Bonn jour, Monsieur Beethoven!

My social media accounts are not named CULTURECURVES for nothing. Apart from sharing my love for fashion and advocating for inclusion and diversity in the fashion industry, I love sharing my trips and adventures with you. I have not travelled extensively lately but I am hoping to change that. Meanwhile, let me get back to my roots, to the city where I was born: Bonn.

I have recently been able to visit there and realised that the city was a-buzz! Little did I know 2020 marks Beethoven’s 250th birthday and Bonn is going all-out in showcasing not only Beethoven but Bonn as a centre for not only music but the arts in general.

I felt very much obliged to hype up my birth city and thought I’d list down my most favourite places in the city, in the hope that you will book a ticket to Bonn at any time this year. Without further ado, here are my favourite places in Bonn

RHINE RIVER

I am a sucker for any bodies of water in places where I live and I think that comes from the fact that I was born in a city that lies by the Rhine River. I love having a long stroll by the Rhine Promenade on a sunny warm late afternoon in summer or on a sunny crisp morning in winter. Personally, I love looking at the Rhine from what used to be a 17th century defensive structure but has now turned into a perfect viewing deck for Rhine admirers. It is called the Alter Zoll and it stands proud by the University of Bonn on the west side of the river. When visiting in May make sure to time it during what is called Rhein in Flammen, a yearly late spring firework spectacle along the Rhine and best viewed either from the public park called Rheinaue or whilst chilling with a beer at the Alter Zoll.

THE OLD CITY HALL

Located on Marktplatz, the Old City Hall is a wonderful rococo piece of art that is inevitably inviting. You cannot go into the Marktplatz and NOT take a picture of the white-pink building that looks like a perfect fairytale manor. If you want to get married, you can reserve a date to get officiated in this venue and enjoy looking at picture of heads of states posing with past German presidents and chancellors. During Christmas the windows of the Old City Hall are transformed into advent calendar windows and during the summer it serves a backdrop to the many cafe tables filled with people enjoying their afternoon coffee and cake or ice cream.

METROPOL THEATRE

This Art Noveau structure used to be a movie theatre and I remember watching a couple of movies here when I was a teenager before it was ultimately closed down. The city was sad to see this landmark building close doors and people were unsure as to what exactly will be done to it. Plans to demolish the building in 2006 started a rather long and acrimonious legal battle between its former owners and the city of Bonn. In the end, book company Thalia purchased the building in 2010, did some work inside and opened their doors to curious and apprehensive Bonners. The theatre was transformed into a bookstore with books displayed over 4 storeys. Thalia did a great job preserving many of the characteristic decorations of the former movie theatre, giving Bonners like me a warm feeling whilst also allowing us to be nostalgic for the time when the building told stories through the silver screen. At least now, stories are still being told through books. Whilst in the bookstore, make sure to sit and relax in their cafe or in one of the seats in the couple of movie seat rows that were preserved on the second floor.

THE HARIBO STORE

If you still have no idea where your favourite golden gummy bears are originally from, then make sure to really fly out to Bonn right now. Haribo was founded in Bonn by a man named Hans Riegel Sr. HA for Hans, RI for Riegel and BO for Bonn. There you go, HARIBO fans! Even though the official headquarters are now in Graftschaft, Haribo retains a great presence in Bonn and its residents. For this reason, the good people at Haribo made a savvy business move to open a very colourful Haribo store to showcase not only the products that Germans have been able to try and love for years now but also to bring out products that can only be bought at this store. Tourists love to compare this store to the M&Ms store on Leicester Square in London but to be fair, the latter is so much bigger than Bonn’s humble Haribo store. Nevertheless, this dreamy candyland can still make the most serious of adults feel like a child ready to get high on sugar!

