Experiencing Köln

Aside from the drunk football (soccer) fans roaming up and down the train, our voyage to Köln (Cologne) was restful.  It was so restful that we lost track of which stations we were approaching.  I just happened to look out the window and catch a glorious view of a giant cathedral against the darkening sky.

We had reached Köln!

I wish we had been able to capture the amazing sight the city offers when you step out of the main train station.  Instead, I offer you this night view of the Kölner Dom that I found on the internet which is more or less what I saw as our train approached the station.

Immediately upon leaving the station, your entire field of vision is filled with this imposing, grandiose cathedral.  With dusk falling and just enough lighting to highlight the majesty of the place, I cannot begin to describe how awesome it was.  Someone once described it to me as a real-world model of Maleficent's creepy castle, but I personally think that this cathedral is more beautiful and awe-inspiring than Notre Dame de Paris. 

From there we took a very short walk to our hostel, which was only two or three blocks from the station and the cathedral.  The location was probably the best part about the hostel.  Other than being reasonably priced, the place had few redeeming qualities - nothing felt clean and everything smelled terrible.  Unfortunately, it seems that all of Köln's hostels are not so great, so if we go again, it's either going to be the same kind of cheap hostel or paying a lot more for a nice hotel.

No matter where we stay, however, from now on we will always book a room of our own.  It's a bit awkward sharing a place with three random guy strangers, as we had to the first night we were there.  Since we didn't have a place to relax on our own, we headed back out into the city as soon as our things were locked away.

By then it was rather late, but exploring the area was fun and rather enjoyable in the falling snow.  We walked by the giant cathedral again and then wound our way through the shopping district looking for a place to sit down and grab a drink and bite to eat.  It took us quite a while to find anything that was suitable because we kept walking down random streets without open shops or restaurants, and by the time we stopped we had no idea where in the city we had wound up.  Nevertheless, we were in high spirits and were curious about this tapas bar we found next to a curiously named restaurant...

 
We went in hoping for sangria, but since they were without, we settled for a decent red wine instead(it was a granache) .  The host, being a more recent immigrant, spoke in broken German.  As a result, he and I ended up communicating through a very strange garble of German-English-Spanish, primarily Spanish-German (Spengman? Sperman?).  It was strange, frustrating, and hilarious all at the same time because anytime I tried to reach for a Spanish word in my brain, German words floating around would get in the way.

Due to his friendliness, however, we decided to stay longer and asked him to recommend a dish.  His menu favorite, though not a German favorite, was Orejas de la Plancha.  Mike was feeling adventurous, so we decided to go for it.  Bring on the pig's ear!  Really, I was proud of how much of the offal Mike ate.  I've had pig's ear dishes a few times since my family has prepared it on occasion, so I know that the texture is quite unique.  We made a dent in the rather large serving, but the sauce was a bit salty and overbearing so there was still a bit left when we had reached our fill.  I think that the host was a bit sad that we didn't like it more, but he was still very nice and gave us directions back to the cathedral (a few blocks straight down the street) so that we could find our way back to the hostel.  It was a fabulous start to our weekend -- the first time we'd been out late on a Saturday night since moving to Germany!

Since all museums are closed on Mondays in the entire country, the following day was designated museum day.  We got up much earlier than we needed to since museums don't open until 9 or 10 AM, so we went to mass at the cathedral before having breakfast.  Although that particular service was not held in the main chapel, it was still an interesting experience.  Most notably, it was freezing.  We didn't even stay for the entire service and we were chilled to the bone.  It was hard to imagine how difficult it must have been to sit in those uncomfortable benches in the midst of winter hundreds of years ago.

For breakfast, we had another fast food first by going to McDonald's.  Sadly, no hash browns came with the Egg McMuffin breakfast meal, but it was still warm and familiar tasting.  (I know Kurt's proud of us.)

The museum that was open the earliest happened to be Museum Ludwig, Köln's 20th century art museum.  At the time, their featured exhibit was one by an Austrian artist named Franz West.  'Out there' is an understatement.  A large portion of the exhibit was made up of what he calls "Adaptives", which includes funny mirrors that contort images, small mazes to walk through, and objects you pick up.  One display that left an impression on us was made of a kind of grate or metal screen with small diamond-shaped perforations.  This screen, covered in a sort of sprayed on papier-mâché, was set up in a corner so that it made a small private space.  Next to it was a chair.  The explanation plaque's instructions were for a viewer (or user/participant as West would probably prefer) to forewarn a security guard that he/she would be using the exhibit so that security could ensure he/she would be undisturbed.  Then, go behind the screen, remove his/her clothing, put the clothing on the chair, and stay behind the screen for five minutes observing, thinking, experiencing.  Mike decided to try it out for a minute or so.  He only removed his sweater, so no guards had to be notified, but it was an odd experience nevertheless. 

