China Fest, LD Haus, and Mundolingo

The day after our trip to the Pützchens Markt I made another bike ride to Bonn. The weather was absolutely perfect for a nice day trip. I made myself a big breakfast at the house before I left, relaxed for about an hour and then headed out. I've been able to shave off a few minutes on the hour ride every trip I make, but still I am trying to take in all of the scenery. Like I've mentioned before in previous posts, the bike path follows the curves of the Rhine river between Cologne and Bonn. Along the way I'll see a soccer field here and there, playgrounds with kids and parents, some small farms, and gardens. Here is a picture I took right outside of Bonn. I think it's a cabbage patch, but I'm not completely sure.

The ride is not the most photogenic I've ever taken, but when the weather is as perfect as it was this weekend, just being outside is good enough. The air was crisp and warm, and with a good pace the wind going against you makes for a perfect temperature. When I rolled into Bonn I spent some time just wandering around the city on my bike. I found it to be quaint, but inviting...if that makes sense. It seems just small enough for you to run into somebody you know at least once a day, but yet still large enough to keep me finding new things about the city for several weeks. I'm excited to move there and experience it all for myself. Before I left back for Cologne I stopped off at a cafe and ordered a huge bowl of granola with yogurt and fresh fruit. It was delicious! Luckily this cafe is right around the corner from my apartment so you might be hearing more about it in the blog in the future.

Later in the week my immersion class took a field trip to the LD Haus in Cologne, rich with German history from 1933-1945. It was definitely a heavy topic; being reminded of all of the terrible history of the Nazi time period in Germany is difficult to comprehend, but the trip was extremely informative. In my history classes in high school we learned a great deal about Germany during this time period, but for lack of sufficient time we don't go into all the specific details. Aided by a required presentation on one of the topics from the Haus, I came away with a deeper knowledge of the information. I messaged my former high school history teacher with pictures that I had taken at the Haus and information I had learned. She was very receptive to the new information and might be teaching it in her classroom this year when WWII comes up. Below is a picture of the actual haus.

Synthia posing in front of the Haus

A few days after the field trip to the LD Haus myself, Alan, and another one of our classmates, Saad, went downtown to the China Festival. The weather was rainy, overcast, and dull, so the turnout wasn't too great, but still we enjoyed a traditional Chinese dragon dance.

The dragons came down off the stage and wandered through the crowds, coming only a few feet away from me before heading back to the stage to complete the dance. Unfortunately the weather worsened a bit so we headed out before the festival ended.

Every Wednesday night in Cologne a large group of international students congregate at a bar downtown. The bar is off the beaten path a bit, which is good, because every Wednesday night the crowd is so large that the people flood out into the street talking and drinking. We all meet up for what is called "Mundolingo" and it is a really cool event. At the door to the bar is an attendant with a huge book of stickers of flags from over one hundred countries. When you walk up you ask for the flags of the countries whose languages you can or would like to speak in that night. You wear the flags in a column on your shirt, with the top most flag being your mother tongue. After that, it's simple--just walk around talking to people! It's a great opportunity to meet new people and practice your language with others. It's great for my German, and in return I get to help people improve their English (although to be fair everybody's English is really good). Everybody is really inviting and the atmosphere is really fun. I've met people from all over the world there and I've been marveled at how many languages some people can speak. Sometimes you'll just turn around and see someone wearing 7 flags and you just can't believe it.

Trip to the Pützchens Markt, Indiana Jones style

The weekend began with a haircut that had been postponed for about two weeks. I wouldn't really consider getting a haircut to be important or noteworthy enough for the blog, but I decided my first haircut story warranted a paragraph. I had been dreading going to the barber for a while, mostly because I was scared I was going to say the wrong thing in German and end up with something ridiculous and unwanted. I asked my host family for some tips and decided I would commit the necessary phrases to memory, just to be safe. I rode my bike around the village until I came across the shop my family told me about. I locked up my bike, headed inside, and took a seat. I was the fourth person in line so I took up a newspaper to read and patiently sat to be called. About 20 minutes later I got the nod. Heart racing, palms sweating, I muttered my phrase, "Alles kurzer"  (everything shorter). I could see she (obviously) knew what I was talking about, and I finally relaxed. But just to make sure she didn't ask me anything funny about the haircut, I closed my eyes, hoping to break any conversational commitments, until she finished. If I was going to be surprised with a weird cut, I was going to learn of it all in one, sweeping moment. 10 minutes later she was done. I opened my eyes, and everything looked fine. My anxiety in something so trivial was rooted in nothing once I (after-the-fact) realized she does this all day everyday and of course would know what I meant and wanted. It gave me a good laugh on my ride back to the house.

