I vas born in Dusseldorf and zat is vhy zey call me Rolf!

7-8 February 2009

We jumped on a bus to Aachen to catch a train to Cologne on Saturday morning. I didn’t know much about Cologne, but I had heard that it was a neat little city and it wasn’t too expensive to get there so we decided to go for it. We booked a hostel called Station Hostel for Backpackers and when we got off the train, we went to check in. This was a hostel like I had been expecting. It smelled kind of funny, the halls were narrow and slightly creepy, and the bathrooms were communal. I mean, it wasn’t totally gross or anything, but I was really grateful for my sleep sack so I didn’t have to touch the mattress or sheets.

Our first order of business was finding this museum called Schokoladenmuseum. Yes, that’s right. Chocolate museum. But this place ain’t your run of the mill chocolate museum. It’s HUGE, has a mini rain forest where they grow cocoa and coffee and stuff for demonstration purposes, has all these interactive exhibits, and concludes with a really cool demonstration room. The demonstration room also features a gold chocolate fountain that you get to sample. Mmmm….

After the chocolate museum, we went to the Dom cathedral, which is this crazy huge imposing gothic church. It’s really gorgeous. We walked around inside and saw the world’s oldest crucifix. The priests there walk around with these boxes around their necks that I guess are for donations, but it was slightly intimidating. After that, we went back to the hostel and took a quick nap and tried to figure out how to turn on the heat in our freezing cold room.

We decided to walk down by the Rhein and find an authentic little place to get German food. We ended up at this pub where I had the most AMAZINGLY delicious Riesling I’ve ever tasted. We ordered the fried potatoes with applesauce to split because it’s supposed to be a Cologne specialty and it was really good. I had wiener schnitzel for dinner (shout out to Tiff and Grandpa!) and then we headed out to our evening destinations.

The first place we went to was called Papa Joe’s Jazzlokal because who doesn’t love a Jazz club? The place was really cute and packed with older Germans. There was a collage all over the whole place where people had put their business cards. It was really neat. The first song they played was a slightly jazzy version of “Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy,” which struck me as funny and ironic in Germany. It was hilarious, though, because all of a sudden the band got on this bluegrass / country kick and started playing all this stuff that was completely NOT jazz. I mean, it was American music, but it was definitely not jazz. They did play a nice version of “Summertime” and a nice version of “Fever” though, which I thoroughly enjoyed. After we finished our last drinks, though, we headed out. There was another bar down the street called Sonderbar that we decided to try. After Sonderbar, Jo and Alix were kind of pooped, so they headed back. Carolyn and I wanted to find this place called Hotel Timp, though. It is a drag cabaret and we thought it looked like tons of fun. So we wandered around trying to find the darn place. We stopped at the Hard Rock to get Jo a t-shirt and ask directions. When we asked the guy for Hotel Timp, he looked at us really funny and asked if we knew what it was. We told him that we knew it was a cabaret and he asked us if we knew what kind of cabaret it was. He seemed very concerned that we didn’t know we were trying to find a drag show. Haha….it was really funny. We finally found Hotel Timp and we saw the performers inside talking to some customers, but both the doors were locked and we couldn’t get in! It was totally bizarre. There were people in there, but the doors were locked. So we never got in, and it was sad. We did end up in some German bar where they were playing only German music though. It was so packed and the people all had their arms around each other and were swaying and singing the songs at the top of their lungs with the cds. It was hilarious. Eventually, though, we did make it back to the hostel in one piece.

The next morning, Carolyn, Alix and I got up to go to the 9am mass at the Dom. It was really interesting to hear the mass given in a different language. I knew what was going on in the service for the most part and it was really interesting to hear the creeds, prayers, etc. in German. After church we got Starbucks (!!) and then headed to Museum Ludwig of contemporary art.

Museum Ludwig was WAY cool. There were quite a few bizarre pieces that made me think, “What?” but for the most part it was just awesome. There is a whole Picasso wing where they have tons and tons of Picassos. A lot of them I would never have guessed were by Picasso, too. It was so neat to see it all like that. There was a really cool Salvador Dali too. I really enjoyed that museum. In the basement, they had a Jonas Mekas exhibit. That dude does video art and it is SO WEIRD. I was sort of creeped out by some of it to be honest. There were these people like mannequins dressed as dancers grabbing themselves and each other and I just didn’t get it. But there was also an Andy Warhol room down there that was really neat to see. All in all it was a really cool museum.

Afterward, we went to see the ruins of a Jewish bath house that was being excavated (really cool!) as well as the House 4711 where cologne originated. We also went to a Gestapo prison museum that was really hard to see. The exhibits were all in German, but it was still hard to see. The actual prison where people were kept is open to the public in the basement and those rooms were just so tiny for so many people to be in them. I was actually really bothered by it. And on that high note, we headed to the train to go back to Maastricht.

9 February 2009

So apparently, Maastricht has a huge jazz scene! There are clubs all over Maastricht that offer jazz one night a week and it’s so much that there is jazz pretty much any time you want it! ☺ So Grayson, Lisa, Christine, and I went out to find the one last night. I may have imbibed some (a bottle) wine and so I was really enjoying it. The singer singled me out and came to sit across from me to sing right to me. Then, because I knew all the words to “Fly Me to the Moon,” the singer and this funny older guy who was at the table with me (who continued to buy me wine…SCORE) asked me to sing and I told them I couldn’t because I’d been drinking too much. They then convinced me that I need to sing next week, and then announced it onstage that I would be singing next week. To be continued on that one I guess….

I’m super stoked that there is so much jazz here though. I LOVE a jazz club. I'll take jazz over a crowded club any day of the week. And luckily in Maastricht it's pretty much every day of the week. :) It’s actually really good jazz here in Maastricht too. No bluegrass or country all night long. Hooray! Hahaha….