The Rhine Cruise morning began like all mornings seem to begin here in Germany: frigid and early. Our bus dropped us off in a tiny village along the Rhine River that resembled the Eiffel in a lot of ways with its medieval style buildings and cobble stone streets. We stopped at a little bakery before embarking on the boat, and our Professor Mikael Kreuzriegler generously bought our group a bunch of jelly filled donuts, that we gorged on. By the time we stepped on the boat we looked like a group of jelly donuts ourselves with the amount of sugar we had coating our clothing and faces.
The Rhine cruise, was worth it despite the torrid weather and provided us with a picturesque view of the rustic castles, vineyards, churches, and medieval homes dotting the hills along the river. Our group sat in lawn chairs on the deck of the cruise and taught each other how to use the different settings of our camera to achieve the ultimate photo. We talked about our documentary plans and the amount of unexpected cultural differences we had experienced in Germany so far. Everything felt surreal as we glided past castles and archaic buildings on the Rhine, which looked like a ribbon of sky next to the green hills. We got off at our “port” in another little village, where we ate lunch. We enjoyed a traditional German meal of Schnitzel and fries, which we’ve all grown quite accustomed to. We were feeling rather lethargic after the relaxing meal and amiable conversation. However, this feeling lasted only a short while, after all what is a German excursion without a treacherous hike up to the top of a castle?
After lunch Olaf Brodersen rounded us up and marched us up an endless set up steep stone stairs. When I say marched, I do mean he marched to the top, while others of us dwindled along and used the “picture taking excuse” to catch our breath along the way. When we got to the top of the hill, the castle very much resembled the castle from our excursion to the Eiffel except this one was particularly striking because you could look over the wall of the castle and see a view of the Rhine River and all the buildings scattered around it. Our group took this opportunity to take a plethora of Gopro selfies with the epic background behind us, which made for some like worthy profile pictures later. We then toured the castle lead by our very knowledgeable tour guide who once again reaffirmed us in our belief that living in 2014 is far better than living in 1514. We were taken to the torture chamber where we learned about some of the atrocious torture and punishment techniques used on people who broke laws in and around the castle. One punishment, for example, was when a woman was caught committing adultery she would have to wear a metal mask that resembled the snout of a pig. When she would put it on it would pull her head down forcing her to crawl on all fours like a pig would. Ironically after most of the girls in our group heard this form of punishment we snorted, like pigs, with disgust. After browsing the gift shop we made our way back down to the bus, feeling a bit conflicted about our next activity, which involved cheese tasting. It felt a little strange to be on our way to celebrate Germany’s cheese after seeing images of people being stretched to death.
Nevertheless we made our way back down and loaded back on to the bus. To a couple of the students dismay, myself and some other girls in our group decided to convert our bus into a musical theater production on wheels by singing the entire soundtrack from Wicked all the way to the cheese dairy.
When we reached the cheese dairy we got off the bus buzzing with noise, half of us humming to Wicked, the other half groaning at the humming. Our tour of the cheese dariy was very interesting we were lead through the basement past barrels and barrels filled with cheese that was far older than us. We learned about the tradition of German Cheese Princesses.
This is a German tradition similar to Miss America, only the Cheese Princesses actually knows how to find Africa on a map and not only that but they have to be extremely educated on the subject of their region’s cheese. Once a Cheese Princess is elected from each one of the regions along the Rhine River, one will become the German Cheese Queen through a series of competitions. If a princess is crowned Queen she will travel all over the world and try and educate people about German cheese, so lets hope she can find Africa on a map! We learned about the process of making cheese and that German cheese is so unique, because the soil by the Rhine contains certain nutrients that give German cheese its exclusive flavor. German cheese making and German cheese festivals are a huge part of the German culture and have been prevalent in Germany since the days of castles and metal pig masks as a form of torture. People used to eat more cheese than water back in the early centuries because the water was dirty and the cheese was delicious. They would go through several kilos per person a day. We left the cheese diary and got back on the bus and made our way down the street to another cheese diary.
Here we enjoyed a delicious, and romantically lit meal, surrounded by candles in a quaint stone room. Laughing and conversing was a great way to end the day.
On the bus ride home we were a full-fledged Broadway musical.
We arrived back in Bonn slightly buzzed and exhausted, but it was the good kind of tired, the kind of tired one feels after a productive day.
By Kendall Milton
