Kuckuck aus Köln

i have a habit of always saying 'Köln' instead of 'Cologne' and often forget that my English-speaking friends probably don't know what city i'm referring to. what can i say? es passiert.

Köln is quite amazing. my host Sigfried was quite nice, straight up tour guide with his description of the city. and, D was quite right about how you walk out of the train station directly in front of the cathedral. i arrived in the evening and promptly went through all of Sigfried's books to plan the next day.

i could have been sharper the next morning and noticed when all the people with luggage got off the Straßenbahn. oops. turned out okay, though. got off at the first stop on the other side of the river and walking across the bridge was my first experience of the day.

nobody told me about the padlocks! i mean, i've seen a few here and there, but never to this magnitude. apparently i never got the memo and it's quite common. made for some neat photos, for sure. i also enjoyed seeing the tracks from the former site of the Hohenzollern bridge. Köln was pretty heavily damaged in WWII, zB: the part of the cathedral that got replaced.

again, influx of history overwhelms my brain and i love every bit of it. now throw in a museum of Roman artifacts, the scandals of Agrippa and tile mosaics in their original place. oh my. the Römisch-Germanisches Museum was laid out VERY nicely. remember me complaining about the lighting at that museum in Straßbourg? this place was the exact opposite. the volume of the sculptures was perfectly defined, right down to tiny figurines, and just the atmosphere of the room with all the jewelry was amazing. oooh, i still get chills.

now sadly enough, that was the extent of my touristy ventures in Köln. so, i broke the heel of my boot shortly thereafter. i walked around the downtown area looking to buy a new pair of shoes. of course everything is super expensive and i was in no mood to spend money on something i'm not particularly fond of. i give up. i remember Garry walking around for several hours with wet sneakers and decide that i can deal with missing an inch or so on one leg. i walked to a couple more churches, but i had wasted a lot of daylight in the futile attempt at shoe shopping and they were all closed. just keep taking photos, baby. i go back to Sigfried's apartment hoping maybe he could point me in the direction of a Kaufland od. etwas. he was not home. i waited an hour and some, thought about places to go the next day and edited some photos. still not home. with enough time to myself, i thought: "why the fuck not go back to Tübingen? you have your hiking boots, which would have been the better choice anyway. dumb Sabrina. oh well, no going back on that one. it's kind of late. hm. do i leave a note for Sig? omg, how do i explain this auf Deutsch? fuck it, just go. i can write it in English. shit, i can't even explain it in English without it seeming completely odd. dude, it was your ONLY pair of shoes for Ireland. you have the time. okay, wtf just go. you are really weird, you know."

so, i lock the keys in the apartment and try to formulate a voicemail for Sigfried. it sounds horrible. oh well. i hop on the ICE to Stuttgart. my arrival overlapped THE last train to Tübingen by two minutes. two minutes! i am officially stuck in Stuttgart for five hours. oh well, shit happens. i know i'm crazy enough to handle a layover. but, it was pretty damn cold. i paid 50cents to use the bathroom in the train station because it was 2am and everything was closed. i sat on the toilet for a good 15minutes (because every place for sitting in the station was taken by other people) before i decided to battle my crazy thoughts with more craziness. there are night trains and what not. i was going to just ride the trains all night. i had a fucking railpass, why not fucking use it? it is only a few hours. trains are warm. i could sleep a bit if i wanted AND i don't have to pay to use the bathroom.

and so, i bought a coffee, sat on the floor, then got on the next train to München. i planned it out that i would make it back to Tü just in time for the first run of 22 back to my dorm. it was definitely a little surreal. oh well, not good to spend too much time re-living experiences. might as well make the most of the choices i made.

the apartment was clean, other than the typical Oliver dishes. i fixed some food, reorganized my things, enjoyed the view from the kitchen a little longer and then headed back to the Hbf. please note that the story continues directly to Ireland.