Haben Sie gehort das Deutsche Band?

We woke up to the awful sound of our alarm going off, the first time we have needed it on the trip. This was our cue to get up, pack up our stuff, and get moving to our next destination: Cologne, Germany. Before leaving Amsterdam, we stopped by our favorite little bakery to get…..you guessed it! Breakfast sandwiches. We then checked out of our hotel, and hopped on the metro tram that would take us all the way to the train station. On the way there, I had a man sit next to me who immediately started chatting me up in complete Dutch. I think he saw me buying our tram passes on my own so he probably I assumed I was local. I just kind of smiled and said “sorry?” which ended the one-sided conversation immediately and made for a very quiet ride to our final stop. And on a side note, he looked like a present-day Gene Simmons, so I was a bit glad for the silence.
I am very glad to have Chris here helping me navigate, but then how else would I have been able to go?  The train station could have become very confusing as the first entrance leads you to the subways and ticket lines for such and not the actual train tracks. There is also no main board posting of train times and the tracks they arrive on. Luckily, Chris seemed to know the way as usual with places he has never been to before, and after hauling our luggage up two flights of stairs it began to look like a train station. And might I add that Chris never once gave me an “I told you so look” after having a heavy discussion while packing on why I was not allowed to have more than one suitcase and a single backpack. However, as I am writing this he is laughing and smirking now so I recant my former statement.
After a short wait, we were boarding our train and I was about to experience my first train ride. My thoughts? Shaky, wobbly, not as exciting as I thought. Oh, well. I am getting the Chris “I told you so laugh again” but that is okay too. I had another first as well because I finally got to hear Chris carry on a brief conversation with a German as he was assisting him in loading his baggage onto the upper carriage. It was really cool, but I could only make out a ‘sorry,’ ‘please,’ and ‘thank you.’ And I’m pretty sure a lot more was said, but that’s okay for now. I just have to find a time to use one of my only phrases ‘Haben Sie gehort das Deutsche Band?’ If I only knew the name of a German band I would be all set.
Upon arriving to Cologne, we checked into our hotel, got settled in, and then set out to explore the city. The Museum Ludwig was relatively close so we headed off to check out their much raved about pop culture collection. It was very interesting to say the least. It had lots of modern art, and often entire rooms were set up for the display of one piece of art. It had an extensive Picasso collection and lots of Warhol pieces which I enjoyed. Some of the more memorable pieces were as follows:



Mike Kelley’s “Kandor 6”




Unbekannter Fotograf “Tatowierter Man’




Andy Warhol ‘Red Race Riot’




August Macke 'Dame in grüner Jacke'


Of course the most unforgettable part of the visit was hearing the German security guard yell out ‘ Nicht anfassen!!’ aka ‘Don’t touch!!’ while Chris gestured at a piece of artwork which was microfilm inside a glass frame. They apparently outsourced the Gestapo to guard their masterpieces.

Downtown Cologne is a huge shopping mecca and we spent a lot of time exploring the various stores and familiarizing ourselves with the area. I was in hopes of finding a new pair of casual shoes to walk around the city in, but no such luck. If I didn’t already feel like my feet were big enough in the states, Europe rubs it in even more. I went from a simple nine to a forty-three! And even worse, forty-threes are harder to find, and the selection goes down drastically. Unless I was willing to spend 100 euros on a pair of shoes I felt half-heartedly towards I was going to have to stick to what I had. I will keep the search going though, but this is not good for my I-have-big-feet complex.

Towards the end of the day we went back to the room to change and have a nice/reasonably priced dinner out. We walked along the Rhine River and caught the sunset coming through the bridge. Who would have thought Germany would have comparable sunsets to Hawaii? We found a little Italian eatery facing the riverfront and ate outside on the plaza. The food was excellent, the wine was excellent, Chris’ food and beer was excellent because you know I was stealing that too  And so we ended the charming portion of our night and parted ways. Thus began the Kolsh drinking tour!

We tackled three different pubs, two German and one Irish, on our drinking/get schnaukered quest. My one mistake the whole night was ordering something not Kolsh. I wound up getting talked into a Strongbow which I didn’t enjoy nearly as much and which could have potentially ended the whole drinking tour altogether. Luckily, my error was corrected and the festivities resumed. The cool thing about Germany is that each type of beer has its own glass that it is served in. The beer we were drinking was served in a big style shot glass. For every beer we drank, the server would mark a tally on the coaster so that they didn’t have to keep track in their head. While out and about, we even got caught up in the Cup game going between Brazil and North Korea. We couldn’t just sit back and not root against the Commies so we wound up yelling and jumping around when Brazil scored its first goal. We did make it back to our hotel safely by the way and felt just fine in the morning. Tomorrow we tackle the Dom!