Cologne 2008

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I have been traveling overseas quite frequently in the past 3 years for official business and I didn’t ever think about blogging. But my friends have been forcing me to get out of my bohemian lifestyle and start blogging so I finally caved in and here I am with my first blog on my travel experiences.
I must start by saying that the one thing I really like about traveling is that you learn different a lot; from cultures to language, food to cars.

December has been very hectic with travel and work. On December 6th I left for Cologne or Köln, Germany I had been there during the same time last year but every trip is a learning experience. I was in a non-English speaking country and with my limited knowledge of German, I did face some hurdles.

First let me give you an introduction to Cologne.

Cologne is one of the oldest cities of Germany. But if you look at it now, you will notice there is construction going on everywhere. I shall let you know the reason for this as we carry on with the blog.
It was the first urban settlement of the Romans founded in 38 BC.

Cologne has one of Europe’s biggest Gothic Church known as Kölner Dom.
The Dom's primary treasure is a golden reliquary containing the remains of the Three Magi. (Three Wise Men) The construction of this famous Gothic church began in the 13th century and took, with interruptions, more than 600 years to complete.

Within the Kölner Dom is the Sarcophagus of the Magi which is a large gilded sarcophagus or coffin in layman’s words dating to around 1200. The largest reliquary in the western world, the exterior is seven feet of gilded silver and jewels. Images of Old Testament prophets line the bottom and the 12 apostles decorate the top. Inside, the reliquary holds three golden-crowned skulls believed to belong to the Three Magi.

Another amazing thing to see is the choir which is surrounded by 13th and 14th century art: carved oak stalls, frescoed walls, painted statues and stained glass.

Apart from the Kölner Dom; Cologne is famous for it scented or perfumed water made from flowers with roman recipe which we all know today as Eau De Cologne.

Okay, enough of the history lesson. Let us proceed to reality....

I landed on a Sunday morning in Frankfurt after an 8 hr flight from Newark, New Jersey.
The flight wasn’t as tiring or stressful as my previous flights have been which I think I can give credit to the new Noise-cancelling headphones purchased a few days before leaving which worked like a charm on the flight.
I had a car booked for me at Frankfurt and was to drive down to Cologne but upon landing I was told since the car rental agency was over booked they didn’t have a single car available. The Car Rental Agency representative was kind enough to ask all the other car rental agencies nearby but unfortunately neither of them had any car available. So she tried Cologne Airport with the same result. On further search she found one car rental agency having a small two-seater car available at the Köln Hauptbahnhof ( The main train station at Cologne). I asked her to reserve that. Initially i was suppose to drive from Frankfurt to Cologne which was a 2 hour drive.I ended up taking a Bahn (Ice Train) to Cologne. Upon reaching the Köln Hauptbahnhof I got my car, a small two-seater Smart Car. Offcourse the Smart Car wasn’t too smart as I thought it would be. Reason I am saying this is coz I had one big suitcase and a carry on bag along with a laptop bag. I had to get to the hotel so I put the bags on the passenger seat and the Smart car thought it’s a passenger so kept beeping me that I don’t have a seat belt on for the passenger. Thankfully the hotel was close by else it would have driven me insane with its beeping.
Hmmmmmm, my colleague, Jonathan thought the car was small enough to kick it like a football.. I think it would have worked....😊

To avoid such insanity I exchanged the car for a Mercedes the very next day. Whew..! ! !
Oh, while driving around I noticed that most of the Taxis in Cologne were also Mercedes. Though if was a nice change rather than Crown Vics or Fords as Taxis which I see in New York.

Since I was there for work , I won’t bore everyone with work details. Let the fun continue………

As it was Christmas time, there are some beautiful and splendid Christmas markets in Cologne. There are about six Christmas markets but i think the Weihnachtsmarkt am Kölner Dom or Christmas Night Market at Cathedral is truly spectacular to witness. Imagine little red huts in the backdrop of the enormous Dom. A gorgeous sight, I must say.
Its kinda cold to be walking around a lot in the evenings with near freezing temperatures but then, there are stalls serving Glühwein ( Glühwein is usually prepared from red wine, heated and spiced with cinnamon sticks, vanilla pods, cloves, citrus and sugar . Sometimes they add Amaretto in it to give some spike). There were countless people at the Glühwein Stalls clutching cups of nice hot Glühwein. It sure had the magnetic effect to attract people. once sip of Glühwein was bliss, a warm sensation throughout the body. Each year every Christmas Market has a different Glühwein cup which is a collectible item. Apart from this delicious drink, many a times I feasted up the German bratwurst (sausage) in a fresh white bread roll. Yum Yum.. The sausages one gets in the US are nothing compared to the bratwurst. The fact that it was December and close to the time when one makes 'New Year Resolutions', I made one the instant i took the first bite of the Bratwurst. No matter how much i pig myself out on this trip indulging myself in eating Bratwurst and other German culinary delights like the famous “Christstollen” yeast cakes, “Lebkuchen” soft gingerbread cookies, once i get back to the US, I shall get to the gym regularly and follow a strict healthy food diet. I just hope i can stick by this on the spur resolution.

