Blogs from Cologne, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany, Europe - page 17

Most of us went to the Hafenfest last night. There was a lot of loud American music and plenty of loud drunk people. The three of us who were staying with families in the city of Telgte had a terrific barbecue dinner with one of our host families before joining the others in Münster. My host brother came home for the weekend yesterday afternoon from the university in Maastricht (Netherlands). As promised, he kept me out until after 5 a.m. This reminds me: nightfall is not until around 10:15 in Germany, and daybreak is around 5. Anyway, we went to a party with lots of college students and had a great time. Much to my surprise, I was quite popular. Everyone was really nice, and they all spoke good English. I got a few hours of ... read more

Right then, so we've just about seen all that Cologne has to offer, the massive Catholic Dom in the centre of town which somehow escaped the bombs of countless allied bomber crews, even though when they did drop them on what they thought was the target, the munitions would often end up many hundreds of meters from their intended point of impact. Just goes to show how much the Catholic church had/has a hold on the world. It is a truly impressive building, and took hundreds of years to complete. I bet there were some horrendous council meetings where the Mayor and his supporters had to defend the spiralling costs of the project as it encountered century after century of delays and budget overruns... Anyway, so there really isn't that much more to Cologne visually, it ... read more

OK, once we get our cameras charged up, we'll be able to upload pictures which will back up the words I'm going to attempt to write. But for now, I'll start with an introduction of sorts So, it's been one week. A week of frantic activity and small states of panic, mixed with breathtaking architecture, functioning public transport and centuries of history. Our first stop after leaving Auckland was Japan. We stayed 3 nights there, one night in Tokyo, one night in an overnight bus and one night in Osaka. In and out really. From there we flew, via Frankfurt, to Berlin where we were for another 3 nights, and yesterday we hopped on a really fast train to Cologne. This sort of brings things up to date. However I wish I could get the words ... read more

Finally, The Europe leg of our journey has arrived. And it couldn't have come at a better time, the harsh living conditions of India were starting to get to us. We landed in Frankfurt, after flying back to Bangkok, staying the night in the airport, then flying to Singapore, and then finally to Germany. We spent the night but agreed to get out as soon as possible because we would be coming back in May, so the next morning we took off for a small town named Bergish Gladbach, located just outside of Cologne. There we would stay with family friends; Lindsey and Jana Hesse. Our first night, we enjoyed a home cooked pasta dinner with cheese, beer, wine and bread... exactly what we had been dreaming about for weeks. The rest of the night was ... read more

We just returned late last night from spending three days in Germany. We went to inspect the locations and hotel that we will be visiting in June with 45 students. We flew into Cologne early Monday morning and were greeted at the airport by the car rental agency that we had rented a car from. They drove us to their office where we picked up our car, a Toyota Auris. Bri was the driver since Will isn't quite 25 and also because our colleague that came along is an Aussie and he's used to driving on the left side of the road. It was quite the adventure driving through the Germany countryside! The sights along the Rhine river were spectacular. We will have better pictures to post in June when the weather is warmer and the ... read more