Cologne (Köln)

Last time I went to Cologne, I celebrated the Carnival and didn’t really see or do anything else. This time, I spent a half day checking out the chocolate museum and have a few beers.

The museum chronicles the history of chocolate, from the cultivation of the cocoa bean, to the industrial machines that produce the chocolate. Visitors can even order their own custom chocolate bar! They pick the kind of chocolate (white, dark, etc.) and can choose a multitude of condiments too.

I honestly was more impressed with the industrial chocolate making machinery more than the chocolate itself. As a graduate of mechatronics engineering, I can certainly appreciate the engineering behind these machines. The movements of each component is precisely controlled to perfectly pick up and drop pieces of chocolate or to pour liquid chocolate into molds, and the subsequently release them.

Afterward, we met up with a friend of mine who decided to move to Germany from America. He was so interested in Germany that he earned his C1 level in the Goethe Insitut examinations (it’s one level below native speaker), and when talking to him, I could always tell his future was in Germany. He found a job working at Deloitte and his German is so good that he doesn’t even speak English at work! Even I can’t do that with my German.

Next up: the bar. You can’t go to Cologne and not try the local brew, Kölsch. Germans outside of Cologne assert that Kölsch shouldn’t be considered a real beer, and honestly, I find it to be just okay. It’s not great and not terrible. A unique part of the Cologne pub culture is that if the waiter sees you with an empty glass, he will automatically serve you another one, regardless of whether you want one or not. The sign that you’re done is to put a coaster over the glass.

We walked around town a bit and went to probably the biggest landmark in town: the Cologne Cathedral. This Cathedral is the second tallest church in Europe (the first is in Ulm, also in Germany), with a height of 157m. It’s hard to imagine the size, but most of the buildings in Cologne aren’t very tall so this building appears to tower over the skyline.

Düsseldorf

Next, we drove to Düsseldorf. All we did there was walk a bit around town, but the streets just kind of look like other cities nearby, like Cologne, except Cologne has a giant cathedral to look at. We did come across a small celebration in the street though. I’m not completely sure, but I think it’s for the massive Carnival celebration that was gonna happen in late February.

The fun started later that night though. We were looking to get some dinner and went to a local pub. It was Friday night and the place was packed – so you can be pretty sure this place is good. Normally, you’d just walk in and sit at any free table – there’s nobody to show you to your seat like in America. There was nothing free anywhere.

A group of Germans signaled to us that we could join them and they’d make space for us. I politely told them that it was okay and we could wait, but they started shifting over so we ended up joining them. We chatted with them over drinks and they turned out to be super fun people!

A older couple were having beers with their son in law and his friend until we joined (they were drunk already when we showed up). They were so happy to chat with us and kept telling us how awesome we were for visiting Düsseldorf. One guy kept telling us in his German accent how “North Rhine-Westphalia is the most open-minded place in all of Germany”, how he grew up in Bavaria near Allgäu, but can never go back there because Düsseldorf is just so amazing, and that we should live here permanently.

Germans when they’re drunk, really like speaking English. One of them kept getting stuck on words and he’d ask their friends what the word was in English. I’d translate the words for him each time and eventually one of their friends literally just told him, “don’t ask us, ask him! He knows all the words!” They were super impressed by my German and it’s a pretty great feeling to know that my German is good enough to have these conversations with locals.

My friend on the other hand, could more or less understand what was being said, even though he couldn’t speak the words. In fact, he had a bit of trouble with his pronunciation, to the point that not a single server in any pub we visited in Germany understood him when he tried to order a Radler. This bar was no exception either, and I couldn’t help myself but laugh at his misfortune

As we left, we jokingly said we’d meet again at the same place and same time to have beers together again. I gotta say that most Germans I’ve met have been pretty cool.

That’s all for now!

• Cologne
• Düsseldorf
  

Bastogne

The Battle of the Bulge (known in German as the Unternehmen Wacht am Rhein – Operation Watch on the Rhine) was the last major German offensive in the western front during World War II. The Germans attempted to use this offensive to break the Allied offensive on that front and force the western allies to negotiate a peace treaty. The territory taken by the Germans during the offensive resembled a “bulge” on the map, hence its name.

During the battle, Bastogne was surrounded by German forces, and when the Germans asked the Americans in Bastogne to surrender, Brigadier General McAuliffe famously answered “nuts!” to the German request.

We stayed overnight in the same farmhouse which served as the former field headquarters of the legendary American 101st Airborne Division during the battle. The staff there mentioned that the same family still owns the farmhouse to this day and that some of them had perished in concentration camps during the course of the war.

They even decorated in the interior with old helmets and ammo boxes.

I wouldn’t consider the place in the middle of nowhere, but maybe trying to find it at night isn’t the best idea.

Just look for the tank turret out front I guess!

We tried going to the Bastogne Museum, but little did we know that the Bastogne War Museum was closed between 20. January 2020 to 19. February 2020. I knew it was low season, but I didn’t think it was so not busy that the entire museum would be closed for a whole month! The only exhibit we got to see was the East Germany open air exhibit outside showing off art painted on the tank, slabs of the Berlin Wall on old Trabants.

Nearby the museum was the Mardasson Memorial, a monument dedicated to the American soldiers who fought the Battle of the Bulge. Inside the memorial, carved panels tell the story of the battle.

The weather really cooperated with us today! We had clear blue skies all day, and got to see the the thin layers of morning frost over the vast farm fields.

Liège

The weather didn’t cooperate for long though because it became like this on our way to Liège…

The thing that surprised me about Liège was how seedy it was. We were hanging out around Place St Lambert, and it felt like people were subtlely eyeing us from the side of the street. In once instance, the moment we turned corner, a man glanced at us and immediately started walking in our direction. I glanced at him some more and eventually he went away. Yeah, we didn’t stay long in Liège.

I think one way to explain why it was so seedy was that Wallonia was no longer Belgium’s center of industry like it was in the late 19th and early 20th century. As the industry went to neighbouring Flanders, the local economy suffered.

