Cologne Hotels
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A Little Bit of Home
Entry 8 of 61 | show all | print this entry |
Steve and I walked around the streets of Cologne again last night and it was really romantic. I tried to focus on the atmosphere and the beauty of the city and not so much on the fact that I was 5,000 miles away from home. All things considered, I find that I'm adjusting pretty well. I realized that if I don't try to talk to people in German (like I did on the plane with the Swiss people) than I have less of a chance of getting into trouble! I also discovered that if you know at least the word of what you want, you can use hand symbols for the rest and they can kind of figure it out. For example, I ordered a coffee today and held up 1 finger and said, "Kaffee". It must have worked because they gave me one coffee!
Anyway, while we were walking around the city last night trying to find a place to eat dinner we tried to find a bar that might be showing NFL football games via satellite. I was doubtful that we'd find one but Steve was sure we would. Eventually we did...this little Irish Pub called O'Connelly's. AND the best part about it...they all spoke English inside! Finally a little bit of home! Just to hear words I could finally understand gave me such a sense of peace! This was probably the most at ease I've felt since I arrived. We ate dinner there and watched football just like if we were watching it at a bar at home. It was great!
We watched the first game and just as we were about to leave, we met two Americans. One was from Boston and the other was from Indiana. We talked to them for probably a half an hour. It was so nice to be able to talk to someone...anyone that could understand us. I'm at the point now where whenever I hear someone say, "Hello" I want to run over and hug them and start talking to them even though I have no idea who they are, where they're from, or where they're going! But I have to be careful because hello is a universal greeting and 9 out of 10 times...they don't know English anymore than I know German!
After the football game at O'Connelly's, we came back to the hotel and I crashed. Jetlag and the time change finally caught up with me. Since Steve is on Germany time and I'm not yet, he went back out to watch the late football game. I slept 13 hours last night...it was fabulous! Today I feel much better. I no longer feel isolated because I know that there is at least one place we can go here where there are people who speak English. One place we can go just to get a little bit of home!
Latest Comments (1)
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Where to find more feelings of home (reply)
Nov 8, 2007 15:53 EST by pnut
There is one 'international' movie theatre in Cologne, and anothe rin Duesseldorf which shows first run movies in original English. Try to find it (get some help from a neighbor, hotel counter, or Steve's co-workers). It's nice to get out and enjoy movies in English. By the end of the movie, you forget where you are!
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