Thomas (workmate) and I planned a trip to Köln this weekend, with his flatmates tagging along. We were going to visit Alex (another workmate).
Well this trip started early Saturday morning (well 7:30am on a Sat is early). We got into the car that we hired from the airport the night before and set off for Köln. Turned on the sat nav. to point us to our destination, thank goodness for this piece of technology. I don't know how we would have made it without it. Google Maps is good... but not that good.
This was my first time driving on the autobahn... and man I can tell you it is fun. Even in our piece of crap, I still got it up to 190km/h... but the Mercs and Porches made us look like we were standing still :-)
We arrived after just under 4 hours. We parked up and had a wander around the city. Saw a really cool church called the Dom. It was massive! Take a look below.
After we had a bit of a walk and something to eat, we drove and checked into our hotel. It was quite a nice place, it cost 30 Euro each (which is not bad around these parts). Straight away we hopped on the S-Bahn (i.e. Stadt-Bahn or city-rail) into the city. We met up with Alex and a couple of his mates. Also we met up with Steph, who was one of Thomas' mates. A quick stop at a dairy to pick up a Kölsch (beer from Köln) and we were on our adventure.We started at the Sky Beach which was a cool little bar on top of a parking building (see below).
After that we walked around the city, picking up beers from all over the show: dairies, ice-cream parlours, sweet shops... you gotta love Germany! hehe.
Now just so you guys know, in Germany, they consider 4.8% a "lite" beer. That's what we were drinking... but still... a lite beer?
It was a lovely day until we started walking to the brewery. Right outside it started to piss down so we ran in to one of the many breweries of Köln. The beers they serve there are only 200mL, but they keep them coming like they are water. If you are drinking too slowly, the waiter will come along and drink a beer, then put it on your tab :-) Which in Köln, the tab is simply a coaster on your table with pencil marks on it. It was a really interesting experience.
After leaving here we were all rather smashed... at 6pm, so we headed to get some food. Jumped on the S-Bahn and headed for the student part of town. There we met up with Alex's girlfriend plus some other mates of his. I ended up having a conversation with the table next to us, they were trying to teach me more German. I think it worked.
After we were fed on pizza (and more Kölsch), we headed to a club. The first club we went to was a Karaoke club. We drank a few drinks here... and I even had a bit of a sing. I was absolutely terrible, but had a blast!
After this we headed to a German rock club, which was good. Trying to get in, one of Alex's mates got stopped for wearing sandals... but one of the other people with us (a 14 year old sister of one of the guys) convinced the bouncer to let us in.
I didn't get back to the hotel until 10am the next day... but woke up with a very sore knee, so I must have injured myself somehow... hmmm. Anyway. Had a fantastic time and will probably go back again for a weekend.
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