Duesseldorf-Koln Area - Germany

[Kristie]

Since Delta now flys over to duesseldorf, doug and I decided to go over and spend a few days in Koln (Cologne) since we liked it so much last time....

We get over there after a long flight and it's raining... it rained the entire time we were there, making it a bit harder to get around.

Cologne is in the Upper Rhein part of Germany...they have Kolsh beer (very light, almost like drinking water), all sorts of reisling, weiss (white) & rot (red) wines, haxen (pork knuckle) & doner kapaps which is a chicken or lamb kabob in a flat bread with vegetables like cabbage, onions, lettuce and tomato's...a doner kapap is a turkish food and they're all over the area there because there are apparently a lot of turkish folks that live in that part of Germany.

we found a wine festival in town showing off their variations of wine from around the region...with that, we picked up a few bottles to bring home. it amazes us each time how much wine costs over there. for just a flashe (bottle) of wine, we're talking $4 if not less... for a beer, we're talking probably $1.50 for a 12 oz.

the mohawk is apparently coming back into style, it seemed that all of the younger guys had it...altho this type is more of a short mohawk and not one that's completely stuck in the air.. what they're doing is doing a buzzcut on the sides, leaving the top & back portion a short 2 or 3 inches and shaping it upwards... it actually looks good on most of the guys we saw over there.

We stayed at the Renaissance Hotel in Cologne. The room was nice, somewhat small but comfortable. nice large tub & good shower (altho the pressure at times was a little shoddy). we were in a "club" room which meant all the non-alchoholic beverages in the room were free and they had breakfast & happy hour in the club lounge that we could enjoy, so that was nice.

We went out on the town on Friday night and went to this restaurant that we'd been to before - haxenhaus - (means pork knuckle house) in which pork knuckle is the specialty. Food was excellent..and then decided to go back there for a beer a few hours later (about 10pm) and man, that place was hopping!!! beer flowing, music blairing and two sets of bachelor/bachelorette parties too...the interesting thing about their parties is that the bachelorette doesn't wear a veil... her and her group wear a particular tshirt and that's what shows others that it's a bachelorette party. One of the "games" they play is collecting phone numbers for money.. they'll collect a phone number and sell it to a guy for a euro... if he calls, he calls.. if not, no big deal.

But the guys version of the bachelor party is totally wild! not wild like strip clubs or over-imbibing.. but the bachelor gets dressed up in a "traditional german womens dress" and that's what shows the bachelor off....then what his group does is go around selling condom's, small liquors and that type of thing. I have photos, i'll put them up later. But both groups were very fun to hang out with and I think they enjoyed having an american couple party with them for a bit.

A lot of the music that's played there are re-mixed or re-made american songs along with regional songs like "viva colonia" which is almost like a sports theme song of sorts or anthem...everyone will start singing and swinging their beers around, it's just really really fun, almost oktoberfestish.

Saturday, our switzerland friends drove up to hang out (6 hr drive on the autobahn) and then we went with them to meet one of their families who lived just an hour north of cologne. They didn't know any english and we knew only little german so it was hard to converse but it was really neat to see such a small town with everyone knowing everyone and most people that live in the small towns live there all their lives, never moving which means your always around family! so, our friend who was visting his family stayed at his parents house while grandparents, cousins and so forth were coming over and our friend Christian, DH and I took off to go castle hunting...of course, with it still raining, we really couldn't see much or stay out too much and ended up at one of the largest malls i think i've ever been to!!

one big lesson i learned is DO NOT ever go shopping with your gay friends because they're just like girls - they take all dang day to find one new pair of pants! NO joke!! this mall we went too had at least 95% clothing stores and i swear i've never seen a mall this jam packed with people, even at christmas time.. there were so many people that at times, we had to wait until there was an opening to switch from one side of the aisle to the other!! but if you want some clothes, that's a great place to go.. the women's clothes are cheap $7.50 for a nice blouse...$15 for trousers...$80+ for a pair of jeans!! the jeans price is a bit weird but apprently, their jeans last longer than ours do...depending on the brand. so, after our long mall excursion, we went to pick up Volker (Christian's boyfriend) and his friend Verena who is volker's best friend that he hadn't seen in a year or so... she took us to the downtown area of her even smaller town (which was also having a festival of some sort called Altstadt)...but anyways, Asparagus is apprently the speciality in the area and so we went to a restauraunt that serves asparagus dishes....I have to admit, i've never seen white asparagus before and at least never that BIG...let's just say that this asparagus is at least twice if not 3 times the circumference of our normally green asparagus.. but they put this bernaise/hollandaise sauce on it over some schnitzel and it was just the bombdiggity of meals!!

Although I have tomorrow off, we decided to come back today because loads were really good. we had no problems getting back home except for having to haul 22 bottles of wine and at least 50 euros worth of chocolate...our bags were quite - no, extremely - heavy!! doug and I had picked up 12 bottles of wine on our own the day before we saw our swiss friends because that was how many bottles we were able to bring home from our last trip to France. We had no idea Christian and Volker were going to bring us another 12 bottles!! but gosh darn it if we didn't find a way to fit it all in our bags! I was quite happy that I hadn't packed more "stuff" haha

oh... one other thing i learned, and this is twice now in germany... as a non-revver, if you really want to get into business elite - you had best have some closed toed shoes on because that's one of their strictest rules and I got lucky in that there was a store in the airport that did sell some closed toed shoes...altho they didn't match my outfit, the gate agents appreciated my effort in trying to go with their regulations. before, i hadn't had any trouble getting around with my sandals but in germany, they take clothing and shoes quite seriously if your non-revving. from here on out, i think i'll carry some black closed toed flats with me if i continue to fly overseas...domestically, i haven't had any problems.

Flying back overseas is the absolute worst.. you have nothing but headwind and long connections and can easily make you feel like it's been days since you've had your feet on the ground. it really makes you feel as though age is catching up to you and I'll tell ya what, i'm glad i started traveling early in my late 20's, kinda wished we had started sooner but oh well, because it gets harder and harder each time we go somewhere that at some point, there's going to be a point where it won't be worth it anymore.

but anyways, I'll put some photos up soon. it's time to open a bottle of wine and get some serious sleep after 24 hrs of flight and 4 hrs of sitting in an airport waiting for connections!!