Actung!! (Germany Part 1 - Köln)

After an uneventful 1 hour ride (Jeez Ezyjet has impressed us again!). The drinks aren't cheap but it is a very efficent airline and the in-flight magazine is great!

We have got in to a routine when flying now. Since Cam has a British passport, he gets through passport control in no time, collects our bags and waits on the other side. Mean while Nat is still in the queue waiting to get through passport control with her Australian passport! Cam is usually on the other side waving with a big grin on his face!

We are staying in Cologne with Cam’s Mum (Hilda) cousins’ Hannelore & Hans. We come out of the departures, and there is Hans and Martin holding a ‘KENNEDY; WELCOME’ sign up! We were wondering how they would know who we were! After a warm welcome, we were ushered to their car. When we arrived at the house, we received door service and a huge welcome from Hannelore. It was awesome! We came in to the house and were shown to the dinner table and Hannelore had prepared a big welcome dinner for us. Hans cracked a bottle of sparkling wine and we celebrated! Martin is Han’s brothers son, and he speaks very good English. He translated for us, it was truly an amazing experience. We were treated like royalty, they couldn’t do enough for us. Hannelore is much like Hilda!

Wednesday
We awoke at 8am and came downstairs. Hannelore had prepared breakfast and fresh percolated coffee. In conversation last night, Hannelore had asked us what we eat for breakfast, we said muesli. When we arrived for breakfast, she had already been to the supermarket and bought us both a box of muesli each. She is ever so hospitable.

Martin arrived at 9am and took us on a guided tour of Cologne. Hannelore had purchased tickets for the train as well. She thinks of everything! We started out at Cologne Arena. It’s absolutely massive. Its so big that photos just wouldn’t do it justice. We walked over the bridge over the Rhine River. The weather was perfect. Clear blue skies and the view down the river was gorgeous. We continued walking in to the city, through a few shops, down the main shopping mall and to the ‘Dom’ Cathedral. It is a massive Cathedral which is gothic style. It was built around 1500? Martin and Cam climbed up to the top, I hate to imagine how many stairs there were! We stopped for lunch and Cam had his first beer out, Kolsch. This is the beer local to Cologne. There are over 20 breweries in Cologne alone! We walked and walked and walked. Martin left us about 2.30pm to go to work. We continued looking around. On our way home we bought groceries. Upon entering the house, we got in to trouble for buying food!

Thursday
Martin took us back in to the city. We went to the Chocolate Museum! We read all about how chocolate is made. They had machines making chocolate. Saw the process in action. It was awesome! We got to try wafers dipped in chocolate. It was really quite interesting. There wasn’t enough tasting of the chocolate, but overall it was great. The weather here is quite warm, its about 28 degrees, but it is very steamy. We bought a small block of chocolate, cracked it open outside, and was melting straight away, it was that warm outside.

We headed back to the city and stumbled across a fancy dress store. We bought a crazy hat each for Oktoberfest. Cam got a pointy hat made out of felt with blue and white striped ribbon on it and Nat got a Police cap! Nat isn’t looking forward to seeing Matt and Cam together at Oktoberfest. Its going to be very messy!! Next Martin took us to a shoe store that had a clearance floor. Nat found some boots which are handmade leather, knee high, for a bargain price. Less than half the original price!

We came home early today to cook Hannelore and Hans dinner. They eat quite early. Cam cooked his special ‘Cambonara’. It was delicious! We think they were impressed. It was a mission trying to get in to the kitchen, as its Hannelore’s domain, but we managed to cook the dinner, although she ushered us back out of the kitchen when we came to do the dishes! Cam showed our host parents the photos from the last few days. They were really impressed. The photos look great on the big TV!

Friday
Martin is a God send. He is on holidays from university, and he has spent three days showing us around. We are so grateful. Its awesome having someone show us around and speak the local language. Especially when it comes to buying things!

Today we went on a river cruise to the town of Bonn. The boat was huge! Cam thinks about 150 metres long and it takes 1200 passengers! The morning was perfect and the three of us sat back and watched the world go by. It took three hours to get to Bonn on the boat. We went to Beethovenhaus. The place where Beethoven lived. Was really interesting! And the house is gorgeous with really nice gardens. We walked around the town, its really cute and has a really different feel to it.

