mbanck's Journal

Cologne
Over the weekend I have been in Cologne again. This is the third time in a row that I went there together with the other guys to 'Nikolauskneipe' of our fellow student association (called `Suevia') there. Unfortunately, Ulrich and Bene did not come along, but I met Florian there again (who stayed in Utrecht since summer) and Erich as well (who I have not seen a lot recently). I drove to Cologne together with Martin and Clement, and once we arrived late Friday we found out that all people were at another student association's party, which we promptly joined. The party was pretty crowded and the music was quite nice. One had to buy coupons at the entrance, so I decided to have four Koelsch for starters. However, it then turned out that they actually sold Koelsch in 0.5 litre quantities, as opposed to the 0.2 bits I anticipated. I only found out today that one could have actually given back unused coupons, but back then I decided to just drink them. Martin started to chat at two blond girls, but they quite made a point they only think older guys (at least 30 years old) are really worth talking to and soon left, to my moderate relief. Eventually, we met the other guys I knew already and had some more drinking fun. I talked a while to a guy studying pedagogics, which was really interesting. Already well after midnight, Alex arrived at the party together with a friend. As the parties happened on two floors, we decided to leave the main floor and hit the chill-out/cocktail area where there were sofas and chairs to relax and slightly different music. After some more chatting, Martin and I went home (Clement had left already, he was on antibiotics anyway as I found out earlier) at about 3 AM (of course, Alex partied on until the early morning, as usual)

The next morning (after managing to wake up Alex), we hit downtown Cologne. Or rather, it hit us. I have seen a lot of people together at one place before (usually during concerts or street festivals), but this was the first time I was annoyed at walking around at perfectly normal shopping hours through perfectly normal shopping streets and not being able to really move independently from the masses. The others had a nice breakfast at Burger King (of course, we did not get a seat and they had to eat while standing in the restaurant), then walked around some until we finally arrived at the cathedral. At this point, it is worth pointing out that it was bloody freezing (which was slightly less of a problem when we were sandwiched by other people). Omar would not arrive until 2 PM, so we decided to have a stroll at the Rhine (where it was even colder). After we finally picked up Omar at the main station, we visited the cathedral (quite cold in there, but better than walking outside). I have been to the cathedral a couple of times now, but it is always impressive. Afterwards, I left the others (who went to the chocolate museum) and headed for the Subway at the Rudolfsplatz, where I met Tobias Wolter (towo) and Marc Brockschmidt (HE) from the Debian project (and where it was warm). Well, they do not have Spicy-White bread in Cologne's Subways but apart from that, no surprises there. Except that the `sandwich-artists' (which is the official title, as far as I know) where pretty childish (but good looking) and screamed at each other through the whole restaurant quite a bit. Towo and HE turned out to be really humorous and funny persons, teasing each other all the time. Surely some of the nicest Debian people I have met so far.

I met the others again at the bus station and we went back to the Suevenhaus in order to prepare for the `Kneipe' that night. A Kneipe is a traditional way of partying among student associations. In short, it amounts to an ordered way of singing and drinking and is usually great fun, especially the non-official parts. Somewhat longer, it is conducted by somebody called `president', who (along with a couple of others) wears a traditional uniform. The traditional student songs are accompanied by a piano (the guys in Cologne studies music, so he knew about this). Afterwards, the party went on until the early morning (at least for Alex, who went to bedroll at 8:30 AM; I decided to sleep sometime between 3 and 4 AM) and rocked. The next day, we did not do much except getting up (slowly), having lunch at a nearby restaurant and then driving home. Over the weekend, I managed not to get as drunk as the years before (two years ago, I stepped (barefooted) into the glass shards of a water bottle I managed to make fall over and break, and Anderl had to wipe up the blood...), but it was great fun nevertheless. Paying for the rented car sucked, though.

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