Docked boats along the Rhine. - Photos by André Wright

BONN, Germany:

Liquor cascades into drinking glasses. Mouths dig into a wide-ranging repast of everything from salmon to succulent Rinderbraten (roast beef). Party junkies let loose on the dance floor. It might sound like a prescription for schmoozing hobnobbers or teenagers out for wacky weekend, but it's not. Journalists are hard at work. Well, kinda.

More than 1,400 delegates - comprising mostly journalists - of the Deutsche Welle Global Media Forum on Wednesday tossed away pens, slammed shut their laptops and lapped up nature on board the RheinEnergie luxury boat, which plies Germany's largest river, treating tourists and locals to a time and space warp from Bonn's hustle and bustle.

Mention Deutschland and it conjures up images of automobile ostentation and innovation in the BMW and Mercedes-Benz marques, or perhaps the painful legacy of Adolf Hitler, the modern era's most ruthless dictator. But Germany goes beyond the superficial Internet pop-ups. It's more. So much more.

milieu of past and present

Ugandan journalists Sebidde Kiryowa (left) and Stephen Bwire Ouma have a chat on the boat.

Bonn, capital of West Germany when the European nation was split by the Berlin Wall and an even more concrete ideological divide, is a milieu of the past and present, and high-rises and other new developments provide a blueprint of the future. The collage of quaint, attached residences and stratospheric steeples atop historic sanctuaries like the Munster church is juxtaposed with more edgy architecture like the DHL headquarters, and offices to nearly 20 United Nations organisations based there. The city is so 'modern', ironically, that I couldn't seem to find a store that sells extension cords in Bonn.

It is the Rhine, however, that provides a portal for escaping on-the-go locals, touristy luxury lovers 'lyming' or lazing at sidewalk cafés and restaurants, and hundreds if not thousands of cyclists who whiz by unsuspecting pedestrians in bike lanes. The Rhine might not start in Germany (its source is in the Swiss Alps), but it is as crucial to citizens' identity as sauerkraut and wurst.

The cruise exposes passengers to a panoramic view of conservatively designed houses and other edifices which frame the river. The lack of dense structural development along the banks is no mistake. This is urban planning and environmental awareness in harmony. Lush greenery carpets both sides of the Rhine, as trees pruned with a certain quasi-tonsorial artistry, and gently undulating low-level hills morph into a canvas with the power to soothe rattled nerves, or provide cathartic relief after a long day.

drink is mightier than the sword

A church undergoing repairs near Poppelsdorf, Bonn, Germany.

Aboard the RheinEnergie, wine and German beer lavished on guests got tongues wagging and adrenaline pumping. Perhaps the key weapon in the journalist's arsenal had been turned on him. The drink is mightier than the sword.

"You don't look like a Jamaican," said a Tanzanian reporter, quizzically. No dreadlocks. No Bob Marley CDs. No weed. No intimidating 'screw face'. I could just as well have foreign citizenship - which wouldn't be too bad since I'd probably have a cosy seat in Jamaica's Parliament. The stereotypes are as alive today as they were 10-20 years ago.

But politics was not on the agenda. Not here.

"That was just a taster," said Andre-Patrick Luwandagga, a Ugandan journalist, as he downed his first drink faster than you could say "faster than you could say". Thirteen glasses later, he and virtually the entire batch of practitioners boogied to hits by a polished eight-member band, Goodfellas, who put spunk into funk before segueing into pop and disco that brought the house down. Any thoughts that RheinEnergie is a dull, boring, predictable ride were swept overboard as the German musicians, delivering in English, belted out hits by artistes varying from Barry White to Amy Winehouse. After Sexy Boy, Freak Out and, later, calls to "get down on it", the usually prim and proper Fifth Estate romped and stomped to within a moment of a titanic entertainment experience. But the only sinking feeling was having to bid our club boat goodbye.

The RheinEnergie docked along the River Rhine shortly before our boat ride Wednesday evening.

The ride on the Rhine was an ethnic and racial kaleidoscope - Palestinians and Israelis, Congolese and Ugandans, black and white. The melting pot of cultures suggests that Germany, through this the second annual staging of the Deutsche Welle forum, could be ready to lead Europe into becoming a true crossroads between the Americas and Asian and African countries. Time will tell.

andre.wright@gleanerjm.com