Later that day I met up with some of my classmates; we were heading to Bonn, a city about 20 minutes away by train, for the Pützchens Markt. This was essentially a big carnival (some could argue it a "State Fair" atmosphere) with rides, food, and games. Alan, Synthia, and I met with Madiha in Bonn about an hour before the sunset. This gave us the chance to see the carnival before all of the lights came on. We spent a good amount of time wandering around looking at all of the dinner possibilities including typical German sausages, smoked salmon, Chinese noodles, pizza, and more. After perusing the assortment of food stands, we made our way over to the rides, deciding that it would probably be best to eat after being thrown around by the rides.

Swinging carousel, 100 feet above the Markt

All four of us rode the swings, pictured above. We were able to look over the Ferris Wheel into the distance, seeing the city of Bonn. It was really nice. This ride also gave us the chance to see what other parts of the Markt we wanted to visit. We decided after this ride, though, to get some food. We decided on the typical German food, selecting bratwurst, currywurst, and reibekuchen. It was of course, all very delicious. The reibekuchen (essentially a large hashbrown) was served with apfelmuss (applesauce). I had never tried this combination of foods before, but it was very good!

Alan, myself, Synthia, and Madiha

Around 11 pm we decided to head back to the train station in order to catch our ride back to Cologne. Madiha parted ways with us, leaving the group to three. As Alan, Synthia, and I were approaching the ticket kiosk at the station, a fairly drunken man walked up to us, offering to sell us his last 3 train tickets back to Cologne for a reduced price. Alan and Synthia seemed skeptical of the deal, but for better or worse, I lent the man my attention. He showed us the tickets, which were oddly shaped and a bit torn at the top. I told him that these tickets were of an irregular format for a train ticket, but he explained to me that they were part of a ticket package with the Beethoven Music Festival, which had just ended an hour before. He lent me the ticket to validate, and sure enough, in what I could discern from reading the ticket, it appeared that this ticket offered the user admittance to the festival as well as a two-way train ticket to/from anywhere in the state. Alan and Synthia still seemed skeptical, but in my haste to save a few euros and save time before the train approached, I bought 3 tickets for the group. As soon as I paid, the man rushed away. Not a good sign, we thought. We saw him moments later on the other side of the station approaching travelers with what we thought to be the same spiel. 

"Didn't he just sell us his last 3 tickets?" 

"It's too late now, here comes the train, let's just get on."

We hopped on the train and immediately started thinking the worst. Sometimes in Germany you can get lucky on the trains by not having your ticket checked. Not every ride will have a "Controller" who walks around validating tickets. This is nice in the seldom moments when you have to take a train, but don't have the money or forgot your ticket at home (I will admit to 'free-riding' on a few occasions thus far). This was not one of those times. As soon as we stepped on we saw the Controller down at the other end of the cab. We started thinking about all that was wrong from that situation in the station: why was the man dressed in casual clothes if he said he came from a Beethoven concert, why did the man appear fairly drunken, and why was he talking to more people if we bought his last three tickets? If we were caught 'free-riding' we'd get stamped with a 40 euro fine and might get thrown out at some random station! 

It was the longest 20 minutes of my life.

We were frantically keeping tabs on the Controller's position. The Controller made it about halfway through the cab in 5 minutes (we are never gonna make it at this rate!) but then stopped in the mid-section for 10 minutes trying to herd a group of drunken men. With only 5 minutes left in the ride, Synthia decided she couldn't take it anymore and that we were all going to get out at the next stop, no matter where that might be. We left our seats and stood in front of the doors, ready to burst through them as soon as we stopped. The "Next Stop" sign lit up above our heads (We're gonna make it! We're gonna make it!) indicating West Cologne. We waited about 10 more seconds, but then we saw West Cologne wizzing by......NOOOO! Are you kidding me?! I think Synthia's heart just about leapt out of her chest at that one, but we were stuck, we were goners for sure, the Controller was making her way down the aisle now!  But wait! The "Next Stop" sign just lit up again...it was our stop! Only 20-30 more seconds 'til we are home free! But the Controller is three people away....two people.....no wait now there is only one person in between Synthia and the Controller!

-ding-ding-ding-

We might as well have kissed the ground at the train station for making it out alive. We joked later that the train ride alone was the biggest adrenaline rush of the night, more so than any of the rides from the Markt! Funny enough, by the time we made if out of the train we had absolutely no idea whether our tickets were valid or not; we never asked any of the fellow passengers to validate our tickets! I guess we were too scared to possibly hear bad news. We parted ways at the station, promising to bring our tickets to class the next day to see if our teacher could tell us if we were crazy or not. It was an action packed day and night and a story I won't be forgetting soon!

