Yesterday I explored Köln with my school buddy Wiebke. When I woke up and looked out the window at the sun coming up over the rooftops, I could tell it would be a perfect city day-- not a cloud in the sky and somewhere just below freezing. We hopped on a late morning train and about fifty minutes later were pulling into the Köln main train station, which sits in the shadow of the gigantic Kölner Dom.
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| Just chilling by the Hahentorburg, a piece of the old city wall. |
You know the cathedral is gigantic because it's virtually impossible to take a picture of the whole structure from base to steeples. It's over five-hundred feet tall, which I just don't get how the medieval dudes back in the 13th century could've even considered or imagined that building such a ginormous building would be feasible with their technology. I guess what they didn't have in Morrow Cranes they made up for with cheap peasant labor.
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| I built an more photogenic Kölner Dom in the Lego Store. |
We also checked out the Belgisches Hipsterisches Viertel. It's a part of the city with very trendy stores, restaurants, and lots of 20-somethings wandering around. All the streets are named after Belgium provinces and the main square is Brüsseler Platz. However, the general vibe was much more reminiscent of Portlandia than the home of Flemish and french fries. The kiosks there were even ridiculously hip. They all had cohesive decorative themes, a creative display design for their cheap junk food, and beautiful lighting in their fridges to display their cold brews. I guess I'd describe it like 7-11 convenience meets American Apparel design.
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| Minimalistic cafe names and fashion-forward kiosks. |
The WDR headquarters are also in Köln, and although we didn't take a studio tour or anything like that, we were definitely aware of the broadcaster's presence downtown. For one, I saw five interview teams within an hour. They were just kind of chilling around the Dom, talking to passersby (they didn't want to talk to me though for some reason), and getting generic footage of people. There was also a very cute store dedicated to everything from Sendung mit der Maus, a super popular TV show aimed at teaching kids how things work.
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| Camera crew sighting #3. Maus sighting #1. |
Later in the day we dropped by the Duftmuseum im Farina Haus, which was everything about the perfumer Johann Maria Farina, an Italian guy who moved to Köln in the early 1700s from Italy and founded his own super-successful perfume business. When you take a tour at the Fragrance Museum, instead of a hand stamp to prove you paid the entrance fee, you get a spritz of the famous Eeu de Cologne that Mr. Maria Farina developed. Sooooooooooooo yummy. I understand why it became such a big deal.
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| Horoscope-based perfume... Am I dreaming? |
Cologne (which is what Köln is called in English and French) was already the established city name before Farina moved to town. Apparently it was tricky to be a foreign settler in Köln at the time, but Farina managed to become a citizen and named his perfume after his darling city. Of course he had to do that in French, though, because it was a high society language and his products could only be afforded by the high society. People like Goethe, Marc Twain, Queen Victoria, the Bonapartes, Princess Diana, and Lily Gordon have been known to wear his Eau de Cologne.
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| Wiebke in front of the best-smelling house in the world. |
Overall, it did turn out to be the perfect city day. I got to see a ton of Köln with my own, personal, German tour guide. It's pretty awesome that Aachen is right next-door to Köln, as well as Dusseldorf, Brussels, and Antwerp. For now, though, it's back to the books. Today's the last day of Christmas Break. But I have the feeling I'll find some time in the next five months to check out all the nearby attractions.