Cologne - Köln

Some background music for you to enjoy as you read the blog:

I miss three things about America so far:

1.     Smoke-free bars and restaurants

2.     Drinking fountains and free water at restaurants

3.     Being allowed to pee for free

Okay moving on now. So I started my internship! I went for an hour on Friday where we basically just went over what we’ll be doing this semester and met everyone. Everyone consists of the boss lady, Stephanie, the French PR guy, Louis and the other intern, Dylan. Monday I went in for four hours and started working! I made some changes on contracts for the artists and e-mailed some of them about getting photos of their artwork, etc.

She works from home (from the kitchen table to be more specific) and so jeans are allowed and it’s a very relaxed setting. We drink tea. This Wednesday I get to work from home! The tram ride there is about 40 minutes so it’s nice that I can work from home and skip out on that commute. Growing up in a smallish town I never realized how nice it is to not have to deal with commutes and crazy traffic in the mornings and after everyone gets off work at night. It makes the day much longer.  On my commute I usually listen to my I-pod or read or both if I’m feelin’ crazy!

I went to Cologne, Germany this weekend! No big. Our first sight out of the train station was this massive, amazing Cathedral. I took pictures of it but I could never quite capture its amazingness (kind of like when I try to take a picture of my boyfriend, Phil). It was so detailed; not one wall was flat (kind of like Phil's abs). We went inside and walked around with our mouths open for a couple minutes and then headed to our hostel. It was my first time staying in a hostel and it went fine! It was fairly clean, nothing was stolen and I don’t have lice! I call that a success. Our roommates (there were three others in the room with us) were asleep when we got back Saturday night and gone when we awoke on Sunday so we didn’t meet them. But from our detective work we deduced they were from Korea.

We headed out to explore and eat. We followed our noses to a bakery type place where we got sandwiches (mine was covered in nuts) and I couldn’t resist a baked good, too. We then went to the Roman-German Museum. Cologne, or Köln, was a Roman city first and so there were a lot of cool old items from Roman times that people had found and put into a museum. We touched a couple things we weren’t supposed to touch and took a few pictures of things we weren’t supposed to take pictures of. We’re basically rebels.

We then went to the Ludwig Museum, which is an art museum. I don’t think I’ve ever been to a pure art museum. It was actually pretty sweet. We didn’t realized how many rooms and pieces of art there were when we first began and so we started of slow so we weren’t in and out of there in 20 minutes. Little did we know we’d spend a couple of hours wandering up and down stairs and in and out of various rooms looking at art. There were paintings, sketches, sculptures, art that had sounds or video with it and more. They came in all sizes and styles. Some art work I liked a lot and some I wondered what the artist was thinking or if the artist was a 4 year old. We attempted to interpret the art (Ryan was actually pretty good at this) and we even became the art a couple of times because we were tired and so we’d sit down and people would walk by and look at and try to interpret us, too. Actually, I don’t know German so they may have been discussing the white wall behind us. Nevertheless, we enjoyed the experience.

We were all pretty tired from the night before. Friday night we went out with Vesalius students to a fancy no-jeans-allowed pub/club and stayed out pretty late. It was fun and I got to wear a dress! I just wish it were warmer out. Drinks at this place were about 10 euro, which I think is just unnecessary but whatever. Vesalius provided some free drinks to get us started, but that’s all I ended up having the whole night. I'm cheap.

Back to Cologne. After the museums we decided to grab some food. We walked around for a while trying to find a good, authentic restaurant to eat some German food at and ended up dining at this very fine restaurant called McDonalds. That’s pretty much German food, right? The menu is slightly different from the American McDonalds, actually. We had more luck with German food on Sunday for lunch. I had a German sausage with potato salad. T’was delicious.

Saturday night we walked to this bridge where there are hundreds and hundreds of locks chained to it. This bridge is where couples “lock up their love.” I like to say they keep their love locked down. Kanye likes to put it this way, too. We then grabbed a couple drinks here and there and headed to bed fairly early.

The next day we showered packed up and headed to the chocolate museum. It was okay. Honestly, I was a little let down because I was expecting a lot more free chocolate than what they gave me. We read the history of chocolate and watched the chocolate making process. They aren’t too big on guided tours at the museums in Europe, which is understandable as there are so many different languages floating around at any given time, but still. I appreciate a guided tour because you don’t have to read a whole bunch of stuff the entire time but you’re just told about it. You can listen to the stuff you want to listen to, block out the rest and you can also look at the things around you at the same time. I’m all about the multi-tasking!

We walked around more of Cologne- to the less touristy more real-life parts, and then to a park and back to the centre where we enjoyed some coffee drinks and one euro gelato. We hung out their for a few hours wasting time until our train’s departure. We picked up some German flowers for our German host mom, Mechthild as it was her birthday on Friday. 


For a little bit on the train ride home I sat by a woman from Egypt. I was surprised. I never really thought that I’d meet someone from Egypt while I was in Germany. She told me about what’s happening there from her perspective and it was very interesting. Her two kids were eager to practice their English on me, too. Our conversation was cut short as her stop came before I was done asking questions. I feel out of touch with the world as I don’t really watch or read the news ever. Is there anything else that I should know about?

Ryan has a few favorite words that he uses very often to describe events or pictures he takes. His most recent favorite word is “classic.” You’d be surprised how often you can incorporate this word into your daily conversation. Other words he enjoys include serene (he’s picky about this one; the scenery has to be perfect for it to be considered serene), picturesque, drizzy and majestic.

This week my to do list consists of catching up on readings from class and doing some sort of exercise. So far today I'm 0 for 2. We’ll see how this goes…

Part of the massive Cathedral that I could never quite capture.

Check out the detail!

Even the floor was detailed.

My first hostel.

Nutty sandwich. 

Yummy pastry.

Notice: the sky is blue!

Which head doesn't belong?

Just hangin' out with his buds.

I took a picture at the art museum. Don't tell!

We became art in this room for a while.

Aren't they just too cute gazing into each others eyes and such?

We paid with exact change.

A night time shot of the Cathedral.

There's a lot of love locked up on this bridge.

It's sausage! Ryan's meal (I forgot to take a picture of mine before I started eating).

The bridge with the locks.

Sam likes to catch blimps.

The driver matches his car.

Tickets!