The Westdeutsches Rundfunk Orchestra has these
Happy Hour concerts - an hour of music hosted by
some radio personality, followed by, and I swear
I didn't figure this out beforehand, Happy Hour.

This performance was conducted by the eminent
showman Konstntinos Carydes, whose schtick is
substantially Ben Zanderish - jumping around like
a monkey in the loud exciting bits, hiding under
the music stand in the quiet parts, waving his
arms about like a windmill at random, irritating
to me, but audiences apparently love it.

Manuel Bilz did a wonderful job in the Strauss
oboe concerto, supported by a very fine first
viola, I think Junichiro Murakami; in this, Mr.
Carydes stayed out of it admirably, but in a
most egregious and overstated dissection of
Mozart's last symphony came out in all his
flamboyant glory. I knew it was going to be a
downhill journey when the opening statement went
Bum, brrrum, brrrum ... [gigantic pause of three
or four seconds, not in the score] ... Ta daa da
daah da daaah da. Bum, brrrum, brrrum ... [another
gigantic pause, not in the score] ..., and so on.
Suffice it to say that I was delighted by and ready
for the unexpected unlimited free beer afterward.
Well, limited by the crush of Germans at the bar,
so I got two, and Lilli gave me one of hers, so
I had three. Salved my wounds.

It's ten minutes back home, by which time I was
fully sobered up from the weak Kolsch and had time
for another snack and brew at the hotel bar.

-

To get to our next destination: we walked five
minutes to Koln Central, took the train, less than
half an hour, to Bonn Central, walked toward the
river 10 minutes, and there on Berliner Freiheit
was another hotel, another set of coupons, and
a lovely view of the actually quite neighborhood.
The Hilton Bonn gave us a smller fistful of coupons
than the one in Cologne, each good for a beer, glass
of wine, or bottle of soda. I exchanged one of mine
for a 200 mL pour of that same Sion Kolsch that the
Cologne hotel had given me 500 mL of. Lilli of course
had the same Montepulciano, which was beginning to
pall on me (I'm the official taster) but not on her.

The bartender came by with a gin cocktail with cilantro
and lime that he was practicing for some sort of
mixologist competition coming up in Berlin the next
week. It was ... interesting. Very sour, very green,
tasted sort of like Thai food. I said that without
expressing a value judgment. I hope he fixed the
cocktail a bit, either that or lost miserably.

Dinner at Brauerei Bonnsch. We were pointed to the
bar, but on pointing out that we had a reservation,
were led to a big booth next to the bar - equally
noisy and chaotic, but lots of elbow room, which got
eyed enviously by people who came in later.

I lost my description of the meal. It was fine,
except when Lilli knocked over my beer. Schnitzel
and Schweinshaxe, as usual. The Schnitzel, pork as
usual, was large and crisp and served with a strange-
tasting potato salad (I forget in what way strange
except for a metallic taste); the Haxe was a little
salty with a hard rather than crisp exterior and
tender moist meat. The meat at least wsd mostly
up to snuff.
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