I’m not a fan of large cities. Exhibit A: I used to live in the San Francisco Bay Area and today I live in rural Oregon. Exhibit B: In the Summer of 1976, I lived for three months in Los Angeles, and I still haven’t recovered.
As a city of 1 million residents, Cologne isn’t bad. It doesn’t smell like a big city – at least not the parts I visited. It’s clean, and it’s pretty. I still wouldn’t live there, but I don’t mind visiting. That’s not to say that Cologne doesn’t have big city problems: I was approached by three beggars while walking about.
Until today, my only use of the German language on this trip was to translate the label of a bottle of Coca-Cola, which didn’t have any high-fructose corn syrup, to the surprise of everybody sitting at the same table. And today, I failed my practical test when I asked for “Zwei heiße Schokolade, bitte” and the guy responded in English. Damnit! However, I later navigated conversations with a pharmacist (I asked for ibuprofen) and a barista (I asked for a small coffee to drink “für hier”.) without anybody getting their feelings hurt. I even told another pedestrian that, “Der Stadtbus ist dort drüben” when she asked for directions to a specific bus line.
We never left the vicinity of the cathedral, so I can’t tell you about the rest of the city. We went through two Weihnachtsmärkte but only purchased a small bag of roasted chestnuts and made a donation to an organization that is dedicated to removing trash from the Rhein. The Christmas market in the cathedral court had an unpleasant and unidentifiable smell so we didn’t stay too long. The second market was much nicer: Not as crowded, and no odor. It had a fairy tale theme.
I tried to capture this “glowing” tower on the cathedral. The light was reflecting off of the surrounding building with the sun low in the west. The undersides of the arches were brighter than the underside.
Tomorrow, Koblenz!
Memoirs of an Earthling 