There was plenty of other weird artwork in the museum, and of course there was not enough time to see it all.  Modern art is pretty exhausting.  For us, the main attraction was their rather extensive collection of Picasso pieces.  It was very cool seeing his artwork in person, as odd as it is.  Probably the strangest piece in the collection (at least amidst everything else there) was a portrait of a man that was absolutely and completely normal. 

Our next museum of the day was the gestapo prison museum.  Finding the entrance was extremely difficult, but well worth the hunt.  The museum, housed in the building of a former documentation site and prison, is split into two parts.  We began by taking the audio guide tour of the upper floors, which held room after room of displays leading through a the history of the Nazi rise to power in Cologne and of the events and atrocities that occurred in the city through the war.  The information was fascinating and incredible.  It was eerie realizing that all of the awful events the guide described happened in the very town we were visiting, or the hospital next door, or even the building in which we were then standing.

The second part of the exhibit was walking through the preserved gestapo prison in the the building's basement.  It was gloomy, chilly, and oppressive.  Scratchings made by those held there -- tally marks counting the passing days, calendars, names and dates, messages and pleas for help -- are still legible on the walls.  The cells are tiny and claustrophobic.  How they stuffed so many people into the cramped spaces, I can't even begin to imagine, nevertheless imagine being in there.  Some cells had tiny barred windows at the top.  Horrible still was how people passing in the street could ignore the sounds coming from within the building.

We listened, learned, and looked for hours.  It was far past lunch time by the time we left.  After grabbing some lunch at an Italian restaurant, we walked to the third museum for the day:  the Wallraf-Richartz Museum.

We liked the outside of the building, which announced the artists whose paintings were within.

This museum was more realistic to tackle within an hour and a half or so.  I appreciated the conciseness of the museum's layout.  Here they had two featured exhibits.  The first was centered around Napoleon's campaign to Egypt.  They had the drawings and sketches made by Napoleon's team of scientists and researchers as well as some of the artifacts that were found on their excursions.  The second special exhibit was one based around Van Gogh's painting Shoes. 

After the Wallraf-Richartz Museum we were museum-ed out.  It was starting to get rather late into the day.  Being troopers however, we didn't stop there.  Last on our list was the much praised Chocolate Museum at the city's chocolate factory.  It was a short walk there and also the first time we got to walk down by the Rhine River.  

I am not sure why this is the only picture we got of the river itself.  Below is the museum/factory which I think looks like a castle.  A castle with a mini tropical rain forest in the middle.

The entrance looks much more museum/factory-like.

And here's a tired girl who was very excited about chocolate.

At this point we were so worn out that we just casually perused our way through the displays.  We only had a little more than an hour before the place closed anyway, and of course we wanted to be sure that we had enough time to sit down in their café!

This didn't prevent us from taking pictures, however.  It was the first time our cameras came out in full-force on the trip.

They had a globe that showed where chocolate plants can be found on the earth.  Mike is pointing out where we happened to be on earth.

And where we came from!

In the tropical rain forest, I posed next to one of the most wonderful plants on the planet:  the coffee plant.

Here's a close up of the sign.

 Mike's enjoying the unexpected humidity.

Focusing back on chocolate, they had dried out cocoa bean fruit pod husks.  I was surprised by how big they were.

One of the highlights of the exhibit was their chocolate fountain.  It's not really that exciting, especially in comparison to Willy Wonka's chocolate factory with his chocolate river and waterfall, but they did dip wafers into the fountain and give out samples!

They also showed how the little mini chocolate bars given to us at the entrance to the museum are made and packaged.  

The next floor demonstrated, among other things, how they make hollow chocolate bunnies and anything else you can imagine... three-feet high chocolate camel statues, for example!

The rest of the museum showed the history of the chocolate commodity as well as how the US and European brands have grown over the years.  Once we made it through that, we headed straight for the café which couldn't have been in a more perfect spot.  An entire wall of the café was made of windows looking out onto the Rhine River.  It was absolutely gorgeous and a perfect pairing with our chocolate treats.  

I had an absolutely delicious chocolate cake.

Mike ordered a trio of different chocolate ice creams -- some of the best chocolate ice cream we've ever had.

The museum also had free internet access, which is amazing for Germany (hence the iPod in the picture). 

Once the museum closed, we slowly meandered our way back to our hostel.  Fortunately we were able to exchange rooms for the remainder of our stay (two more nights).  Instead of a large room shared with three strangers, we got a smaller room for two.  We moved all of our things and took short showers.  

Not ready to turn in for the night just yet, we headed back towards the Rhine.  On our way back to the hostel earlier we had walked by part of the Altstadt or the Old City along the river and noticed a bunch of restaurants and bars there.  We figured it'd be a good place to get some dinner and Kölsch, the special kind of beer brewed only in Köln.  Someone once told us that it only counts as Kölsch you can see the Kölner Dom from the brewery.

After successfully enjoying our first Kölsch in a very German restaurant/bar and being a bit disappointed in their cheese plate, we turned in for the night to rest up for the next full day in Köln.