So. This is how it happened that after a week-and-a-half break, then four days of work (during which 3 of my classes were cancelled), I was on a train Tuesday afternoon, bound for Paris and then Cologne the next morning. Well, due to some absurd French train problems that I'd rather forget, I ended up arriving in Paris at 4am instead of 11pm, got from one train station to the other, and by 6:30am was on my train for Cologne. I arrived there around 10:30, and started doing some of my own sightseeing, mostly just walking around the shopping area near the train station and having a traditional Rhineland lunch of mashed potatoes, applesauce, and blood sausage. Yeah, I didn't know what it was at the time because the English translation was "black pudding" which I knew sounded like something I probably didn't want to know more about, and since it tasted good I didn't look too hard into it, but I did eventually find out what it was. Too late--I had already eaten and enjoyed it! (I wouldn't click on the link if you have a weak stomach, I'm actually kind of sad I looked at it)
After some wandering around the city, I met up with Marie (my friend from U of M who's teaching English in Cologne), who had just finished working for the day, and we got coffee and cake at one of her favorite coffee shops. We had dinner with two of her friends who are also Americans teaching English in Germany; they were really nice and we had a great evening.
November 11 is Karneval, a.k.a. one of the biggest party days in Cologne. The celebrations are supposed to start at 11:11 am (on 11/11, get it?), and people gather in Heumarkt, one of the main squares in Cologne, to drink beer and party and stuff. Mostly what I gathered from the day is that as long as you drink beer all day, you're celebrating properly. The beer they drink there is Kölsch, which is made in that region. It's pretty light and comes in small glasses so you can drink a lot of it without realizing.
I spent the day with Katrin, who I met in high school when she was a foreign exchange student. I haven't seen her since she came back to visit the year after she was in school here, so it's been about 5 years--way too long! Anyway, I went to her apartment in the morning, we had breakfast, and then started drinking beer. We had beer at her apartment, at her friend's apartment, and then went out to drink more beer in a bar. I met some of her German friends, and Marie and the other Americans met up with us too. It was a fun day but there's not much more I can say about it except
So, next day: Friday. Katrin and I had breakfast (or was it lunch?), then went to the Dom (cathedral). I had been inside on Wednesday since it's right next to the train station, but didn't climb up into the tower, which is a must-do if you're visiting Cologne for the first time. It did offer a pretty spectacular view of the city, and was a good workout on top of that...
After climbing the Dom, we were getting hungry so we went grocery shopping then went back to Katrin's apartment to cook dinner together. We went to a bar to meet up with Katrin's boyfriend and one of their friends to watch a soccer match (Dortmund vs. Hamburg, in case you were wondering) and had some Kölsch (of course). Then we came home and had girly time--watching Sex and the City in our pajamas and eating chocolate.
Saturday we had planned to have a museum day. It was pouring rain but that didn't stop us going out on foot--we were on a mission. We started by going to the Nazi documentation center. We both agreed that it would probably be depressing but since we were doing museums it was important to learn about Germany's history, both the good and bad parts of it. The compromise was to do the depressing museum first, and save the fun ones for last. It was indeed interesting, especially since I consider myself an amateur historian, but I guess there's not much I want to say about it. The building was the Nazi headquarters in Cologne, so the top floors (where the displays are now) were offices I guess but the basement was a prison, which they have left intact. We looked at the prison cells but got out of there as fast as we could. When we left, it was still raining outside, and both of us had cold, wet feet inside of our boots, so we went to a mall and bought new (dry) socks to change into while having a cup of hot chocolate and crêpes. Refreshed, warm, and dry, we set out again to the Cologne history museum. Unfortunately, the museum was closed because they were holding a violin auction that day. They did have a special exhibition that we could see for free, but that turned out to be depressing too--it was about how earlier that year, the building that holds the city's historic archives had collapsed (they still aren't sure why, it may have been because they were building a subway underneath it, but that's not certain). Many documents were lost and 2 people died. The exhibit had some of the documents that they were able to save or restore, some restoration materials and tools, and photos of the disaster. After that, it was definitely time for a happy museum, and what better choice than the chocolate museum? If you've been reading, you'll remember that I recently went to Barcelona's chocolate museum, so why not another one? It's actually in a really cool building also, it's right on the river and looks like a boat, and most of the outer walls are glass so it offers great views of both sides of the river. I've seen several museums and exhibits about the history and production of chocolate, so that isn't too interesting anymore, but it's still fun to be around chocolate! The museum is sponsored by Lindt, so all the chocolates they displayed were Lindt (as were the free samples!). We also took the "little train" to and from the chocolate museum, you know which one I'm talking about, the one they have in every touristy city that takes the tourists around and looks totally ridiculous.
Saturday night, we had dinner in a traditional German restaurant, and I had no idea what I was ordering upon Katrin's recommendation but it turned out to be this:
After that we went back and finished making the "nut corners" a really excellent type of cookie-bar type dessert that Katrin had made once in America long ago when we baked Christmas cookies together, and which I've been thinking about ever since. I finally know how to make them! We said good night, and I left early the next morning to catch my train back to Paris. Once again, huge, annoying train problems that I don't want to think about anymore but the upshot of it was that I was sitting on trains from 7:45am till 10:15pm. By the time I got back to Tarbes, I was so elated just to be able to walk around and not be wearing the same disgusting clothes I'd been wearing for five days.
So, to wrap up:
In spite of four days of solid rain, and a collective 9 hours of train delay, I enjoyed 4 lovely days with old and new friends, ate a lot of lovely food and drank a lot of lovely beer, and am now happily back in southwest France, where it's sunny and there are palm trees and mountains!
Also, good France-related news:
I had enough time on the train to plan a kick-ass lesson about Thanksgiving so my students should be thoroughly entertained for the next 2 weeks! And I came back to find out that I've been given a French social security number, and I'm going to Toulouse tomorrow to get my residence permit, so I'm a totally real and legitimate person in France now!
No comments:
Post a Comment