CHERRY BLOSSOMS IN THE ALTSTADT

This one definitely needed to be in this list despite the cherry blossoms only showing their beauty once a year in April for only few days. Some 15 years ago, no one really thought the cherry blossom trees (mainly) on Heerstrasse in the Old Town or Altstadt would morph into one of the most popular tourist areas in Bonn during springtime. These days it is almost normal to see big and small groups of tourists walking back and forth on Heerstrasse, taking pictures and marvelling at the pink flowers seemingly covering the street like soft linen curtains. It is a beautiful sight to behold. Now, I guess the questions is: when exactly do the trees blossom? Valid question. The answer is: no one knows. The blossoming happens depending on what whether April throws at it. Once in bloom, the cherry blossoms can stay put for two weeks, most of the times in mid-April. However, the warmer the weather becomes, the quicker the cherry blossoms die off. I guess, you will have to go on faith here and make sure to check out https://www.kirschbluete-bonn.de for updates on the cherry blossoms. PRINT and PAINT runs the unofficial official blog site on the beautiful pink nature spectacle. I took a few pictures back in the day but reckon I have lost those photos now. The pictures provided below are from Print and Paint. Also check out this great shout-out to the cherry blossoms on Places To See Before You Die: https://www.facebook.com/placestosee/photos/a.147696995267610.25736.146895365347773/431007523603221/?type=1.

STERNSTRASSE

After a stroll between the cherry blossoms, if you are indeed visiting in April, you can easily walk towards one of my favourite shopping streets in Bonn’s inner city or Innenstadt, which is gladly all for pedestrians only. The street is dotted with small indie and chain stores in old and narrow buildings, some of which date back to the 16th century. In the winter time, especially over Christmas, the street like all pedestrians streets in the Innenstadt are decorated with Christmas lights, which makes a slow stroll down Sternstrasse with a cup of Gluehwein a rather romantic activity. Fashionistas and beauty afficionados love this street with its many clothing and make-up stores options.

BEETHOVEN MONUMENT

Since this blog post is an ode to Beethoven and Bonn (see what I did there? ode? yeah, nah!) Beethoven’s bronze monument on Muensterplatz cannot be missing from this list. Tourists usually stop here for their first photo of Bonn. Beethoven stands in the middle of the square against the backdrop of the yellow post office, seemingly watching and frowning at the same time over Bonn, his birthplace. He would have seen a lot of crazy things going on on the square, that much is guaranteed. The monument was unveiled in 1845 and has stood proudly in its place ever since. Now remember I mentioned that yellow post office building? Consider this as a bonus tourist attraction on this list. The building behind Beethoven used to be a city palace in the 1700s. It was then called the Fuerstenbergisches Palais when it was the residence of one Caspar Anton Rademacher. In 1876 it became the main post office building or Hauptpostamt after being purchased by the postal and telegraph administration department of the city. The whole building is now home to TKMaxx, a post office and a few clothing stores around the back. Make sure to have a bit of a gander inside the post office and inside TKMaxx to appreciate the building a bit more.

THE BEETHOVEN HOUSE

This brings us to Ludwig’s family home on Bonngasse 20. It has now become a focal point for the year-long celebration of Beethoven’s 250th birthday. The house itself is unassuming. Its old pink facade does not stand out from all the other buildings on the same street. But it carries a lot of significance in understanding who Beethoven was up until age 21. It is a memorial site and museum that serves as a centrepiece for other buildings in the area whose work centre around Beethoven and the arts in general. For this year’s celebration, the city of Bonn decided to renovate its souvenir and merch store, adding to it a modern touch, a cafe (hopefully fully operational soon) and a separate place to purchase your ticket for the house itself.

Within the original house itself, tourist are able to tour around, essentially, two buildings: the front house and an annex by the garden. What awaits you inside? Anything and everything that can give you an insight into the genius’s mind, life and work. There are paintings, portraits, manuscripts, sheet music copies, instruments and even items of everyday life. Tiny trivia: ironically the City of Bonn back in the 1800s was not interested in preserving Beethoven’s house but 12 art-loving people got together to form an association and to buy the house to keep it as a memorial for the famous Bonner. Oh how times have changed, and how the City of Bonn has now become so eager in marketing Beethoven and his family home as a major tourist attraction!

In front of the newly refurbished Beethoven House merch store and cafe, you can find a rectangular post that almost looks like a short totem pole at the side of the street. This is one of 11 info posts which contain stories about Bonn and Beethoven and with which you can walk a trail all over Bonn to learn more about Beethoven. I personally enjoyed the viewfinder-type feature embedded in the post.