A Weekend in Hamburg Pt. II

When I flew out from the US at the end of July, I had made sure to pack many things from home with me. Some were pictures of family and friends, others were mementos from my first two years of college. Additionally, I had also packed away a large bottle of Tabasco and Tony's (previously mentioned in an earlier blog post) so I could give my host family a "taste" of where I'm from. I also flew over a pound of dried red beans because I knew I was going to want to cook my host family a meal representative of where I'm from! I talked to my family early on, telling them I wanted to do this sometime in the future before I moved out of the house at the end of September. For two weeks the meal kept getting postponed due to various reasons on both of our ends, but I finally got around to doing it! I was very excited to cook this for them. I wrote my grocery list on an index card and headed to the store. I had to buy a few things such as celery, onions, garlic, and sausage. Interestingly enough, it took me about one whole week to find celery! None of the grocery stores I went to sold it, and I was lucky enough to stumble upon a farmer's market that was selling it. The onions and garlic were not a problem, but the sausage was. Germany is, perhaps, famous for its variety and consumption of sausages, but of course none of the choices at the market matched perfectly with the kind of spiced sausage I was accustomed to using. As an aside, none of the food here is as well seasoned as back home in Louisiana (more on this in a bit) so then again, maybe it wasn't all that surprising! I went and ahead and bought a few links which had "added seasoning," but really that just translated into mildly salty! Another one of the concessions I had to make for the meal was the side of cornbread. I enjoy eating my red beans and rice with cornbread (although I'm not against French bread) but there were no mixes to be found! I couldn't even find regular corn meal in the store, so I went ahead and bought a fresh baguette from the corner bakery. The bread turned out to be a fine addition to the meal. I followed all the steps from memory and the meal came out quite nice!

I brought out the Tony's for all to try. I was impressed--everybody took a few sprinkles of the seasoning for the meal. I also offered my Tabasco, but of course they had tried this before (I've noticed you can buy it here in the stores). I told my host family about the history of the meal and also the variants of the meal as served by different restaurants. My meal didn't turn out as "soupy" as I would have liked but they enjoyed it nonetheless.

A few days after serving my Southern meal I headed out to Hamburg for my "Weekend in Hamburg Pt.II." After spending the day playing tourist in Cologne with Pia, she mentioned to me that I should travel to Hamburg the next weekend to hang out with everybody before University started in October. She told me that everyone in the group will be going to different cities come October, and that this might be the last chance for a while to hang out together. She told me about a carpooling website in Germany, where the prices are generally half that of any train ride. I checked into the idea, and it seemed plausible! I booked a carpool ride for Friday mid-day, which would put me into Hamburg for dinner time. I also booked a return trip back via the Hamburg-Cologne Express train which would take about 4 hours.

Come Friday I met up with my driver and we headed out. I was excited to see Germany from the Autobahn's perspective because up until now everything I had seen had been from a railroad track. The drive to Hamburg was pretty hilly for a good bit. The countryside was great, and you would often see windmills off in the distance. I was dropped off in the outskirts of Hamburg and took a train into the city center where I would meet with Nic before heading to dinner.

Nic and I met up and headed to a burger restaurant around the block. We met up with Nic's cousin, Matti, who was stopping by before heading to the parkour gym for practice. Matti invited both of us to join, and of course we said "yeah!" Nic had already been a few times, but this was my first time. We wheeled out all of the equipment into the open gym, put down all of the crash pads and mattresses, and went to work. Many of the guys there were doing some really interesting moves; sometimes you'd turn your head and see some dude running at a full sprint, leaping off of a foot stool, and then flying 30 feet into the air into a pad. Crazy. Others were doing backflips off of walls. And then there was me. I went right in and asked one of the guys to teach me to do a front flip. It became my goal of the night to get that move down! Lo and behold, I did get it! Nic got it on video, but unfortunately I can't figure out how to upload it to the blog without it playing upside down. We went home around 11 exhausted and tired.

The weather in Hamburg, unfortunately, wasn't the best for my Pt.II adventure so a lot of the time was spent indoors listening to music and watching Youtube videos. I can't say it was a waste of time though, it was just nice to spend a weekend relaxing. Later in the night we would go out walking through the city, stopping here or there for a bite to eat or glass of beer or wine. On Sunday morning Nic and I met up with Tomma and Pia for an early breakfast. It was nice to catch up with everybody in the comfort of a warm cafe. After the meal we parted ways and I gathered my things for my return train ride back to Cologne. I got some reading done on the train ride back. Luckily it went by pretty fast.

