Eine Reise nach Köln

So last weekend I made my first trip outside of Dresden since arriving. If you don't count going for a day trip to ski.

I left Friday night and spent that night on the night train direct to Cologne (Köln), arriving at like 6:15. It was good! Well worth it, cause then I maximised my time efficiency. Later in the morning I met up with Ines. That's a girl who I know cause she does promotion for Sparkadia, a Sydney band I went and saw in November, and before that gig she contacted me and asked me to promote the concert, which I did, and I got in there free and got to go out with the band afterwards. Then I talked with Ines some more and I suppose we're friends now. She's 26, living in an apartment in Cologne and working in something to do with Biology.

We spent Saturday together, first at her place then cruising all Cologne's streets of shops, they've got tons and tons of mall space! In the evening we saw Protest the Hero, a hard rock band, at "The Underground", a bar/gig place. We were joined by one of her friends, and Elliot Steele (a friend from school for those of you who don't know. Apart from through me, Ines and Elliot don't know each other.) It was pretty good! Elliot was there cause we arranged it and shiz. Then Ines and Elliot and I had some fast food, drank some beer and watched Monsters Inc.

Then Sunday I said goodbye to Ines and spent the day with Elliot, first we went southwest into the country for an hour on the train, to Steinfeld. That's a small as town where his placement is, in a boarding school in a huge old building. We then went south east to the city of Bonn, former capital of West Germany. It's quite beautiful, same as every German city really, but we didn't do much more than just cruise around because on Sunday almost every business in Germany is shut. Much more so than in Australia. The evening was spent back at the boarding house, chilling with some of his students who are his friends as well, cause his placement is with school kids not kinder kids, so that goes up to our age and a little bit above even!

Monday, I briefly spent some time at school with Elliot then said tschüs and got the train back into Cologne. I went to a gigantic music store called, wait for it, "Music Store". To go off track for a minute, everything in Germany seems to be more stylish or fashionable if you write it in English. All the messages on the kinder kids' clothes seem to be in English. So yeah, Music Store ftw! Anyway, then I caught a 2pm-ish train from there to Frankfurt Airport, taking an hour, and changed to a train to Dresden which lasted a further five hours, putting me back at home at 8pm. And I live like next door to Dresden central station, so I just got out of the train and walked over the road to the flat.

I was pretty cut that the trip was over already, cause I was looking forward to it a lot and the 2.5 days or so just went by in a flash! But I only had to take one day off work (that's why I didn't work Monday, for those who may have been asking) and I only paid €20 for travel - that was for a bed in the night train, cause the rest went on my faithful Eurail pass. So there, first blog in a while! If you leave a comment, maybe I'll think about writing another one!

I have a good random fact to end this one - at the boarding house Sunday night, we ordered pizzas, and something I noticed about Germany is that a pizza comes to you whole, not sliced. You could slice it yourself, but what Elliot's friends did was simply pick it up and fold it and eat it kind of like a gigantic sandwich. Yum?