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A weekend in Bonn

I left OR Tambo on Thursday night, 10th February, late already for a seminar on Climate Change Adaptation Financing, which was planned to kick off that very evening. My itinerary dictated that I needed to jump off in Munich and then later, about 30 minutes, hop on another plane that will take me to Cologne/Bonn. But our flight from OR Tambo was delayed by about an hour. That meant I was obviously going to miss my connecting flight, and I did. This was not be a train smash, because I was able to get another flight with ease. When I arrived in Cologne/Bonn, Ruediger from ICLEI (the institution that invited me) was there waiting for me. When I arrived in the seminar, it was in fact time to make my presentation, but the facilitator Jeb Brugmann quite correctly felt that I needed to settle down and have a feel of discussions first. The discussions were quite rich, focusing on how best to finance or invest in climate change adaptation projects. We discussed until about 6:30pm. By this time, which would be 7:30pm SA time, it was already very dark there, since it was still in winter. Even though temperatures were in the region of about 5 degrees celsius, and a bit of drizzle, it was not very cold. It is worth mentioning that I was the only representative from Africa, although Cape Town was invited, its representative could not come.

I had very little time to explore the City of Bonn, which is situated along the banks of Rhine River. It is also the home of classical music composer Ludwig van Beethoven, who I am told was actually deaf. My friend, Sonke Kreft took me for a walk to town where I was to catch a bus to the airport. Sonke was not particularly excited about Bonn, he thought it is a quiet city with very little to see. He showed me Bonn University, which has a very beautiful building, and then later the Rhine river and Beethoven square. While waiting for the bus at the station, a scene rather familiar to these parts was playing itself in front of us: a group of drunk people, drinking openly. Sonke assured me that, they are not dangerous, but they are alcoholics, who are a blight to that city, that's all.

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