Cologne. Understated but nice-smelling.

There was still one more city I wanted to see: Cologne. Thursday was a make-up class/reading day and I had no commitments, so I got up early for breakfast and hopped on a bus to take me to the train to take me to Germany’s fourth-largest city, and the last city I would visit on my semester-long vacation.

Damnit. I forgot my Eurail pass.

So I took the bus back to the castle, unearthed my Eurail from my desk drawer and took the bus, for a second time, to Venray. By this point, I’ve realized that half of traveling is waiting for the other shoe to drop. Something always goes wrong. Always. Don’t try to avoid or run away from it. It just happens, and there’s nothing you can do about it but adapt.

I got to Cologne around 12:30 and took on the city’s largest, most impressive sight: the Kolner Dom (Cologne Cathedral). I have seen so many cathedrals in the past few months, my head might explode, but the Dom was very cool, and shows a very different mood of cathedral building.

The high Gothic architecture design and dark stone used for its construction, the Dom looks positively German--weathered, serious, formidable and grave. The rest of Cologne was bombed extensively by the Allies during WWII, but the Dom stood proud, enduring 14 bombings. If it suffered any damage, you can’t tell now. This is true of the rest of the Cologne, too. In this way, it’s no Berlin.

I climbed the steps to the top of the Dom’s bell tower--five hundred and something steps. My legs, strengthened from walking around while traveling, ached as I climbed, but I made it, breathing heavily but in good condition. I passed many stragglers on the way up. Leaning against the wall; holding their sides; wheezing--these folks didn’t know what they were in for. Amateurs.

The view was really nice. Cologne has a population of nearly 1 million, but the metropolis is pretty compact. A river runs through the city (a river runs through every European city; or an ocean) and relaxed mountains trace the horizon. It was such a warm, clear day. It was worth the climb.

The Dom is the only major sight in Cologne, so I spent the rest of my day there walking around. I found a bookstore and went in. I do this in every city I go to, irrespective of language. It’s cool to see which English-language/American books pervade different markets. I saw Cormac McCarthy’s The Road and a whole bunch of Nick Hornby books. I went to the English-language section (always a highlight) and picked up On The Road. Man. Kerouac is so cool; I’m getting that book the moment I get back.

There was a Dunkin Donuts in Cologne, but I
didn’t want to consume caffeine (they don’t do decaf in Europe)
didn’t want to pay 3E50 for an iced coffee
didn’t want to be cliché
and didn’t want to have the upper of the coffee compete with the downer of the beer I wanted to drink. I would get my Dunks fix when I got back to the US. It’s only another week and a day.

I did, though, get a gelato and a Ritter Sport. This is a mandatory part of my city-seeing methodology: cheap, high-energy fuel while I walk around. I also got half-liter can of a beer-cola blend. It was cultural. I just figured--being in Deutschland--it was something I should do.

I walked down Cologne’s main street. It looked and sounded like Downtown Crossing. There were a lot of people out for a Thursday afternoon, and the people were very vibrant.

I was starting to get sleepy, and I wanted to get back to dinner, so I left on a train around 4. My train was supposed to take me from A to B, but when it got three-fourths of the way to B, it started going back towards A. It’s times like these I wish I speak German. Sigh.

So I appraised the map, and, after ascertaining what was going on, I jumped off of a moving train. Audrey has chastised me for this, but I don’t think it was that dangerous. The train had was just starting to leave the station and was only going about 5mph (8kph).

So I was in some small German town whose only visible residents were some kids playing in a backyard and a few teenagers doing a lot of nothing next to a crosswalk. I really had to pee, so I found a secluded spot and took care of that. There is no way I’m paying money to go to the bathroom.

I waited for a while and then took the train going back towards B. There was track construction going on, so we had to take shuttle buses to our destination. Sheesh. I took a bus from Venlo back to the castle. It took me so long to get back, I missed dinner. Meh. I don’t mind. I have other food.