Drielandenpunt

Next up, Drielandenpunt, the triple point between Germany, Netherlands, and Belgium. It’s also simultaneously the highest point in the entire Netherlands, a miniscule 322.5m above sea level.

Aachen

Not far away from the Drielandenpunt, was the westernmost city in Germany, Aachen. This is where 31 Holy Roman Emperors were crowned. Charlemagne (his bust pictured below) himself had his imperial medieval residence here.

The Aachen Cathedral shown below was the burial location of Charlemagne. The chapel shown in the middle is the location of the coronation of the Holy Roman Emperors. Despite the name, the Holy Romans Empire was neither holy nor Roman, nor an empire.

As a “holy” empire they weren’t exactly unified by religion. It wasn’t solely catholic and had a significant population of Protestants.

It wasn’t really Roman since for most of its history it didn’t rule over what the Roman Empire ruled over (although it did for a time) and its centre of power was ultimately in Germany. Arguably, the Byzantines or the Eastern Roman Empire was the true successor to the Roman Empire. They were a part of the Roman Empire when it fell and it continued the empire in the east until it fell in the 15th century to the Ottoman Turks.

Technically, it was an empire (at least officially) for a time, until their defeat in the Thirty Years War (1618 – 1648), which resulted in the kingdoms within the empire effectively receiving independence from the empire.

For lunch, I finally got the chance to eat Eisbein (bottom dish), a pork knuckle! It’s simmered for several hours in broth and served with sauerkraut and mashed potatoes! If you like meat, this is the dish for you. The above dish is a schnitzel – thin slice of meat (thinned via pounding) that’s breaded and fried.

Bonn

From Aachen, we drove to Bonn to meet up with a friend, who moved to Bonn from Taiwan to pursue a PhD in chemical engineering. We were so full from lunch, we only had a small snack for dinner at a local pub.

Since it was a Bavarian pub, it sold Bavarian specialities like weisswurst (shown on bottom – literally white sausage). It’s a sausage made from veal! The bread in the basket is a very delicious German pretzel. It’s got a nice cripsy outside flavoured with salt with a soft inside.

After dinner, we explored the city a little bit and visited the birthplace of Ludwig van Beethoven. The house is one of the few remaining middle-class homes of the era.

Bonn is also the world headquarters of an amazing brand of gummy bears – Haribo! It was founded by Hans Riegel in Bonn, hence the name Haribo. People who hear about Haribo for the first time usually think it comes from Japan, and are almost always surprised to find out it’s German! The outlet store not far from Bonn city centre has a MASSIVE selection of all sorts of Haribo variants! It’s got gummy bears, sour worms, licorice, and more! I definitely recommend the gummy bears (of course), the frogs, coca colas, and the Phantasia pack!

That concludes our 7th day. The next day we’d travel to more German cities – Cologne and Düsseldorf.

Photos:

• Bastogne
• Liège
• Drielandenpunt
• Aachen
• Bonn

I was totally sold on this meal even before I went to Iceland. The part of this meal that I was most excited for was the puffin and the minke whale! I had never eaten them before! Puffin is supposed to have a bit of a fishy taste to it, but since it was smoked, that taste wasn’t very strong. It doesn’t really have a distinct flavour and was a bit chewy. It tastes a bit like minke whale, and minke whale tastes like really chewy red meat – without the strong flavours like beef, and not that fishy. The lobster tails were also amazing. I didn’t even know lobsters can be this tiny, or maybe it was a crayfish that was lost in translation?

Oh and it’s true what people say about Iceland being really windy. I was told to open a car door slowly and to hold on tight as I open it to prevent the damage to the car door from swinging wide open from the wind.

Another place I went was Cafe Loki, just outside the Hallgrimskirkja. Everything tastes like what you’d expect, EXCEPT the thing in the middle. That is Hákarl, whcih is fermetted shark meat. Some people say it’s rotten shark.

This isn’t shark fin like what Chinese people like to eat, but this is actual shark meat. It’s a bit chewy and has a slightly sour flavour to it. Would not eat again.

After the meal, I checked out the Hallgrimskirkja. It’s a church, but the architecture on the outside is quite unique! It isn’t like the old baroque/gothic/etc style churches in a lot of parts of Europe.

I got to try some craft beers as well. They were pretty good – not better or worse than the craft beers I’m used to drinking. I do live in Seattle, so that might speak highly of Icelandic craft beers!

As a little bonus, I saw a guy get his ass kicked at the bar. Story was that the guy who got his ass kicked was being creepy towards some women and was asked to leave, but instead attacked the employee who happened to train in MMA…

That concludes my trip to Iceland! Photos here.

The first place to visit was the National Gallery because it was Thursday that day, and on Thursdays this museum is free. Everything is super #%!*%& expensive in Oslo, so take advantage of all the free stuff when you can. Pretty sure the only reason I went was because of this:

The artist who painted this, Edvard Munch is a big deal around here.  He’s even got a fancy grave.

I certainly didn’t go to the art museum for this. This piece of art literally looks like some little kids just scribbled on the wall.

The food, while expensive as #%&$ was delicious.  Here I had smoked salmon, some shrimp, reindeer sausage, and WHALE!!!  Another animal crossed off the list. Surprisingly it tasted super gamey.

What a beer selection.

The inside of the city hall in Oslo is pretty whack.  This is also where the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony is held every year.

These toilets are clearly made of libery, equality and fraternity.

This is definitely one of the most memorable pieces of architecture I’ve ever seen.  It’s an opera house built like an iceberg!  It’s so white that people must be constantly cleaning it.

There’s even Mormons! They’re everywhere telling people about their most amazing book. Which one is Elder Price and Elder Cunningham?!

Oslo has these palace guards like the ones outside Buckingham Palace too, except these ones are allowed to talk. I asked one of them how he got the position and he said that he has to specifically apply for the job and meet specific qualifications! I had previously thought that having this position to stand guard all day was a punishment as opposed to a privilege!