Even though these six Christmas Markets are walking distance from each other, there is a ‘choo-choo’ bus service connecting these markets. Its like a hop-on , Hop- off service.

Leaving aside the food stalls there are numerous stalls selling lot of traditional goods and handcrafted gifts. Each one has its own flair.
I managed to get a good bargain for one of the pipe-smoking wooden “Räuchermännchen”. Last time when i was in cologne I bought another German traditional item, the Christmas Pyramid. a small lovely wooden Carousel with several levels some depicting Christian motifs, such as angels or manger scenes and other scenes from the everyday life of people in the Erzgebirge (the origin of Christmas Pyramids). The spinning motion of the pyramids is traditionally achieved with the help of candles whose rising heat spins a propeller above.

Another interesting fact about Cologne is that they make their own local beer called the Kölsch There are about 300 kinds of beers brewed in Cologne. More popular are the Gaffel Kölsch and the Früh Kölsch .

Last year during my visit to cologne, I had tried the Kölsch, I did have a different taste somewhat smoother than the regular beers you get in the US but since I ain’t a beer drinker this time I stayed away from it.

Over the weekend, my colleague Jonathan and I went to Jonathan’s friend, Uli’s, place for dinner. It was his birthday. We met a couple of people there Svenja, Rü, Mathias and a few others. Had a great time there. Good food. It was more like potluck . Jonathan and my contribution was …….. Beer. Last year when I went to Uli’s place, we partied until the wee hours of the morning and a LOT of Beer was consumed by the end of the party. The amount of beer consumed was I think equivalent to what you would find in a liquor store. And this was where I tasted the Kölsch. This year surprisingly was milder and low key as we got back to the hotel by just past midnight.

One evening while weaving my way through the Christmas markets i smelled something nice.. My nose drew me towards the Poffertjes. They are small pancakes topped with Chocolate and sprinkled with sugar. Poffertjes are more of a Dutch delicacy than German but quite popular. I gobbled down 5 of them within a minute.. Oh they were so good... Totally lip-smacking...

Oh, I did get an opportunity once to get on the AutoBahn. Even though I was driving a Mercedes being in an alien country and not wanting to break any laws I drove at a very decent speed trying to maintain the speed limit of 100 km/hr but all I could see on the AutoBahn were powerful engines of BMWs and Mercedes smoking me.
Holy moley and I thought I was driving fast…

Just remembered, during the course of a conversation with a native German, I learnt a very interesting rule regarding maternity leaves in Germany. A woman can go on Maternity leave for 3 years if she has one baby , if 2 then 5 years and so on and the company has to offer her the same job on her return and if they have to terminate her then she has to get compensated for the whole maternity term. I learnt that in one company one lady went on Maternity leave for nearly 12 years as she had about 4 kids in intervals and when she came back she had to get re-trained as lots of things had changed in 12 years.... 😊 Bloody hell…

One evening after work, while chatting online with Ketaki, my cousin in India and she mentioned that her parents (Chandukaka and Vibhakaku) and another family who are our neighbors in India (Satishkaka and Sunandamaushi) were also going to be in Cologne for a few days during my visit.

I somehow coordinated with Chandukaka and met the families in Cologne. On one occasion, all of us went to the Brauhaus Früh for dinner. One of the Kölsch beer breweries but serves good solid dishes like goulash and bratwurst. and of course, lots of Kölsch beer.

To mention an interesting tip about Germany, there is a ‘pfand’ or deposit for every bottle bought at the store, may it be beer, water, coke etc… and this ‘pfand’ is rather big. For example; a bottle of water was for € 0.94 and the ‘pfand’ on it was for € 0.25 . By the end of the trip I collected all the bottles of water I had consumed and went to the recycle machine and deposited the bottles and got my ‘pfand’ amounting to about € 6.00 back. That’s a bloody lot of money. Atleast the delicious Ritter Sport chocolates got paid for ..😊

Time just flew by and it was the 20th of Dec already, I had all my work completed and it was time to head out.

Next Stop...... Amsterdam.

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Photos

Dom
The Christmas Market with the backdrop of the Cathedral

Choo Choo bus
Vibhakaku with the Choo Choo shuttle service.

Trying the Fruh
Taken on my last visit to Cologne.

Lot of beer
Just perhaps a fraction of the beer consumed at the party

Kolner Dom
A great view of the Dom

Kolnisch Wasser
Better known as Eau De Cologne

Jonathan
Jonathan thinks its a football