Over the long weekend I visited Cologne (Köln) and Bonn. I had lived there in 2003 and it was now first time I had returned. When I originally moved there, it was my first real adventure, my first proper solo travel and for all intents and purposes the first time I had lived out of home. Initially shell-shocked, I gradually acclimatised and by the end, although I hungered for Australia, I was knew I was going to miss the place.
So now I arrived back, five years later and looked upon the same scene with more world-weary eyes. It was a bit of a head-spin to see things that were so familiar, such as the house I used to live in, but now so distant. Not much seemed to have changed, although shock-horror, Bonn now has a Starbucks. The weekend was very enjoyable and I even managed to get severely sunburnt after falling asleep on the grass at the Fischmarkt in Köln. Surely a metric of a holiday’s success is the level of sunburn?
I happened to be there for a lover’s tree festival of sorts (the proper name of it escapes me). It happens every year, and is particular to this area of Germany. What happens is a bloke and his mates drive out and chop down a tree, bring it back to the city, decorate it with streamers, attach a sweetheart’s name to it, and tie it to a pole, or somewhere close to her abode. Typically, some amount of beer is involved in this whole exercise, as is the German fashion. While the trees go up – cable-tied to street poles or whatever sturdy fixture is at hand – other lads are running around pulling down others’s trees for shits and giggles, or to reappropriate for their own sweetheart. Thus, the original owner often has to stick around his tree late in to the night to make sure no-one steals it. He has his friends and liquor to keep him amused, and apparently girls parents will often come out and give the boy some beer. In the morning, the girl awakens, and promptly judges the boy based on the tree (yes, size does count) and the artistic sensibility of the decorations.
This year, being a leap year, the roles were reversed. Girls were supposed to put up trees for the guys, although quite a few guys were still hard at work, judging by the names on trees around the city.
