Week 3
Trip Start
Mar 19, 2008
1
13
61
Trip End
Jul 01, 2008
Cologne,
Germany
Sunday, April 20, 2008
My shoulder was quite sore today. Clumsy bastard. Nothing too out of the ordinary went on today, just classes as usual. I really didn't do much after class either, on account of the shoulder. Eh, oh well.
Tuesday:
Today my shoulder felt a little better, so I guess that means my arm isn't going to fall off. Classes were normal again, nothing crazy. After school ended, Hartwig took Saibhang, Tim and I to Cologne University's athletic facilities to get registered for sports there. As soon as my arm is in good working order, I'm doing boxing. This can't happen soon enough, my arms really haven't gotten a proper work out since before I left, bah. The facilities do have a weight room, but we're not allowed to use it; too much liability for the university damnit. After signing up for sports, we all just kind of went our separate ways for the day. I was planning on just letting my shoulder heal up, but I got a call later in the evening inviting me to go to Flanagan's Irish pub; not gonna pass that up. It was fun, the first bar I've been to in Germany that actually had guys and girls dancing with each other, not separately
Outside the Kolnmesse (Art Show)
. We met up with two hilarious Australian students that we had met earlier at a disco. It was definitely a fun time, but I left fairly early to avoid missing my train. Wednesday:
Well apparently Tim left just a little too late and had to walk home from Flanagan's, about 9 miles. Sucks for him. We only had morning classes today because there was another one of "Hartwig's Famous Tour's" planned. This was by far the longest Hartwig tour we've had so far. It was good, very interesting. We first went to the Dom and watched a film on its history and construction, which was interesting. We then wandered over to a small museum on Koln/German history. They had a ton of great exhibits; Hartwig's knowledge of everything was amazing. One of the most impressive exhibits, strangely enough, was a model of a 1200 ft long raft made by the Dutch to transport lumber and prefabed warships to their coast. The first third of the raft could actually pivot to allow the raft to turn corners in the river. It was amazing; they floated all the way from the Black Forest in Southern Germany to Holland. Another moving exhibit was one containing care packages sent to Germany after WWII to help feed its citizens. Hartwig's father nearly broke down in tears when he first saw the exhibit. He first saw it when he attended the tour with a group of Hartwig's students. He told the students "Without those packages, Hartwig would not be here today." Meaning, his father nearly starved to death after WWII
Old German armor
. On a lighter note, we had bakery testing after the tour; delicious. I'm seriously going to miss these bakeries. Thursday:
Not a whole lot today either. Our morning class was very short, and after it ended we went to a EU information building to learn some more about the EU (duh). The staff weren't quite prepared for us, and only one spoke English. We only stayed there for about 20-30 minutes. We all just wandered around for an hour and half after that, waiting for our afternoon class. Nothing really went on after class today, I was just bored, so I walked home from school instead of taking the train; it took me a good 3 hours.