HONORABLE MENTIONS

Okay, these are not honorable mentions because they are least relevant to Bonn. NOT AT ALL. I just wanted to highlight things to see in and near the city centre. The following are equally amazing places to visit but one will need a bus ride and longer walking time to see them in their full glory:

Museumsmeile – this is a strip that is home to a few well-curated museums including the Kunstmuseum Bonn, Park House Museum, Haus der Geschichte or House of History, Museum Koenig and Bundeskunsthalle. As a teenager with nerdy art history tendencies, I felt well at home on this strip!

Botanical Garden – this is for all you plant nerds. In the past the BG attracted a few plant nerds as it housed a rather giant stinky flower known as the titan arum. I personally have not seen or smelled it but it was quite a local sensation.

Old cemetery – this one is like a green island in the middle of modern streets and buildings. I know visiting a cemetery is not exactly a popular tourist idea but this is quite an important cemetery. It is around 3 acres big and is the last resting place of some notable personalities such as Clara and Robert Schumann, Friedrich Wilhelm Argelander, Ernst Moritz Arndt (whose monument you will see at Alter Zoll) and Maria Magdalena Beethoven, Ludwig’s mother. These are only a few of many.

Poppelsdorf Palace – this is a baroque palace and science museum now owned by the University of Bonn.

***When you are done with Bonn you have heaps of choices of places to go and see outside of Bonn. A few names I want to drop are: Drachenfels, Drachenburg, Cologne, Koblenz and the Naturepark Siebengebirge. When you have time and money left and some good weather to boot, make sure to book a boat tour along the Rhine. You will have a few choices as to duration and places to see, so make sure to do your research.

NOW WHAT?

So, now that I have convinced you to visit my beautiful city, you want to know more about the Beethoven Year. To know more about the year-long activities, you will want to check out the following links/socials/websites: https://www.bthvn2020.de/en/ https://www.facebook.com/BTHVN2020/ https://www.instagram.com/bthvn_2020/ https://www.instagram.com/beethoven_haus_bonn/ https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC3ftLfAUnhZVIL2pCpUhL-w

If you want to fly over to Bonn, make sure to book a flight to Cologne-Bonn Airport or Duesseldorf Airport. From Cologne-Bonn you can take an express bus or a train to Bonn, which will take you an average 20-30 mins travel time. From Dueseldorf, it might take you an hour depending on which kind of train you take. Make sure to book accomodation ahead of time. Lots of Bonners have warmed up to AirBnB and so it will not be hard to find a good room or even a whole flat to rest your weary head after a day’s tour in the city.

I hope you will consider to pay Bonn a visit. Make sure to give me a shout if you have any questions or if you want to send me pictures. I will make sure to share it here on my stories on instagram, twitter and facebook. Make sure to also see my rather grainy IGtv video on my instagram profile @culturecurves for a quick look at some of the above-mentioned places!

Thank you for stopping by!

Love, Christine

When in London…

A few weeks ago Cousin Chuck and I threw ourselves into our best outfits and set out to find the best grammable spots in London that one can visit in a day. I had a red dress and purple tights on and I could not give a damn about the funny looks I got for being rather…overdresses. Admittedly, I am almost 100% convinced that those who stared were tourist themselves. Londoners do not burden themselves with looking at colourful weirdos like me because most of them are colourful weirdos themselves. You have to love that about London!

Shout out to Cousin Chuck who took all the beautiful photos, directed me, carried my coat and bag whenever he was about to take pictures of me and for telling me that I look awkward at times ha! You can always rely on relatives to tell you some damn truth :-). Make sure to follow Chuck on Insta under @chuckster2690!

Without further ado here are my top 5 grammable spots in London:

Neal’s Yard in Covent Garden

I love this small pocket of shops and cafés in Covent Garden. Neal’s Yard is tucked away between Shorts Garden and Monmouth Street. On a Saturday, make sure to go a bit earlier in order to avoid the lunch crowd and the tourists who also go to admire the cuteness of this unlikely spot in the middle of a busy city. Make sure to take a photo against the facade of Wild Food Café or the whole west facade for that matter as shown in my photo below. The colourful window frames of that building make me think of a fun Advent calendar somehow!