I paid a lot for this reindeer steak… like $70 USD… and it tasted like a steak, but gamier. And the beer glass to the right, I asked the waiter if I could buy it from the restaurant, but the guy was so chill he brought me a new one and let me keep it.

What are these guys doing here? They kept asking me if I was Chinese and I have no idea why because as a Chinese person, I’d be statistically more likely to have the same negative views towards the Falun Gong.

Vigeland Park is super cool. It’s got a bunch of sculptures representing humans at different stages of their life. This particular sculpture for some reason, is in literally every single piece of tourist info literature about Oslo.

Then there’s this guy hulk-smashing like four kids.

Everyone says this chocolate called “Kvikk Lunsj” is the best, but really it’s just a Kit Kat bar with slightly better chocolate.

The coolest part about this chocolate is that the inside of the wrapper shows off a cool ski route/hiking trail or whatever. I actually don’t even know because I can’t read Norwegian, but it is kind of similar to German though! If I took some literature and had the German and Norwegian versions side by side, I’m sure I could learn a ton of Norwegian.

On the way to visit some islands in the Oslo Fjord, Akershus Festning was in clear view in all its glory.

One of the islands has an old abandoned monastery, which was pretty cool.

Another island has these cool colourful houses and their own private docks! Must’ve been all that oil money that Norway got that made them so rich!!

That’s it for Oslo!

Photo album: Oslo

During the layover, we went to the Coca Cola Museum. At the ticket counter, one of the staff members randomly approaches me and asks me, “do you want a free T-shirt?”. When anybody offers anybody free anything, the first response is always skeptism and confusion. “What do I have to do?”, I replied. She replies, “WELL, you’ve got a Pepsi logo on your shirt”. The entire time, I never realized the Chivas jersey I was wearing even had a Pepsi logo. Kudos to her for picking that out (or maybe it was the red white and blue colours of the jersey that happen to be the Pepsi colours). At this point, I see the irony, and I take the free T-shirt and put it over my Chivas jersey. Pro tip to everyone going to the Coca Cola Museum: wear something with a Pepsi logo for a free T-shirt.

Inside the museum, they show off a ton of cool advertising/merchandise that Coke has made over the years in different countries. The museum was pretty busy and so it was pretty crowded in a lot of places.

Imagine decorating your living room like this!

This was probably the best part: drinking Coke branded drinks from different continents around the world.

For people into touristy things, then this museum would be a pretty cool place to go!

Photo album here

While walking around Stuttgart last Thursday, my friends and I went to the Hamburg Fish Market.  Normally, a street market in Stuttgart isn’t that interesting, but this one was different.  A fish market from Hamburg meant quality fish.  Geographically, the city of Stuttgart is landlocked, and the most commonly bought seafood is frozen.  I don’t know what other people think, but I would definitely eat fresh fish over frozen fish.

Even though by name, the market sold fish, some retailers sold chocolate desserts like chocolate/caramel bananas and strawberries.  They even had a giant beer garden set up for people to eat and drink.  While people ate, a band would play music.  Out of the entire event, what stood out most to me was the man selling German sausages.

This man had gathered a large crowd when he started yelling loudly about what a great deal he had.  This man would fill up giant bags of sausages and sell them for only 20 euros.  Each bag looked like they were about 3-4 kilos.  What an amazing deal in terms of euros/weight.  The guy would yell something in German and then if nobody bought it, he’d add more sausages into the bag until someone bought it.  To further entice people to buy, he’d take sausages and throw them into the crowd.  It was such a weird sight.  A fat guy just throwing sausages into the crowd.

His giant belly must have been all the beer he drank and the sausages he ate.  It’s so stereotypically German.  While holding the sausages in his hand, he’d go on about what kind of sausages he was selling (apparently he had elk meat sausages too), and he sold so many bags of them.  I think the guy selling cheese nearby adopted this wurst man’s strategy of stuffing cheese in bags (except he didn’t throw them, so that’s not as cool).

Eventually, he took notice of our group and call out to me, “you with the hat!”  I guess I stood out of the crowd because of my fedora (or maybe because I’m Chinese).  I walked up to him and he handed me this stick of pepperoni (I think that’s what it was) and started saying something to me that I didn’t understand.  This man yelled so loud that it seemed like he was screaming at me the whole time.  I looked over to my friends and they yelled back with a translation saying, “give him your hat!”, but I heard “in your hat”.  I was really confused at this point.  Why would I put the sausage in my hat?  Soon after, I realized what he wanted and he ended up wearing the hat for a brief moment before handing it back (it didn’t suit him at all).  I’m pretty sure he dirtied the hat with his greasy fingers too, which I wasn’t too happy about, but I guess it’s all in good fun.  It was a really strange experience though, but at least I got free food out of it.

Whenever one mentions the city of Brussels, a few things come to my mind, mainly chocolate and beer.  Before actually visiting the city, I really expected that sort of thing, but I was wrong…oh so wrong.

We left in the morning of the 11th in a very uneventful train ride that lasted for about six hours before we actually reached the city.  Upon arrival, we got off the train in a very typical looking European train station.  We walked around the city and found our hotel.  They assigned us a room for four people even though our party only had two people (we would have had more people if we could have arranged it in time).  The room even had a flat screen TV and a bathtub (not just a regular shower!).  What a great first impression.

After dropping off a few things, we went out to explore.  We didn’t really have a plan as to what we wanted to see, so we walked from one place to another with an attitude like, “hey, that looks cool, let’s go there.”  Using this method of exploring, we saw a few buildings with really cool architecture, like the Basilica of the Sacred Heart, and the Square Ambiorix.

After reaching the basilica, we realized that we ventured really far from the city center, so we decided to take the metro to the city center.  At the metro stop, we looked on the map to see which direction we needed to go in.  One of the local with his family waited at the metro stop and saw us looking at the map and so he explained how to get to the city center.  I suppose he could instantly tell that we were tourists.  The guy seemed nice, but almost too nice.  I found that kind of suspicious and we avoided him for the rest of the metro ride.

