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The start of another Europe trip was on October 1st 2009, for my first semester of my MBA in Germany (Poland, China, USA for the other semesters). We all know about the fun flights that take too long, however I feel they get shorter when the time actually doesn’t get any shorter. This just makes me think that my plan for the Tran Siberian railway is going to be the longest train ride ever and give a new respect for the airplane. Oh well plans, trains, and automobiles.

My arrival in Cologne was fine; I had the plan of meeting up with a couple of my friends that are already in Germany, however they weren’t there. So, I had to carry my stuff to an internet shop and get a taxi to Guy’s place. I had no where to stay as of now, so I began to look for a place to live, but no luck, so I went out to drink some beer and play with the other MBA students. Little did I know the next five nights would be enjoyed on the floor of Guy’s place in a sleeping bag. I eventually found a place with an older woman named Mara, she is very nice, but the room I stay in is very small and there is no internet.

Over these five days, we really had nothing to do and there isn’t much to see in Cologne… so we found places to party at. Live music hall had free beer from 9-11 on Fridays and this place called underground was near it played hardcore and metal which is a refreshing surprise after all the house I have to put in my brain. Flannigan’s aka shenanigans has cheap beer on Tuesdays, however this was quickly replaced with a less crowded version called roonbar. David lives next to a bar that has a name, but we would just refer to it as Vj’s because that’s the owners name. He let us have Thanksgiving there and threw us a going away party as well. We met a bunch of the old guys that drink there everyday and played a game called shokum with cups and dice for beer.
Since there is 25 of us in the MBA program and we are all from different places (USA, Germany, Poland, China, and one Indian/ Japanese guy) we were required to go to a cultural communication seminar in Bonn. This actually turned into a fiesta and lots of new stereotypical material. German bowling, pool tables, ping pong, polish vodka, german whiskey, and so on made the evening very interesting. The “teachers” and night hotel worker ended up coming down and drinking with us around 4am, getting up at 8am for the next seminar was fun… no one including the teachers did not look very well.

This pretty much sums up Cologne, semester was pretty easy, the Cathedral is cool, Kolsch (the local beer) is ok, and VJ our local bar that the 26 MBA students took over was good times.

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