Friday:
So I first run into trouble in morning on my way to the main train station; of course, I'm running late, and am waiting at my stop for a couple minutes when some official looking dude walks up to me and rambles something in German; all I understand out of it is "kein" "ubahn" and "tag". "No" Train" "today". Great...he directs me to a bus, which was taking over for the Ubahn; apparently JUST my line went on strike today; no one else...I meet up with everyone at the train station for a meeting at the U.S. consulate in Düsseldorf. The meeting was actually very interesting; we discussed what the U.S. consulate does for international business. They give assistance to U.S. companies wishing to start up in a new country. I also found out how wealthy this state in Germany is, it has a larger GNP than Australia and many other countries
Ship on the River Rhine
. After the consulate, all of us were going to be taking a train up to Amsterdam to party. I had to go buy a new ticket home from Amsterdam, because they never sent me the first one I ordered, so we agreed to meet at the platform before the train took off. Well apparently, when we bought tickets, it was for the second train station in Düsseldorf; we were at the wrong one. I found out two minutes before my train to the correct station left; I have no clue about them. I was under the incorrect impression that I had to transfer at the next station; it right as my train was closing its doors did I find the error of my ways. So I waited for 15 minutes for a train that was supposed to come in 5, got to my next actual transfer point about 5 minutes after my final train to Amsterdam left. Shit. So I go down to the ticket office, tell them my story, and they say "sorry dude, you're SOL. You gotta buy a new ticket to Amsterdam, next train leaves in 2.5 hours." Well...since I've already been up there, my whole purpose of this second visit was to party with my friends. I had no way of contacting any of them to tell them what was up, so that meant that I would have been up there alone again; not worth it. I cancel my newly purchases return ticket from Amsterdam, and buy a "simple" ticket back home. Well, this next problem lies squarely with the German train system; either my ticket was printed wrong, or some trains were out of fucking order, because I soon found myself on the wrong god damn train
The Dom
. After about 30 minutes, we reach the last stop of the line and WHOAH! It's not Koln. Jesus. So I get ANOTHER ticket, wait around for a god-awful 40 minutes, and my actual train arrives. It takes about 15 minutes before it decides to get its ass in gear, and ends up pulling into Koln Hbf main station about 30 minutes late. So I drag my way onto my Ubahn, which seemed to be off of strike already and head home. It should have taken 20 minutes, no. It took 50. There was an accident or some shit on my direction of track that kept our train stationary for about 30 minutes; that person choose the wrong day to get hurt; my god. I finally made it home, pissed off, tired, and frustrated. At this point, I just didn't want to do anything; I made a sandwich, had a beer, and listened to heavy metal. Saturday:
I woke up amazingly late, about 1300. It was actually a nice day today, so I took advantage of that and rode my bike into town. I mainly just cruised around Neumarkt for a couple hours, bought a mouth guard for boxing and some shoes that I can wear out to the bars and clubs; my hiking shoes just aren't cutting it. After Neumarkt, I just hung out for a while. On a whim at around 2200, I went out to Flanagan's. It started out pretty slow, and I was just pounding Kolsch about ready to head out when I started a conversation with a chick. Well, we stayed there until about 2:30 dancing and such. It was a good night.
Sunday:
Even though I didn't get home until after 4, I woke up pretty early; 11:30ish
Audi on my street
. I was a little hung over, so I took my time eating breakfast today. Earlier in the week, I heard about the Cologne Art Show, the largest art show in Germany. Its last day was today, so I decided to check it out. I rode my bike there today, taking full advantage of 60-degree sunshine. On my way to the art show, I came across a great little street performance. A family oriented street magician. I stayed and watched him for a good 10, 15 minutes. The art show was pretty pricey, but worth it. I ended up spending 3 hours there, admiring lots of amazing fotos, some great paintings, and lots of retarded pieces. One of my favorites exhibits was done by a artist who designed and built his own film camera using 12inch (yes 12inch!) color negatives to take intense, extremely high detailed large fotos. The landscapes displayed were about 1x3 meters, and amazingly crisp. To print the fotos, the artist scanned the negatives to a 1.2 GIG format, and then printed them. I tried to keep an open mind throughout the whole thing, but god damnit there were some stupid exhibits and displays. Lets see here; a video of a rooster sitting on a bald mans head, that's it; a room that a probably drugged out woman slathered in coffee; some really shitty self portrait fotographs taken by a "artist" rolling around in the grass with a camera (why this is art, I don't know); the generic "throw paint at a canvas" art everywhere (this I can qualify as art, it just doesn't do anything for me); I saw some art for sale for 80.000 euros, and it looked like shit (it was just a series of really out there paintings of a naked woman. One of his for sale was a quick pencil sketch of the same damn naked woman for 15.000 Euros). There were some works by Warhol there, very cool. Overall, it was a very good event; I think I've had my cultural fill for a while. 