We went on the metro, and off we went.  A direct route to the city center didn’t exist from where we were so we had to transfer to a different train.  One thing I noticed right away at our transfer station was the fact that there were so many people trying to cram on a train.  I saw this and knew that could be trouble.  Before going to Brussels, I had read on the Canadian foreign affairs site about what to look out for in Belgium.  It explicitly warned travellers about pickpockets operating at metro stations.  Knowing this bit of information, I pretty much kept my hands in my pockets the whole time to prevent anybody from getting in there.

As I got on this crowded train, I did my best to get on the train while watching out for any petty thieves.  At one point, my mind wandered, and my hands left my pocket.  During the time between getting on the train and cramming on with everyone else, the dextrous hand of a pickpocket reached into the left front pocket of my jeans and grabbed hold of my precious wallet.  Not long after, I noticed my empty pocket and immediately knew what happened.  I had let my guard down for less than a minute and disaster struck.  In a panic, I looked around for where my wallet could have gone even though I knew that all of my attempts would prove futile.

I looked at my friend and simply said, “somebody stole my wallet”.  My friend then looked at me with an expression that said, “are you kidding me?”  Normally, I joke around a lot, but never about something like this.  I was dead serious.  I knew what I had to do next.  Call the credit card company to block my credit card and go to the police station to report the crime.  I didn’t really see a point in reporting the crime since they couldn’t really do anything to get my stuff back, but I might need the report as proof for losing the cards that I had in there.

I talked to the first staff member of the metro I found and asked him where one would go to report a crime.  I followed his instructions and when I arrived at the station, I found a police outpost.  I went inside to talk to the police about the crime, but they simply told me that they were closed for the day and directed me back to the place I came from for help.  Really?  Are the police in this city that incompetent?

Knowing that I couldn’t really get these people to help me, I went back to where I came from.  I went up to the information point and asked an employee there where I could go.  Two security guards came out and directed me to yet another police outpost.  This one had closed too.  Okay, whatever, so what if the police here suck?  At the very least, I had to call to cancel my credit card.  I asked the security guards where I could have access to a phone to cancel my card.  They led me to the nearest phone booth.  Really?  My wallet was stolen.  How could I possibly have any money to make a phone call?  They clearly weren’t very bright. 

Afterward, one of the security guards took out his cell phone and called a number for stopping credit cards.  After talking to the guy on the other end, I found that he could only block credit cards local to Belgium and he gave me a different number to call (I really hate bureaucracy).  The security guard looked at the number I just wrote down and just shook his head.  He probably didn’t want me calling it because it was a long distance number.  I guess he cared more about his phone bill than helping someone out.

The next thing they did was direct me to an actual police station nearby.  Luckily, they were still open when I arrived.  I borrowed their phone and called the number that the security didn’t let me call earlier.  The guy on the other end told me that this number only works for Visa cards.  I had a MasterCard.  I was given yet another number to call except this time, the number didn’t work.  I don’t know how I was able to interact with so many incompetent people in one day.  I thought about what I could do next and realized that I could call home and ask my parents for the correct number.  I briefly told them about what happened over the phone, assured that everything else was okay and that I didn’t lose my passport.  They gave me the number; I called it; and then got my card blocked.  I even arranged for a new card to be sent to me.

The next step thing to do was to get the police report.  I waited around for an hour or two and finally got everything done.  I basically told the guy what happened, where it happened, and what was in my wallet.  My wallet had 170 euros, driver’s license, my student ID, two bank cards, a credit card, my Bahn 25 card, and my Stuttgart metro pass.  By now it was 8:30 at night.  I hadn’t eaten since the morning either so I was immensely hungry.  Using money I borrowed from my friend, I went to eat at McDonald’s.  Afterward, I spent the rest of the night walking around the city.  Despite the fact that I wasn’t in the mood to do anything anymore, I still walked around the city and saw what I could.  During my walk, I could see how shady the city actually was.  Some parts of the city were dominated by shady streets full of foreign immigrants.  I suppose that’s the reason for why some people here need to resort to stealing to make a living.

The next morning, we took the first train out and went to Amsterdam.  We had already booked our accommodations there before leaving Germany, so it didn’t make sense to go home early.

When I told my friends this story about my wallet, a few of them found it really surprising that pickpockets managed to steal out of a front pocket.  It surprised me at the time too.  Some of my friends even shared stories about how someone they knew once got pickpocketed in Brussels too.  If only I had known that earlier.  I guess it’s like what my parents said afterward, “I learned my lesson the hard way and paid for it with my wallet.”

More photos here

Here is my next travel blog entry about my visit to Berlin. In a short three days, we managed hit up quite a few places in the city, especially the historical areas about the Cold War and the Second World War. I would have liked to have posted this sooner, but my computer refused to cooperate.

Massive Train Delay

I was always under the impression that the Deutsche Bahn was always on time, but I guess that’s not true anymore. The City Night Line was supposed to leave at 12 AM from Mannheim and arrive in Berlin at around 7:30, but due to a train crash causing a chemical spill in Switzerland, our train took a detour. It arrived three and a half hours late. At first it was supposed to only be a 170 minute delay, but as time went on, the delay went longer and longer. To pass the time, we walked around Mannheim late at night, and pretty much saw the entire city, AKA the schloss, in about an hour. We spent the rest of the time just moping around the station. It was cold at night too and I never expected to be waiting so long so I ended up freezing when I was outside. I tried sleeping on the benches, but that didn’t really work for me, and instead ended up sitting there eating snacks until the train came. Maybe we should have chilled at a bar instead. Because of the long wait for the train, I didn’t sleep too well. It also didn’t help that I forgot to reserve a spot that had a bed, and I instead reserved a reclining seat instead. Because of the late train, the conductors handed out a giant form in pure German for people to fill out to get part of their money back.

