The four of us (Claudia, ThiThu, Theo and I) got in ThiThu´s 1985 Volkswagen and cruised down the Autobahn towards Köln. However, we made a small stop at the largest IKEA store I´ve ever seen, to purchase some chair covers for ThiThu and Theo. This was no small feat. IKEA has its own ground carpark AND its own multilevel carpark, which was full and we struggled to find a park. Once inside it is more like a shopping centre not unlike Garden City Booragoon. It has esculators, food courts, massive warehouse and floorspace for customers to roam freely and pick their items. The amount of people was pretty insane, fortunately there was about twenty checkouts, through which we passed rapidly towards the Swedish Shop directly (and surprisingly conveniently) opposite the checkouts. We entered and found all Swedish imported goods such as tea, coffee, alcholo, biscuits, and more shit like that. We exited the complex and departed the carpark back onto the Autobahn, cruising around 140 km to Köln, some 25 km away.
On the way we passed through what ThiThu and Theo have called The City of Blinding Lights (mentioned in a song by U2 I think?) a bulk area for industrial and refinery purposes, it surrounds both sides of the Autobahn for about 2km. (On the way back from Köln, I realised why it was called so. For security reasons the place is lit up with fluro lights EV-EREE-WHERE. It certainly looked light a city at night.)
Köln is a busy city with about a million people and I think all of them were in the city centre this day. When we exited the central city underground carpark by ascending the stairwell, I beheld above me an almighty and impresive piece of architecture known as The Dome, a million year old alien stargate made of bismuth... just kidding... it was The Dome... a massive church, (construction of the Gothic church began in 1248 and took, with interruptions, more than 600 years to complete - it was finally finished in 1880. The two towers are 157 m tall, the cathedral is 144 m long and 86 m wide. - Wikipedia)
There are some photos of it after the bombing of WW2 at http://christianparty.net/koln.htm Plus check out http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koln too for more info. I have taken some pic too which will be up here once Claudia and I are back in Karlsruhe on Monday. The inside of The Dome was truely fancinating and awesome. A high ceiling and magnificant pillars all the way up, large ground floor littered with people, and old art upon the walls, plus the usual religious paraphanalia. The photos do not do the experience enough justice.
There was several thousand people flooding the Christmas markets surrounding The Dome and nearby cobblestone streets doing shopping and eating German food and drinking very popular hot red wine, Glühwein, which we consumed and felt warm and happy among the masses of idiots with their Christmas hats. Following this, we headed for Starbucks for an interlude before heading through cobblestone streets filled with people and struggling cars towards the River Rhein. The view was very beautiful, the temperature was around 8 degrees cel. and we found a warm and cosy restaurant neraby, Der Lövenbräu, in which we had dinner on the second floor surrounded by cheerful fellow guests.
Proceding dinner we retuned into the cold night air towards the retail shopping boulavade, filled with even more people, but a bit of a bore really, just the same shit as in Australia, retail shops are retail shops.
We returned to the carpark via the immense Dome, now filled and highlighted with beautiful lights, and headed back to Bonn. Upon arriving home, Theo made me drink three German beers called Warsteiner, each 0.5 L and 4.8% alc. Then we trotted through the cold night air and caught a tram into the city centre and entered a little club undergound. My first German club experience! It reminded me of Murdoch Uni Tavern, cheesy music and drunk youngens. We had a blast! Again Claudia and Theo made me drink another beer and two of some other thing called Desparados, fortunately only 5.8% alc. this time. We played some fuseball, Germany versus Australia. I did the nation proud a few games, but that was because there was Germans on my team. Following a bit a of boogie to Jive Bunny and other classics we returned to the entrance and retreived our jackets... it always amazes me how fuckin slow jacket room procedures take. I mean, you give the girl behind the desk your jacket, a single euro, and she gives you a token, then puts the jacket on the rack. But for some unknown reason, whether people are just too precious about their jackets or the staff requires some teaching and learning adjustments, but the whole bloody thing takes way too long for what it actually is. Now we are in Germany and everything so far has been impressively effiicient, but on our way home from the club we stopped in at a Turkish Kebab shop run by probably the most slowest Turk ever. I felt like asking him if he needed a coffee or maybe a little footrub inbetween cutting the meat and filling the bread... geesus phuking karyst. Let also just say this guy made sure each kebab had a lot of love put into it. Luckily they were pretty damn delicious, almost as good as the Winthrop kebab shop. Massive respect. Anyway, the walk home was a bit of a stuggle, but we made it.
Also on the way home, we walked to the house where Ludwig von Beethoven was born! It is located in a small alley way in Bonn near ThiThu and Theos house. It made me think about how, if it wasnt for this guy we might never have had Drum and Bass or Fat Heavy Weight Breaks. Beethoven was the original hardcore German techno producer and we owe a lot of respect to this man. Respecta.
It was now around 430am back at ThiThu and Theos and we assembled a Hookah and got the charcol burning and got the apple molasses cooking and inhaled the goodness while listening to a range of moderately loud music until 6am. All in all, Bonn and Köln was great fun.
We were up and out the door by 3pm and headed for the markets to get some food and then Claudia and I had to be at the main trainstation again to get a lift from the woman who brought us to Bonn. The Markets were packed, and I had two steaks in bread, which were very yummy. Theo and I went looking for Langos, but didnt find any, due to too many people and too little time left before we had to go.
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