Bonn Gets a Visitor... give you a hint, she is the most influential woman in the world!

Like the good student I am, I was sitting in class yesterday waiting for my lecture on divided Germany to begin when the person next to me said that he was really excited to see Angela that day..... "Angela", I asked, "as in Angela Merkel?" The boy replied that he is going to watch her speech that night. As anyone would, I simply assumed he mean on television until later in the conversation he kept talking about security in Bonn today. "Wait, so Angela Merkel is actually coming to Bonn?" yes, in fact the next elections take place on May 13th, so the Kanzlerin herself came to Bonn to give the CDU, her political party, a little bump.

So when I heard this was about to take place, I immediately knew that I was going to try to go..... "maybe I'll get her to autograph my arm and get it tattooed for a memento for the year" I joked with some people. To make things complicated, I had rowing from 5 to 7 and she was supposed to get onstage right at 7. As soon as I was let out of rowing, I didnt even change, I jumped on the next bus which took me right to Marktplatz which is the scene of the crime, the old city hall where Angela would be speaking. An old German man was making a speech about nuclear energy, so I thought for sure I had missed her, but low and behold I see Kanzlerin Merkel standing in a blue suit in the background. Within 5 minutes of me getting there (the venue was surprisingly not crowded, but those who were there were an enthusiastic bunch from every spot on the political spectrum). Merkel make a very nice speech about how important Bonn is to both Germany and the world. She said that "Bonn is not just Germany's past, but with all of the UN and humanitarian organisations it is also its future." (as translated and remembered a day later by Christen) It was surprisingly very campaign-y and patriotic, and I say surprising because every German tells me that is what they dont like about American politics is that they are too patriotic and never specific about issues. 

There were a lot of "haters" in the crowd as well and lots of hecklers trying to put ole Merkel off of her game. Although you cannot see from this picture, about 1/3 of the crowd had banners and posters saying slogans like "Atomkraft? Nein Danke" and signs asking why Germany is not helping out in the Israeli/Palestine conflict..... although my favorite one said "I want to spend my birthday in the Chancellor's office" (obvi in german though). It was a really cool surprise. Definitely was not expecting to see the most powerful woman alive yesterday when I woke up (and no, unfortunately I do not currently have Angela Merkel's autograph on my forearm)