Berlin Hauptbahnhof

We arrived in Berlin at about 10:30 in the morning, 3 hours later than scheduled. We all got off the train, still super tired, and started our journey in Berlin. The Berlin main station was the biggest station I’d seen so far. It had a really modern look using glass everywhere they could. Its sheer size allowed for a lot of businesses to open inside the station. The station had three floors with two floors used as train platforms. Coincidentally, it was also the station’s fifth birthday. When we got outside, we could see the German Reichstag within a walkable distance.

German Reichstag

Seeing that we could already see the Reichstag when we walked out of the Hauptbahnhof, we proceeded there first. Since I played so many World War II games, I already knew what the Reichstag looked like. Over the years, the Reichstag underwent a few renovations such as the glass dome that was added after the war. The rest of the building looked so similar to what I had seen in video games and historical photos that as I walked up the stairs, it briefly reminded of me of the guy with the flamethrower in the cut-scene in Call of Duty 5. I also remembered some of the iconic photographs I’d seen such as the soldier waving the flag of the Soviet Union on the roof.

Prior to going to Berlin, I had reserved spots for the roof terrace and the dome (according to their website, people couldn’t go up there without a reservation). Before going in, I had to put my stuff through their X-Ray machine (maybe they’re afraid of terrorists or something). They had confiscated my Swiss Army Knife for the duration that I was up there. At the roof terrace, the staff issued audio guides to every guest. While walking to different areas of the dome, the audio guide would automatically begin talking about parts of the city that one could see from that part of the dome. I didn’t really pay attention to the boring voice of the audio guide and the information that it had wasn’t all that interesting (it really didn’t matter to me if I knew how many rooms were in a particular building or the land area it took up).

Brandenburg Gate

From the top of the Reichstag, we could see the one of the symbols of Germany, the Brandenburg Gate. It is located at one end of the street Unter den Linden, and was used as a sign of peace during the Prussian Empire. Since it is also one of the most famous landmarks in Europe, there were naturally a lot of tourists here. So much so that there were people dressed up in weird costumes to earn money from people taking pictures with them. There were a few people holding American and USSR flags and even people dressed up as Star Wars characters. Near the gate were also a embassies of various countries such as France and the United States. One of the buildings even proudly waved the flag of Quebec (I don’t know why and it wasn’t the Canadian embassy either).

Eastener Hostel

By now, we were already super tired from the lack of sleep and from carrying our bags around all day. We took the city train to our hostel for a quick rest and to drop off some of our stuff. The man at the hostel was super thorough in explaining the rules of the hostel (with his East German accent) and even took the time to give us a map and point of the major tourist destinations on it. Using this map, we were able to find all the places we wanted to go to. By the end of the trip, the map had tears in several places and random folds here and there, clearly showing how intensely I used it.

Ampelmann

While walking around the city, I noticed that the pedestrian traffic light signals had a different design than the rest of Germany. Apparently, the traffic light man used in some places in Berlin were based off of the design used in former East Germany. I thought this Ampelmann guy was pretty cool.

The Remains of the Berlin Wall near Nordbahnhof

One of the locations that the map pointed us to were to some of the remnants of the Berlin Wall. Before coming to Berlin, I had a thought of posing at the wall with a hammer, but I never got one and I don’t think the people would have been very happy with me doing that. The segments of the wall here showed a lot of graffiti along its entire length. The city also preserved the guard tower and showed some of the methods of preventing escapes. Also in the area was a memorial for those who died while trying to flee to West Germany.

East German Cars

One of the peculiar things about Berlin was the fact that tourists can still take rides in cars (known as a Trabant or Trabi for short) that the GDR once used. I looked inside one of them and it just seemed so old and run down. I figure the only reason that these cars are still around are because of their historical/moneymaking value.

Really Cool Old-Style German Font

When I walked through some of the old train stations, I came across a really cool looking vintage font that I felt was so characteristic of Germany. Maybe I watched too many documentaries or something.

Checkpoint Charlie

Taking the train from Nordbahnhof, we made our way to Checkpoint Charlie, one of the border crossings once used before the unification of East and West Germany. The old border crossing booth and the sign telling people they’re leaving the American Sector still remains today. Standing outside are also two people holding American flags. Near the border booth, there is a giant sign with an American soldier on it and on the reverse side, there is a Soviet soldier. On the street, street vendors sold random things like fur hats with the logo of the Soviet Union on it, gas masks, and flags of the GDR and USSR.

Haus am Checkpoint Charlie

Adjacent to the border crossing, there was a museum dedicated to the documenting the border security between East and West Germany. The museum documented various methods of escape such as hiding people inside the hood of a car and using a hot air balloon. Also displayed were tools that people used to escape like special wall climbing footwear and stories of escapes. Seeing all these different methods made me realize how smart these people were. I would have never thought of something like that. Sadly, I was already super tired while walking through this museum and I was ready to just go back to the hostel and sleep. It was still light out at the time. Unfortunately, we weren’t allowed to take photographs in this museum.

DFB Cup Final

While in Berlin, we saw a lot of people walking around wearing stuff from football teams and apparently the DFB Cup Final was to be played in the Berlin Olympic Stadium. To catch the football game, we went to a bar to tune in. While at this bar, I got to try Berlin-style wheat beer. Theirs was different than the wheat beer I usually drink because here, they had beer cocktails. I tried the red and green Berliner wheat beer. The red one had a raspberry flavour while the green one had a woodruff flavour.

The Fernsehturm

The Fernsehturm is the TV tower where people can go up to see a view of the city. It is also one of the tallest buildings in the European Union. We didn’t go here since we didn’t really care so much about the view and we went to see other landmarks instead.

Potsdamer Platz at Night

According to my boss at work, Potsdamer Platz was a must see at night, and after seeing it for myself, I totally agree with him. The beauty of this place was the architecture that looked so beautiful in the night, especially the Sony Center. The roof of the Sony Center was shaped like an umbrella and its color would gradually change between blue and purple.

