as so we did. It was an interesting trip overall and some of the details are coming now.

Let's see what I can say about Koblenz...

As I was told, Koblenz has about 106.000 inhabitants, so... it's quite big. I mean compared to Gießen with its population of 78.000 people (yeah I just googled it), Koblenz is at another level.

Also, it is more of a tourist city. There is a palace in the middle of the city and a few castles within a few kilometers radius, beside the obvious main attraction that is its location right next to the Rhein. Koblenz lies directly at the confluence of the Rhein and the Mosel, which creates a terrestrial peak: the so called German Corner. From there, a ropeway brings tourists to a fortress on the hill on the opposite bank of the river. Historically seen, that fortress called Ehrenbreitstein is one of many the Prussians built up around Koblenz to protect the city. Another historically interesting thing is that the "old city" part of Koblenz has road names written solely in Old German, which is funny because those ancient letters are really misleading sometimes.

The emblem of Koblenz is a "little rascal" called Schängel. I totally did not get the explanation for that name in front of the Schängel-fountain when I first read it, but now that I'm home and did a little more research, it finally dawned on me.

So, Koblenz was ruled by France for about 20 years and during that period of time, French soldiers of course had to get around and make little babies with German women. The most common name they gave their half-german, half-french boys was Johann, which is the German form of the French name Jean. German mommys, however, had a hard time pronouncing Jean (who could blame them, really, French is a language that was made for no foreigners to ever master its correct pronunciation), so they came up with an easier version: Shang. And just how Germans are, or rather how mommys are, Koblenz women had to cutify Shang and created the diminutive Schängel. Slowly, Schängel was more generalized and eventually became a term of insult for half-blood children. Although nowadays, it's kinda a name of honor for all the people of Koblenz. Yeah, I don't get the drastic change either.

But the back to the Schängel fountain. That thing is totally tricky. It looks like this:

 

(source: http://www.travelwriter.at/pic/049/koblenz-schaengelbrunnen-061226g.jpg)

See the little boy on the top of the fountain? Well, he's a prankster. There's a descrpition on the ground right in the front of the fountain, so when people look down concentrated to read that description, the little rascal spits water on their heads without warning. Luckily, I was saved from that honor.

So yeah, so much about the city itself. Now to my personal experience. I filmed quite a lot and also intented to put this up here, but the editing work is still put on hold for all of my vids because I'm still looking for the ideal editing software. I guess next time I gotta take pics too, videos just take up a lot of time.

I guess the thing I enjoyed the most is the one-hour boot trip we took on the Rhein. Gosh, the Rhein just really reminds me of the Han river in Da Nang. I thought I was getting a little too nostalgic when I was at the Rhein and suddenly smelled the ocean... which is probably about 400km away, lol. I don't know, I just really, really miss Da Nang.

Another memorable thing was that Quynh and I very spontaneously decided to make one of my favorite dishes for dinner: bún bò Huế, my mom's version. It didn't exactly turn out the way mom always makes it, but it was yummy nonetheless. I could do that again any time. We were so caught up in cooking that we almost missed the fireworks at 11pm. Now to think of it, it's pretty incredible how we pulled off that half-an-hour speedwalk from our friend's home to the riverside, trying our best to be prompt for the fireworks. (We missed the opening by a few minutes anyway). Poor Quynh and her feet. I made her hate jogging the first day she came to Germany, and now after that speedwalk, I think she's come to despise anything more tiresome than strolling, lol. But it was her who had the hots for fireworks. To me, it was just meh. Kinda.

Yeah and the night ended with us being invited to our friend's friend's birthday - technically to a stranger's birthday. It was sort of a bomb dropped on us that evening. I didn't expect clubbing to be on the list, hence I had no party clothes whatsoever packed, but who cares. The more serious problem was rather the ticket I already bought for 11am on the next morning. It was questionable if we could make it in time at the beginning, but we pulled it off nicely at last.

But yeah, I gotta say the clubbing experience wasn't really worth the sleep sacrification. The DJ was a bad one, that's quite the main issue. I mean, I'm fine with house and techno, but a whole hour dancing to nothing but beats, nah, that's not my thing. I'm not your typical music-crazed kinda girl who automatically rocks her body off when music starts to play. Not to mention that clubbing isn't my kind of scene either. I go clubbing to have fun with close friends, not to satisfy my non-existent dance urges or hook up with strangers (stressing on "hook up"). So when I go with the wrong people and as the icing on the cake, get a bad DJ who interrupts every five seconds during the few minutes he actually plays a song where you can sing along and who likes to repeatedly blind you with flashes that last way too long, it's hard for me to have fun. I get annoyed and bored on the dance floor, for heaven's sake! And when I get bored, I get sleepy. You are welcome to guess the outcome.

Teehee. In the end, there's only so little rant for an entire trip. So I think it's safe to say Koblenz was a nice experience. I would come back again the next time I desperately need a river to still my overwhelmed, Da-Nang-missing heart. :P