Bonn (Day 2): Beethoven-Haus and Arithmeum

The sky was gray, and the air was damp. It almost felt like a typical winter day in my beloved city of Vancouver.

We bought a 3-day family Bonn Regio WelcomeCard at the hotel. It is a great deal as it offers free admission to a lot of museumsin Bonn and free travel on the local public transportation system.

Our first stop after a typical German hotel frühstück (cold cuts, cold cuts, cold cuts, cheese, bread, muesli, and juice) was Beethoven-Haus - the house where Beethoven was born. The staff were very friendly and gave Gabriel and Jocelyn an introduction to Fidelio (Op. 72) at the museum's stage for music visualization, a 3-D virtual reality stage in a building adjacent to Beethoven-Haus. It was still early in the morning and we had the whole stage to ourselves. As the music played in the background, Gabriel and Jocelyn alternated their roles as Florestan, Leonore, Pizzaro, and Rocco. The kids seemed to enjoy playing the role of Florestan (interacted through two closed loop of ropes, which represented his captivity), and not so much the role of Pizzaro (interacted through a dagger-like joystick). The kids had a wonderful time at the virtual reality stage.

We then went from room to room in Beethoven-Haus. Each room has displays or artifacts depicting different stages of the composer's life. The kids were amazed by some of the ear trumpets on display at the museum. The kids then spent an hour navigating the Hello Beethoven website at the computer studio, where there are banks of PC for visitors to access digitized work of Beethoven. We learned about Beethoven's daily routine, how he made a living, and that he was very picky about his coffee. Here is a picture of Gabriel in the back garden of Beethoven-Haus.




The hotelier suggested that the kids might enjoy the Arithmeum, and he was right! Computational devices (or their replica) are on display in this museum, part of a smart building that also houses the University of Bonn's Research Institute of Discrete Mathematics. We spent the whole afternoon there as the kids went from one hands-on display to another. Several displays are of significant importance: Charles Babbages' difference machine (a picture of Gabriel in front of this machine is here), Newton's Principia, Descartes' Discours de la méthode and La Géométrie. Here are a few pictures of the kids. I was showing Jocelyn how to use the microscope to look inside a microchip. It is going to be some years before Gabriel learns logarithm, but it did not stop him from trying to figure out (while Jocelyn looked on) how a slide rule works.

We have been craving for sushi for the last little while. We chanced upon Ichiban Sushi Bar. The sushi was about average (by the SF Bay Area standard) and the kids ate to their content.