I might not be visiting Hamburg again soon, but I'm thankful for the hospitality of my friends there. Next time I visit I'll hope to do some typical touristy things (good weather pending) and blog all about it.

Playing Tourist in Cologne and a Bike Tour to Bonn

Life continued on as normal the week following the discovery of the jazz club. For me this means 4 hours of immersion program per day, grabbing lunch with some classmates afterwards, and then (sometimes) participating in the "Activity of the Day" with the immersion program. This week was particularly sparse on account of additional German homework and exercises. Although, at the end of the week we had a going-away party for many students at the immersion program. A large group from Brazil had just wrapped up their 6 month program and would be leaving Cologne. On Friday we had a huge pot-luck dinner to celebrate, and everybody was encouraged to bring some type of food representative of their home country. I didn't have enough time to prepare a southern meal, so I settled with bringing my large bottle of Tony's and Tabasco. Both were hits but I did see an obvious decrease in the level of Tabasco when I went home that night! I think many people were reluctant to try Tony's, but the way I see, that's just more for me! I was able to sample food from all over the world, and it was all delicious.

I was looking forward to the weekend on account of a scheduled "Tourist Day" with a friend, Pia, whom I met while spending my first weekend in Hamburg. She was visiting Cologne for the weekend, so we decided to meet up and see some of the big attractions in the city.

Pia and I met up in front of the cathedral (after several minutes of scanning crowds of hundreds of people) and started the day off with seeing the Kölner Dom (Cologne Cathedral). I had not yet seen it and was eager to finally step inside. It was like stepping into a time machine. The space was so vast it was almost hard to comprehend. The architecture especially was unrivaled by anything I had ever seen before. The stained glass was astoundingly intricate, yet told a simple story at the same time. In sum, it was amazing to see! Pia and I just so happened to walk in during a mass which was open to the public. We stayed for a few minutes through several scriptures. At the conclusion of the scriptures, the organ player began a playing and soon the entire cathedral was enveloped with deep, airy, organ tones. The acoustics of the cathedral enhanced the power of the organ and made for a great 'performance.' 

We then stepped outside and decided to walk towards the Köln Triangle across the river. The roof of the building overlooks the city from the opposite side and made for some good picture opportunities. Here's a picture from the 28th floor of the Köln Triangle overlooking the Kölner Dom.

We then walked back across the river via the Hohenzollern Bridge and happened upon a Cologne tradition: the love locks. After a bit of reading on the internet, it seems that this tradition was born in Italy, but has some deep roots here in Cologne. The idea is that couples bring an engraved lock to the bridge, latch it onto a gate of the bridge, then throw the key into the river. One website says that an expert estimate of the weight of the locks sits around 2 tons! When walking, it was easy to estimate the number of locks into the tens of thousands. 

My day with Pia concluded with another visit to the Botanical Garden to see the titan arum, but this time in bloom. The weather was perfect for walking through the gardens and made for a nice wrap to the day. 

Later in the weekend I visited a used-bike market. Since arriving in Germany I had been looking for a bike to purchase as a means of transportation around the University and for weekend bike rides to other villages and towns. Luckily Cologne has a very organized market structure; every Saturday the used-bike market sets up shop in a different location and sells like-new bikes at discounted prices. I bought a road bike for a reasonable price and road it all the way home, 16 km, along the Rhine river. The next day I took the bike out for a 50 km round-trip ride to Bonn. When I left the house the sky looked overcast and gray, but I told myself it wouldn't rain. That was a mistake! About 30 minutes in the rain came down, not with intensity, but with persistence. It rained for the next hour and left me soaked to the bone. I rolled into Bonn wet, cold, and hungry. I found a little shop where I snacked on some currywurst and bread and then headed back to Cologne. Near the end of my ride I got lost because I had missed a necessary turn off of the river path. This led me to riding aimlessly through a deserted chemical facility (with giant silos and pipes crisscrossing the road), dragging my bike up a hill to the highway (which I thought would be promising, ended up not so), and ultimately riding around who knows where until I could catch my bearings. I rode until I found a gas station (thank god, civilization!) and bought a Snickers bar for some energy. Right near the gas station was the subway line connecting wherever I was to where I needed to go: home! I quickly found the on-ramp and waited out the subway. It rolled around the corner, I hopped on, and thirty minutes later I was at home, showered up, and eating dinner with the family. It was a bit distressing but all made for some good fun!