Tsang's RISE Trip

Cologne and Further Explorations (also World Cup Weekend)

It's finally over. One month of pure football and now it has all come to an end. What are we going to do in the evenings now that there are no more games to watch? Germany played an excellent game against Portugal, completely dominating the play resulting in a 3 goal lead and leaving behind many instances of C. Ronaldo and co, grabbing their poor legs with a tear in their eye and looking at the refs for the calls that didn't come. That was great refereeing. In the final, Italy won for their 4th time in history in penalties 5-4 in penalties after Zidane was kicked off the pitch in his final game for head butting a Italian player in the chest. Sure it looked viscous, but those Italian players aren't especially known to have some solid footing either. Whenever I watch a football game nowadays, it is like in the movies with the explosions and kicks blowing people through walls and flying through the air. Oh well, it's all over now.

On Saturday, we went to Cologne and saw the massive cathedral that was situated right outside the main train station (HBF). It was gothic style and all along the walls and inside are pictures depicting demons getting punished or people burning in hell after being smote by the wrath of God for not praying or something along those lines. Nothing quite like these images to put the fear of God into His followers. Inside the cathedral, for 1 euro, we climbed up +1000 stairs to the top to see the bell tower and also to get an overview of the city. The catherdral is also famous for housing the remains of the 3 Wise Men who brought gifts to the birth of Jesus. Chuck Norris's painting was nowhere to be found with his gift of beard. These sacred relics are housed at the front of the church by the alter in a massive gold coffin/tomb. There were many other tombs around all with little pets present in the stone relief of the person who died. I'm not sure who was in entombed inside the cathedral, but it was pretty cool.




We walked along the waterfront and wandered around the city, flying frisbee in the park and crossing back and forth between bridges. We found a Chocolate Museum and naturally, went to check out the exhibits. It was sponsored by Lindt and I think that would be a sweet process job there (pun intended). There was also a lady there who's job was to dip wafers into a chocolate pool and pass them out. Very tasty. The displays and explanations were orientated towards women. Such lines as "It has been found that chocolate would reduce mood swings incurred during various times of the month" and "Chocolate provides additional vitamins that we would normally receive from the sun. That is why chocolate consumption is increased in the winter months" were the giveaways. Visiting the gift shop, we picked up some chocolates and chocolate liqueur to try it out. Quite good, but very rich.

After, we found a nice restaurant that was reasonably priced by the water and enjoyed a pizza dinner with a local Koln beverage and then took the train back to Dortmund to catch the Germany-Portugal game at a small Italian joint near the train station.

We met up with Felix at the Starbucks downtown (there is only one, believe it or not) and watched the game in the full Friedenplatz with the rest of the French and Italian fans. The game ended and we tried to find some Shaum eis, but all the carneys were packing up and I had to settle for a last taste of the half meter long bratwurst.

On Sunday before the game, Reed, Lauren and I went exploring around Dortmund. Reed and I did some research on the web and marked all the nice spots to check out on our maps. Unfortunately, we didn't get out of the house until after 3:00pm so we did a whirlwind scouting tour of some of the locations. We found the harbour and Westfalen park, but we did not get a chance to really walk the areas. I'll do that another time.


Monday is the best day because of our staff breakfasts which usually have meats, cheese, bread, pudding, and fruits as well as juice so I love Mondays. This week, in short will be a Tuesday meeting in Bochum with the RISE participants in Bochum, and then Heidelburg conference from Thursday until Sunday so I am looking forward to these trips!

posted by ktsang @ 9:57 AM