Französische Straße

Located on this street were the Französischer Dom, Berlin Concert House, and Deutscher Dom. Each of these three buildings have quite a bit of history and are all have amazing architecture. This place is definitely the place to be to see old-style architecture in Berlin.

Fassbender & Rausch Chocolatiers

This chocolatier is quite well known and their store is frequently visited by tourists. What makes it so special is that they built many of the landmarks in Berlin out of chocolate. Anything made of chocolate is cool. The longer I stayed in this store, the bigger craving for chocolate I had.

Führerbunker

During the Battle of Berlin, Hitler stayed in his bunker beneath his New Reich Chancellery. I went to the location of where the bunker once was only to find the area replaced by pretty regular things like shops and apartments. The side of the street here had plaques explaining the history of this area and its use for Hitler’s Bunker.

Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe

Near Hitler’s Bunker was a memorial for the Jewish victims of the holocaust. The memorial had thousands of concrete blocks, or stelae, of varying heights arranged in a grid pattern. According to one of the designers of the memorial, Peter Eisenman, he stated that “the stelae are designed to produce an uneasy, confusing atmosphere, and the whole sculpture aims to represent a supposedly ordered system that has lost touch with human reason.” Walking through the memorial reminded me so much of Bomberman. The memorial had the grid pattern just like in the game. It would probably also be really fun jumping from one block to the next, but it would have been really disrespectful.

Potsdamer Platz during the Day

To take a break and relax during the day, we went back to Potsdamer Platz for a beer. Now I understand why my boss told me to come here at night instead of during the day. It doesn’t look as nice at this hour.

Victory Column

Similar to the Arc de Triomphe on Avenue des Champs-Élysées in Paris, the Victory column stands in the end of the street Unter den Linden and is similarly surrounded by a giant roundabout. The column serves to commemorate the Prussian victories in the Danish-Prussian War, Austro-Prussian War, and the Franco-Prussian War. Surrounding the column are other smaller statues. One of the statues, I thought I saw my last name on it, but looking more closely, I realized it said “Roon” instead of “Poon”. What a bummer.

Schloss Bellevue

Located in the Tiergarten District of Berlin is the official residence of the President of Germany. We sat on the grass outside the residence to take a rest and to admire the beauty of the schloss and to watch the bike race that was happening just on the adjacent road.

Soviet War Memorial

Built using stone from the Reich Chancellery not long after the end of the Second World War, this memorial remembers the war dead of the Soviet Union, particularly the 80 000 soldiers who died in the Battle of Berlin. The memorial is of a statue of a Soviet soldier and on its left and right sides are two 152 mm Howitzer artillery pieces and two T-34 tanks (for some reason, birds like to go inside the barrel of the tank’s main gun). When I looked at the artillery piece, I tried to open the chamber for where the rounds go and tried to change the angle of the gun, but none of that worked. I’m pretty sure they didn’t want people messing with it. Behind the building is a small museum documenting the memorial’s construction and the Battle of Berlin. The memorial used to be guarded by Soviet troops during the Cold War even though it was in the British zone of occupation and now it is managed by the city.

Hackesche Höfe

One of my friends suggested that we go here since this place is known for its beautiful courtyards. It had eight interconnected courtyards, each with its own unique design. Some of the courtyards had tables for people to relax with coffee or beer while others had gardens.

Berliner Dom

Located on Museum Island, the Berliner Dom is a cathedral that belongs to the Evangelical Church. What was weird was that when we arrived there, we saw a group of people there having a cosplay party. There was one guy waving around a flag of the Empire of Japan. I never knew Anime was that big in Germany. Even weirder is that some of these kids were frolicking in the fountain in front of the Dom.

Museum Island

Another well known landmark in Berlin is Museum Island, which is an area with five internationally well known museums. They are the Altes Museum, Neues Museum, Alte Nationalgalerie, Bode Museum, and Pergamon Museum. We didn’t go in any of these museums since none of us were that interested in what the museums had to offer. The Alte Nationalgalerie had a look that seemed to have been inspired by the Greek Parthenon (but I’m not sure). While we were there, the sky started raining for about 15 minutes. It was quite refreshing since it was really hot earlier in the day.

Food

Although we didn’t try any food that were unique to Berlin (such as currywurst), we did splurge for one of our meals, and I found the food we had to be really delicious. Since Berlin is a lot closer to the coast than Stuttgart, I got to enjoy better quality seafood.

New Synagogue

Prior to the Second World War, the synagogue was badly damaged during Kristallnacht and the synagogue could no longer hold any services. Since the war, the synagogue was reconstruct and it is now the main synagogue for the Jewish community in Berlin.

Olympic Stadium

The current stadium was originally built for the 1936 Summer Olympics. Since the stadium was built during the Nazi period, the architecture of the building follows the Nazi style. Apparently, it was at these Olympic games that the tradition of the torch marathon began.

Potsdamer Platz for the Third Time

On our second night in Berlin, we went back to the Sony Center to relax for a little bit again. This time I got to try new kinds of beer such as mango and passion fruit flavoured wheat beer. It had an interesting flavour, but I thought the regular kind tasted a little better.

The Brandenburg Gate and the Reichstag at Night

When we arrived here at night, we found this place to be deserted even though the landmarks here looked amazing in the night. It was a good thing for us since there weren’t any tourists around. It allowed me to get really clear shots of these places.

The East Side Gallery

This area contains a continuous segment of the Berlin Wall that is 1.3 km in length. Along the wall are paintings from artists around the world to promote freedom in the world. The gallery also features the iconic political painting of Leonid Brezhnev and Erich Honecker kissing during the days of the GDR. There was also a souvenir shop here that stamped people’s passports with the GDR stamp for one euro. I thought that was a cool gimmick.

The Topography of Terror

To document the terrible deeds that the Nazi regime and the SS perpetrated between 1933 and 1945, an open-air museum was set up at the site of an old SS installation. It talked about how the Nazi’s transported people from conquered areas to the concentration and extermination camps set up across the continent. There was even a special exhibit just on the war crimes perpetrated by Adolf Eichmann. Near the museum were also SS buildings that have been converted to government offices.

