31 August Sunday II

We wandered through the squares and cafes to the famous Kölner Dom – which is every bit as impressive as when I was a kid. It really is worth going out of your way to see. They have almost finished cleaning off the soot of the area’s 100 years of coal production. As my dad will tell you, most of those factories have been shipped off brick for brick to China to continue their pollution there.

I suppose 4711 is the most famous fragrance from "Cologne" so i took a picture of the headquarters.

As we walked along, I told Jaimey of my plan to get my dad a vest-jacket as a joke and a test. There must be a law that requires every German male, as soon as he turns 60, to buy a vest-jacket with multiple pockets. Nearly every older man wears one and they look like imbeciles. We were speculating what these guys could be thinking as they bought one of these monstrosities, and we concluded, in union, “aber ja, das ist sehr praktisch!” Practical – the rallying cry for all older Germans – especially when it comes to fashion. Let me reiterate: if you like trains that run on time, hang out in Germany, if you want people who look good, go to Italy!

31 August Sunday

Since Saturday had been at least six hours of driving on top of the nine from Friday, sleeping in seemed advisable. However, the cushions I borrowed from Marianne did little to mitigate the concrete floor of Jaimey’s apartment. Unfortunately, Jaimey’s bed being little better, he got up early to type up a short novel. Good sleep was clearly not going to be the cornerstone of my stay in Düsseldorf.

Jaimey had made some tentative plans to go to Amsterdam with a colleague of a friend or a friend of a colleague or somebody named Mahmoud anyway. A long drive seemed a bad idea and suddenly two small children were now part of the program, which would, of course, limit our activities in Amsterdam (because kids have shorter tolerance for museums and such). Thus the first order of the day was to disentangle ourselves from that plan.

Jaiey’s brilliant alternative was to head to the train station in Köln (Cologne). Although I confess it was a harebrained scheme, I do maintain Jaimey is smarter than he looks. His rationale was that he had still failed to get anything for Jacqueline and Germany, being terribly German, was closed on Sundays. However, through some odd transportation subclause loophole, train station stores were still open. As sweetener, Jaimey threw in the idea of seeing The Dark Knight – which I had seen before in the US but I was happy to see again. Honestly, I mainly went along because I had not been to Köln for maybe about 8 years when I had been there before with, you guessed it, Jaimey and his girlfriend at the time. I had also a special fondness for the city, having visited several times as a kid – maybe to see the cathedral.

Köln, as you can see from my dramatic pictures, is a pretty city. Of course, any large German city is significantly nicer than any large American city save perhaps San Francisco and New York. Maybe it has something to do with use of public space, pedestrian and preserved old downtowns, and urban planning to minimize sprawl and strip malls?

30 August Saturday - entertainment options

Do you trust a place called Kinky Star? Or perhaps you prefer to hang out with the other charlatans? I'll be at the Bar des Amis thank you very much . . .

30 August Saturday

Jaimey was looking a bit uitgezonderd - even if it was his birthday!

Another example of how Dutch/Flemish, although a separate language, seems more similar to Hochdeutsch than schwitzerdootch, which is supposed to be a dialect. I hope someone can explain the difference between a language and a dialect to me before I go mad.

30 August Saturday - more pictures

30 August Saturday

I can't believe how many pictures I took. Luckily they're all brilliant and you want to see them all!

The shot with the flags is, of course, deeply symbolic of my mixed heritage. Any disparagement of Ireland is strictly coincidental.

30 August Saturday - Altstadt pictures

Any scantily-clad women or pontificating professors appearing in the photograph are merely coincidental.