Cologne Hotels
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International Movie Stars
Entry 16 of 61 | show all | print this entry |
(Originally written November 8, 2007)
Last night Steve and I went out for dinner in Cologne and we decided to try out this Thai Restaurant called "Mai Thai". We sat at a cozy little table by the window and while we were watching people walk by on the street outside, Steve noticed a camera crew. He said, "Hey look they're doing an interview out there". I looked and sure enough, there was a lady with a microphone and a guy with a video camera standing right there. My first instinct was to wave but I didn't. Then I thought we should go outside so they could interview us until Steve quickly pointed out that we don't speak German. Good point...I imagine that would've been a rather difficult interview.
We eagerly watched the crew do their thing in hopes that we would become part of a backdrop for some evening news channel. Unfortunately they departed without anything exciting happening and so we just ate our dinner and continued to watch people walk by. After dinner on our way back to our hotel, I suggested that we stop into a bar to find out when FC Cologne would be playing their next soccer game. We picked a tavern called Kulise since Steve had been there before and knew the bartender. We walked inside and even though the place was empty, we sat down at the bar and ordered a couple of beers. No sooner did we get our drinks when Steve looked out the window and said, "Hey, isn't that the same camera crew we saw by the restaurant we were just at?" Still thinking they were doing a TV report of some kind, we didn't give it much thought UNTIL they walked through door. That's when all of the excitement began...
As soon as they came inside, the anchorwoman sat down at one of the tables behind us while the cameraman taped her drinking a beer (we figured they were doing a news piece on restaurants or something). We still didn't think much of it until the cameraman began setting up lights behind the bar. I bumped Steve with my elbow and whispered, "I think he's going to tape the bartender...if so, maybe we'll end up getting taped too!"
Steve's reaction to the whole situation was to act "non-chalant"...keep your poker face on, and don't let anyone know what you're really thinking. So in spite of the fact that I wanted to jump on top of the bar and dance so he would videotape us, I had to maintain my composure. So I tried to act as casual as possible pretending as though I were used to being filmed in pubs in foreign countries everyday.
Once the cameraman had all of his lights set up, he began taping the bartender pouring drafts (for whom we did not know because we were the only two customers in the bar). Then, the he begins to take video shots of the bartender pouring the drafts and handing them to us. At first I was distracted by the fact that we got free beer until I realized we were just videotaped! Can you believe that? Wait...it gets even better...
Next the cameraman asks us if it would be OK if he took a few shots of just the two of us. Are you kidding me? He tells us to grab our beers and take a couple of drinks...it took a few takes! After that, he takes a few more shots of us watching the soccer game on TV and a few more of us drinking beer from the end of the bar.
While all of this is going on, Steve and I are still thinking that this is for a television news interview of some sort. But we later discover that they are making a film documentary for a travel website called www.cityguide.com. In addition to other big cities in the world, they are featuring Cologne (and the particular bar we were at) as their feature piece! We spoke with the anchorwoman once they finished filming in the bar and she said we could expect to see the piece on their website in about a month or so. So keep your eyes peeled. How do you like that...5,000 miles from home, and the Petre's from little OLE Holland, Michigan are now International Moviestars! Once again, we just happened to be in the right place at the right time! As Steve would say...MINT!
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