Going Home

After three days of travelling in Berlin, we were all very tired and we were ready to go home. We went to our train platform for the ICE Sprinter about five minutes before the departure to find out that our train wasn’t there. We had no idea were it was and we didn’t want to miss the train. Apparently, some arsonists damaged some parts of the railway so the train ended up stopping on a different platform. Luckily, we found out in time and we managed to get on before it left. On the way back, I got to see some fantastic scenery of the German country side.

Souvenirs

I found that it was this trip that I spent the most money on souvenirs. I ended up buying Ampelmann themed cell phone accessories and a full sized flag of the USSR (not that I’m a communist or anything).

More photos here

When I first arrived in Germany, I was informed that every year in Cologne, a carnival would take place where people partied from dusk till dawn. I was even told that “people are drunk before 12”. I’ve never heard of anything like that before. The carnival attracted people from all walks of life. Whether they were people from England, France, America, China or any other country. Tradition has it that everyone is supposed to dress up in a costume for the carnival. I didn’t do it do it though. My excuse: I’m a foreigner. The carnival festivals would have already begun by the time I arrive, but I’ll be in time for Rosenmontag, when the parade is held.

To get to Cologne, my friend and I took the InterCity train. It goes a lot faster than the RB and RE trains that we took before. We reached Heidelberg in 45 minutes instead of the hour and a half it took us before. Every time the train goes through a tunnel my ears went crazy similar to how it feels when a plane takes off. As should have been expected, the train to Cologne was super packed and we spent the better part of half an hour standing until the conductor came by and informed us that there were empty seats near the back of the train. I sat down with a group of Chinese and Taiwanese exchange students. Probably because I’m used to seeing Asians everywhere like in Vancouver, it seemed a lot more normal to me when I sat down with the Asian crowd.

I started a conversation with them in Mandarin since I’ve barely spoken a word of Chinese to anybody except to my parents and asked them where they were from. We all ended up talking until the end of the train ride. I tried my best to speak in Mandarin, but seeing that I barely know the language I often couldn’t understand what was being said and couldn’t express myself. Luckily one of the people in their group spoke Cantonese and was able to translate. Ironically, this was the most Mandarin I ever spoke in my life in a single day. Eventually, we all just ended up speaking English. I suppose thats the way it works when a group of Asians all speak different dialects of Chinese.

One of the girls had a habit of keeping a list of names of everyone she has met with where and when they met. Interesting hobby. In a way, it’s like signing someone’s yearbook at the end of the school year. Before the train ride ended, we all took a picture together even though we had just met. My friend and I thought that was really funny since we and the group of interns always talked about the stereotype where Asians really like to take pictures.

We went our separate ways not long after we arrived at the Koln Hauptbahnhof. When we exited the station, we saw huge crowds of people dressed up in costumes and some were dancing to carnival music with beers in their hands. Groups of people gathered around street performers playing carnival music and looked like they were having a great time. Looking further into the distance, the sight of the Koln Dom struck us. This cathedral totally sets the first impressions for every single person who visits this city. It was taller and bigger than all the churches and cathedrals I saw in the past. I stood about 50 m away from it and still couldn’t get a complete shot of it. My next thought was, “We have to go inside.” Unfortunately, the church was closed because of the carnival. I hoped that maybe we could visit it the next day, Sunday, when people go to church.

According to the tourist info center, almost all of the city’s tourist attractions would be closed for the carnival, which meant there was nothing to see except the carnival. We walked around the plaza where the cathedral was and saw the most unique costumes ever. Even hobos on the street had a costume. Apart from the usual ones like schoolgirls, policemen, and suits of various animals, by far the best one was a group of people dressed up as bulls and Spaniards to reenact the bull festival. Unfortunately, they ran by too fast for me to be able to get a picture of it. The ones dressed up as the bulls literally ran after the others down the street. Everyone heard their yelling and screaming and they definitely attracted a lot of attention.

Prior to coming to Cologne, we organized the trip with other interns at UBC that currently work in Hanover. While we waited for the others to arrive, the only thing to do was to go to our hotel and drop off our things and walk around the city center. As expected, all the shops on the street were closed, except for restaurants, souvenir stores and street vendors. Since we planned the trip late, all of the hotels/hostels close to the city center were either booked way in advance or costed an arm and a leg. We ended up staying at a hotel in a suburb called Wahn, and it took a bus and a train ride to get to the city center.

The hotel gave off a Chinese vibe the moment we went in because the hotel’s restaurant served Chinese food and they hung up Chinese paintings everywhere. I even overheard one of the chef’s speaking in Mandarin to someone else over the phone. The reason I even mention this is because I didn’t think Germany’s Asian community was that large so I didn’t expect something like this. Almost all the Asians I see come to Germany as tourists.

After dropping off our things at the hotel we walked to the train station since we never figured out the location of the bus stop. Along the way, we found the townspeople in the suburb had their own carnival parade. As usual, almost every adult held a beer in their hand. It was nowhere as massive as the celebration in the city center, but the streets were crowded enough such that it took us at least half an hour to walk to the station when it should have taken only twenty minutes. Everywhere I went, I’d always step on glass from people just smashing the shot bottles on the ground when they were done with them. These were everywhere in the city center.

After arriving at the main station again, we met up with the others from UBC. The party began at that point. After all, the Cologne Carnival gives people good reason to party even harder than usual. After buying the local beer, the ten of us went to one of the rooms they stayed at and got our drink on. Before long, a lot of us were tipsy, if not drunk. Good thing for me though, is that I only had 2 beers. I didn’t quite like the taste of Koelsch. Before going outside, we carried as much beer as we could. While outside, we looked for a bar or club. Cologne at night became a totally different place. Everyone outside at night were pretty much people who probably had too much to drink. I know this happens in big cities, but during the carnival, there are just more drunks out than usual. A lot of the drunkards broke out in carnival folk songs, while we as Canadians sang the Canadian national anthem. The people there probably didn’t even know what we were singing about.