We headed back on the boat about 5pm and arrived back in to Cologne about 6.30pm. Nat bought a really snuggly winter jacket. Martin is going to get in trouble soon for showing Nat all these good shops! We met Martin’s girlfriend Nina for a few drinks. They took us to a bar that had half price cocktails. It was a really modern funky bar. Our host parents were waiting up for us so we didn’t stay out too long. When we came out of the bar we realized it had been raining.

When we arrived at our train station, Hans was there waiting, with umbrellas. It was so sweet! We don’t know how long he had been waiting, cause we had only called to say we would be home late. Hannelore cooked us up some pasta when we arrived home. We stayed up quite late talking and looking at the days photos of Bonn.

Saturday
After some trouble communicating with the rellies we finally communicated that we were trying to get some toiletry supplies, as Germany is very cheap for these things. We really wanted a hypermarket but Hans took us into a small town nearby and got a mega chemist that even sells wine and cigarettes. Go figure! picked up our supplies, and back home.

On the way there we saw a beautiful forest, called Königsforest. This translates to "Kings Forest" So Cam decided to go for a ride, but Hans insisted that he came with Cam. Hans set a cracking pace there. Once at the forest, he took me to the kiosk were we just "had to have a beer". Fresh Kölsch from the tap. Back on our way. Absolutely beautiful place, with so many trails and stuff to explore. Saw many people out with their dogs, making us think of Chloe at home :( But we got to see some Wild Boars in there fenced off part, including some piglets with some really cool stripes and they even had a feed right in front of us! Then we went to another fenced off bit that had deer wondering around, including a big male with his huge antlers on display!

Time to head home, as we were having an early dinner with another relation of mine, Jan (Yarn). Yet again Hannelore cooked up a storm with fish in sauce and veggies and stuff. Hans pulled out one of his finest German whites fvrom the cellar. It was a 1979 Germaitztraminer. Needless to say it was damn fine! A few beers and stuff, and spent the whole night chatting about our family, travels and stuff.

Sunday
It was a lazy start, with a sleep in, Hannelore let me in the kitchen to cook up some bacon & eggs, and some of her fine coffee!

Hans took us to my Great-Grandmother Rosa's grave. It was a very moving experience. With the weather all grey and overcast, it was a perfect setting for some reflection on Cam's family and past.

Martin came by and picked us up about lunchtime and we headed into town to go to the Sports museum. Met up with his girlfriend again to explore this great place. It was really well laid out with heaps of Olympic history, the records and stuff and lots of sports paraphanalia to be seen. Very well laid out. On the roof they even have a tennis court and a football ground to try your hand at!

After working up an appetite, we went to a restaurant on the banks of the Rhine river in the old town. We all ordered the the snitztels and the town specialty, 1 metre of beer. That's right, 1 metre of beer! They only have small glasses so they serve 11 glasses of beer in a rack that is 1 metre long. Even Nat got a beer down! It was a nice way to finish lunch.

We decided it was a good time to play some pool as we had been talking about it for days. Found a pool hall. The table and balls are a bit different to the norm, with larger balls, larger table and pockets and really cool service! Over here you order as you go, with drinks and stuff, they even come to you and you pay for it all at the end. Same goes at bars etc... Very nice touch! But Martin was not in touch, between a couple of doubles games, singles games and stuff, Cam 5, Martin 0. Needless to say he wasn't very impressed! But we all had fun, but it was time to go home.

Monday (Farewell Köln)
Monday got a bit of a sleep-in, but it was time to move on to Stuttgart. After a sad farewell at the train station, we were on the ICE (high-speed train) onto Munich about 6 hours away. A very smooth ride indeed. We thought that we would spend a little more and go first class. At only about and extra $10 each it really was a no brainer..

The next post awaits, Munich...

Cam & Nat

ps - Just heard about the Dockers losing to Sydney, bloody hell very disappointed that it could of been a derby final. We always knew that they would be hard to beat at home...