Lancaster Road or any of the colourful rows of houses in Notting Hill

Take a pick really. There are many choices and we chose Lancaster Road just off Portobello Road. Other choices may include Denbigh Terrace, Portobello Road itself or Westbourne Park Road. What you notice right away when getting to these streets is that you are not alone in wanting to take a nice picture with these houses. Fellow tourists do their most to get the best angles and lighting and it can get a bit competitive ha! The trick is to be ready and creative with the angles so as to be able to exclude unwilling photobombers into your pictures. Some of the colourful houses further up the street at Lancaster Road were completely ignored as fellow tourists crowded over the beloved yellow house. So, we took advantage of taking picture with the other houses and the pictures were equally nice. Below are some samples!

Covent Garden

I think any corner in Covent Garden can be a great backdrop for a cool photo. When we were there we stumbled upon a promo set-up by Tifanny and CO. They had a mini arch bridge, fake snow, Christmas trees, a mini ice-skating rink and a nice bench where I was able to rest and take a cool photo as well. Be warned again that Covent Garden is a beloved tourist spot and you have to bring a lot of patience if you want to take a few good photos at this location.

Brick Lane

This is hip and hipster central. There is no other way of saying and seeing that and I love it. It feels gritty, creative, vibrant and cool all at the same time. We mainly wanted to get a few good shots of the street art as Brick Lane and Shoreditch in general are full of them. We found some very interesting ones and even when we were leaving Brick Lane, we still found same very impressive street art that we could not photograph anymore as our batteries have died! I should really invest in a power bank, stat!

Shoreditch Boxpark

To conclude a day of walking, commuting and shooting, I would recommend going to the Boxpar where you buy some yummy food from a diverse selection of stalls and sit down to relax. You can indulge in some foodporn shots and also make sure you take some select shots in the corridor full of silver tassles, if that is the right term at all. It can get crowded and you will need to move quick if you want your corridor shot to look like nobody else is there.

So there you have it! My top five grammable spots in London that you can visit for one whole day. If you have any other suggestions, make sure to let me know in the comment section.

Thanks for stopping by!

Love, Christine

My very late Curve Fest report

Or that time my cousin and I walked around Scouseland to look for the most grammable places!

Now before you bite my head off for even bothering to write a blog entry about Curve this late into the day, please understand that I have a demanding day job and I have not had a weekend off since before Curve. There! That is my excuse 😅.

So, having said all that, let me give you a brief review of my Curve experience.

1. LOCATION, LOCATION, LOCATION

After the rather squished situation of last year’s venue, St George’s Hall, the organisers saw it fit to ship the event back to its previous location from two years ago.

Having Curve at the Exhibition Centre in Liverpool felt like we could all breathe a bit deeper and easier. Those who have mobility problems seemed to not have as many difficulties as when the event was at St George’s Hall. The event felt roomy, maybe too roomy, and there was space to move around, have quick chats, interact with the stall owners, friends and influencers and to shop til ya drop.

The temperatures were so la la. It felt alright at the beginning but then the more I moved around and the fuller the venue got, the warmer it became. There were lights everywhere and it did not help that we had to schlep our coats and scarves everywhere. It was a bit of a low-impact gym sesh hehe. Suggestion: coat room.

The lay out of the venue was passable. I felt like there was so much more space to move around on the right side of the venue where the coffee and hotdog stand was than on the other side. I found myself returning to the right side everytime I was done with scanning the stalls in a particular row. It is also possible it was just my weird spatial perception.

Taking about space, I found the size and position of the catwalk very perplexing. It felt like the catwalk was a bit of an afterthought. I get that a stage in that venue would have been too much work and costs but I had pictured the catwalk somehow a bit more special, fenced out and, ok, maybe a wee bit elevated. Furthermore, the catwalk itself looked way too narrow and wobbly. One could see the happenings behind the stage, which was a bit distracting. I mean, I could also say it had a very guerilla, rough-around-the-edges feel to it that could prove endearing in a way.