Even in our intoxicated state, we still looked at the Cologne Dom in amazement. I couldn’t stop looking at it. I even managed to get some nighttime photos of it. Looking at those pictures, a lot of them were quite blurry. Around the church plaza, we’d hear a group of people just randomly yelling every now and then.

When we got to the old town, there were a lot more people than at the cathedral, and like us, they too wandered around the town looking for a good time. And almost right away, our group separated. It’s quite difficult to keep a bunch of drunk people together I guess. We ended up in several different bars and not really staying in one place for over ten minutes. Nothing super crazy happened anyway. My friend and I stayed out late enough to miss our last bus back to our hotel, so we ended up speedwalking our way back in the freezing cold. That was a very long fifteen minutes. At the time, everything felt great, but once I sobered up the next day, I realized everything I did at the time was completely pointless.

The next morning, we went back into town and went to the tourist information center to see what was open today. While there, I saw two of the Asian girls we met on the train here and they told us the cathedral was open and that they went there already. I was very eager to go inside the cathedral. It’s one of the most amazing works of architecture and civil engineering of the olden times I’ve ever seen. The inside of the cathedral didn’t disappoint either. When I walked in, a sermon was going on so none of the tourists were allowed to freely wander around. But since a sermon was happening, we heard the church organs. The music filled the entire cathedral and everyone probably thought that was the most beautiful church music they’ve ever heard in their life.

I noticed that all the churches and cathedrals I’ve visited follow a similar pattern in their construction. Above the entrance is always the church tower with the bells and the left and right sides of the entrance are usually statues set up to illustrated Jesus’ sacrifice in some way. The windows there always face east west, probably to allow the suns rays to illuminate the entire scene.

The agenda today for the carnival was that there would be a parade featuring the children of Cologne. No offense to the children, but the parade really wasn’t all that interesting or maybe I’m just not a fan of parades. The best thing about it though was that they gave out candy. They grabbed handfuls and handfuls of candy and just threw it at the crowds. At one point they even brought out a catapult. The more candy they threw out, the more candy wrappers ended up on the street. But since the city has been doing the carnival for years, they were quite prepared. The fact that the garbage crews cleaned up the town overnight amazed me. There was almost no more broken glass everywhere, but that all changed as the day went on.

The best part of today was visiting the Rhine River that goes through Cologne. On such a sunny day, the view was amazing. While walking across the bridge to the other side of the Rhine we saw that on the entire length of the bridge couples that just got married would place locks on the fence stating their names and their date of marriage. There were easily at least a hundred thousand locks. We met up with our friends from UBC and together we chilled at a spot overlooking the Rhine, and watched as the sun slowly set.

Almost everywhere we went, we could hear carnival music, either from marching bands, street performers or giant speakers. It really set the mood for the whole celebration.

For dinner, I had a very unique steak sandwich. The steak itself was probably three times the size of the bread. It was about half an inch thick at least six inches in length and width. It costed six euros, but it was definitely worth it.

At night, the same routine as last night happened, but while we were drinking, we heard stories of the night before. All the stories just sounded super outrageous. I heard stories about people randomly smashing a baby carriage, high on weed, falling asleep on the street, eating breakfast with a bunch of probably homosexual Austrians dressed up as band members from KISS, and partying at a gay club. None of that happened to me (which is good), but those stories were definitely fun to hear. Since it was Sunday, the parties were not as crazy as the night before. There were a lot less people out. But we did see a really drunk French person on the street. What was so funny about him was that he kept taking our beer bottles and doing tricks with them like walking around with a bottle balanced on his head. The scary part was that he was really good at it. But like the night before, everything we did seemed pointless the next morning.

The monday of the carnival, known as Rosenmontag, featured the biggest parade of the carnival and is probably attracted more visitors than any other day of the carnival. When the parade started, we were walking on the parade route for some reason, which was kind of strange. Luckily, we weren’t the only ones so it wasn’t as awkward as it was supposed to be. The parade was similar to the previous days’ parade, but there a lot more marching bands that played and larger parade floats. They gave out more candy too. People would call out “kamelle!”, which means “sweets” in order to get the people in the parade to throw candy to them. Some of the floats had political messages about Facebook and Google Streetview denying people of their privacy. On four separate occasions, a chocolate bar hit me directly in the head. One of them impacted directly on my sunglasses and protected me. I ate so much candy that after watching the parade for over four hours that my stomach told me it had enough. I didn’t even eat dinner. In the beginning, we were all excited about catching the candy they threw at us, but four hours later, we thought, “when does the parade end?” At one point we began to dodge the candy thrown at us. We had way too much. Seeing that the parade hadn’t ended for so long, and that we stood in the cold for all that time, we left prematurely before taking the train back to Stuttgart. While walking back, we came across someone throwing confetti and I somehow managed to walk right into a cluster of flying confetti. During the course of the parade, the city turned from something beautiful into a city with garbage laden streets. Most people never took the time to throw their candy wrappers in the garbage. And also like the other nights, broken beer bottles filled the streets. It also didn’t help when people kept throwing confetti into the air.

Before leaving, I took a few more pictures of the cathedral. I kept thinking I needed more and more pictures of it. The architecture just amazed me so much.

On the way back, our IC train was delayed so we got to ride the faster ICE train in order to make our connecting train on time. We didn’t get a seat since there was basically two trains ful of people jam packed into one train. We ended up at Frankfurt Airport as part of the slight detour. The trains that we took were all full of people who had just come from the carnival and were probably still super drunk. They stayed on the train that way and ended up yelling, screaming and banging on the walls for the whole duration of the ride. Public intoxication is a very common thing in Germany, and it’s not only on special occasions like these. After four hours of train rides, we finally got home, and just in time to sleep and go back to work the next day…

My photo album for Cologne