Hello Cologne

Arrived in Cologne today. The flight was great, though business class probably had something to do with that. I typically fly coach, but for work trips with flight segments over 7 hours, business class is acceptable. I flew Northwest Airlines this time. The seats were amazing. The automatic adjustment controls let you get the perfect fit dialed in. To sleep, the seats reclines to practically horizontal. Other nice-ities included super-high quality headphones, personal media centers for in flight music and movies, and high quality food and snacks (including alcohol if you are into that sort of thing).

Despite the comforts, I didn’t sleep more than an hour on the flight. With the +9hr time difference from Seattle, I took off at 1pm and landed in Cologne at 11am. I was really tired when I landed (having been up almost all night by Seattle standards) but was determined to beat jet lag.

I immediately put on my running shoes and proceeded to get lost in Cologne. I love touring a city by running around. In this case, I wasn’t paying attention and ended up getting a bit turned around. In the end, with the city bordering the Rhine River and some large landmarks (like the DOM) it was hard to get too lost. I hit the weight room at the hotel and then showered…feeling wide awake again.

The city itself is really beautiful, with the Rhine waterfront promenade and the Dom Cathedral and the center-points. There is also some great shopping to be had (again…if you are into that sorta thing). There also seem to be more restaurants per capta here than anywhere else on the planet, each with copious outdoor seating.

In the afternoon, the city was surprisingly quite for a Saturday. I was really wondering if there was some concert or event that had occupied everyone’s attention. Maybe David Hassellhoff was in town?

Later in the evening I realized that people just tend to go out much later than in America. At 7pm, things were pretty quiet and empty. By 10pm, there were tons of people out everywhere.

For whatever reason, Cologne seems to be bachelor and bachelor-ette party-central. While enjoying my dinner at a table outside on one of the main thoroughfares, I saw no fewer than 20 bachelor and 20 bachellor-ette parties walk by. They are hard to miss. The men/women are all dressed in uniform,walking around in packs, making a raucous and forcing the groom/bride to-be to do all sorts of embarrassing stuff.

It’s now midnight Cologne time (9am Seattle time, up >24 hours right now) and I am ready for bed. Tomorrow, I plan to get to Dusseldorf or take a boat trip down the Rhine to Mainz. Gonna soak up the view from my hotel (see pic above!) for a little while longer and hit the sack any minute.

-Auf Weidersehen!