Getting to the venue is easy but not always walkable for everyone. Good thing is, cab drivers in Liverpool are always very lovely and they will take you there in no time.

My take: this venue is so much better than St George’s Hall. It was much more accessible, comfortable, roomy, less hot. I loved bumping into everyone and seeing all the different outfits!

2. VIP SHIZ

I bought a VIP ticket this time but apart from the kick-ass goodie bag I did not see much of a perk of being a VIP. I never got to sit in the VIP corner of the catwalk audience area as it always always full nor did I get to enjoy any of the treatments as the appointments were running behind and I got antsy just sitting around the VIP lounge, feeling like it was a waste of time. Suggestion: have more beauty techs around to service the VIPs. Two nail techs for all the VIPs are simple not enough!

Positives? Goodie bag (I made an IGtv vid about this so check my grid for it!), sweets in the VIP lounge and that selfie machine as well!

3. WILL I GO BACK?

Of course! I hope that the organisers are continually taking feedback onboard because only that way can they consistently better themselves. All in all, well done!

BONUS BIT : top 5 grammable places in Liverpool you can go to once you are done at Curve

a. The Liver Building, Pier Head

b. The Rooftop Bar at Liberté, Brunswick Street

c. The Liver Wings Mural, Jamaica Street

d. By the Mersey Promenade

e. The Liverpool Mountain installation by Ugo Rondinone outside the Tate Museum, Albert Docks

Thank you for stopping by!

Love,

Christine

Happy 10th Sheego!

Alright, babes. I just had a nap and I am staying awake for another two hours before I go back to sleep.
Anywaaaaay, I may still do a vid about my 24hr stint in Frankfurt but I thought I’d write something on here nevertheless!
So, here we go. About a month ago, I joined a contest organised by Sheego . The things that one could win were a dress,  free night in a hotel in Frankfurt, free make-up, styling, a photoshoot, dinner and party! What more can a girl want! I joined, knowing fully well I would never win. Then I did. I hesitated rsvping as I was not sure I could find a cheap flight. Then I did. So, off I went.

It was great to meet new babes and see some familiar ones. We checked in after a wee bit of a drama with the hotel staff, changed into our party garb and off we went to the Sheego Showroom. We were greeted with drinks, cakes and sweets. Yours truly went for the mimosas unapologetically. We were allowed to try on all their clothes, get our faces and hair dolled up and our photos taken. Everyone was in a perfect mood.

What made my day a tad bittersweet is the fact I never got my dress. Sheego informed me they sent it to Karen’s (the friend I took with me) address as I gave them her address as my German address. She said she never got anything. Sheego never got a message from their courier that the parcel went back to them. Made me sad. They said they will query it. If given the choice I would choose this purple dress. SO SO NICE!

Anyway, after the showroom we were swept off to a popular Greek resto where the food was super yummy and where waiters and bartenders ever so often climbed up the bar, danced, threw napkins around (a Greek thing methinks) and popped off shiny confetti guns.

It was one helluva place. I really need to visit that place again with Henry. He will freaaaak out. Who knew Frankfurt could be this fun and also so pretty at night, especially by the river!

After a long day, we finally retired in our hotel beds where our Sheego goody bags were waiting. Goooood times!

So, you might be wondering why Sheego is not yet a household name in the UK . If you check out Curvissa’s website, you can find a few pieces here and there but you will not see their newest collections. I had to, of course, be nosy about this and asked a Sheego rep why that was. She told me that I should give it another half year and I will be seeing the newer stuff on Curvissa. I told her that I am sure the Brits will love all the Miyabi Kawai colourful collections. They will be a hit. I really hope they get on it soon.

Yo, Sheego, if you need a transchannel brand ambassador, hit me up!😘

All in all, it was worth all the effort. I love seeing plus-size fashion being celebrated more and more in Germany. I always felt the German fashion industry is still supressing plus-size fashion and it is hard to breakthrough as a brand, designer or even model. So, I am hoping good things!

Thanks for stopping by!

Love,

Christine