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!