Aachen und Düsseldorf

Mom and I had been planning on visiting Berlin for 4 days during her last weekend here, but I made a mistake and booked the tickets on the wrong day...so, we have been doing day trips in the NRW (North Rhein-Westfalia) province instead.

Yesterday, we drove to an university student-city, Aachen, at the conjunction of the Belgian, German, and Dutch borders. With a population of around 250,000 people, it is considered a small city, but an extremely gorgeous and old one!! Aachen was founded in the late 700s by Charlemagne, due to the hot (but stinky!!) springs that lie under the city. The Old City is absolutely breathtaking, with numerous brick buildings built in the 1600s, cute courtyards, and fountains inspired by village people throughout the centurys. The Cathedral/Dom is a gigantic structure, and served as the coronation church for 30 Roman Emperors starting in 936. Inside, Charlemagne built an amazing chapel with sparkling mosiacs of nature and people. We also enjoyed a typical German market, filled with flowers, meat, cheese, and bread stands.


A street in the Old City with the oldest bar in town (dating from the mid-1600s); in the background you can see the Dom.


Beautiful mosiac inside the Dom.

Today, we visited Düsseldorf, NRW's state capital. It's population is a bit smaller than Winnipeg, but I find the majority of the city is devoted to huge company buildings. Although the AltStadt through which we toured today had gorgeous old buildings and the Rhein river showed a beautiful city skyline, I find Düsseldorf to have little character. Yes, the shopping area is absolutely great, but I think that I like Köln better as a city (sorry to all my Düsseldorf friends!).


The Rheinturm, a revolving restaurant with (supposedly) a great view of the city.


A coal barge on the Rhein. Yes, even barge captains need to do laundry!


The AltStadt along the Rhein.

Hmmm...what city to visit tomorrow??

Party time!

My Mom has arrived for 2 whole weeks!! And what better way to celebrate than in the Nordrhein-Westfalen style of Karneval?!?!

After spending Wednesday to Friday shopping and touring Krefeld (the city where I have my German class), while Georg and I worked/studied, I'm sure that Mom was ready to experience the excitement of Karneval (as was I). In anticipation for this event, Mom had created Georg and I magnificent costumes for Christmas. Saturday morning, we drove into Köln with some Georg's family and friends to tour the Dom and the city's downtown. In the afternoon we took in a small suburb Karneval parade, in costume, where we shouted "Alaf!" to greet to floats, "Kamelle!" to request candies, and "Streussia!" for flowers. By the end of the parade, Mom and I had a huge bag of candy and a hand-full of tulips and roses. Afterwards, we had tea and cake at his Aunt's house. Everyone went to the local pub for Kölsch (Köln's beer) and dancing around 6pm (this isn't even considered early!) The younger generation traveled further into the city for crazier partying, but Georg and I called it a night around 10pm.


A quick tour of the Köln's downtown.


It's parade time!! (L to R: a crashtest dummy [Mark, cousin], Me the bear, an advertisement board [Claudia, cousin], a clown [Anni, Georg's sister], and a tomato [Lisa, family friend]).

On Sunday morning, following the typical German breakfast of buns and cheese/jam, we jumped back into our face paint and costumes for a bigger (albeit small) parade in Köln's city centre. It is tradition for family/friends to meet at the same location along the parade route every year, so that
1) friends know where to find you should they want to visit, or
2) friends in the parade can gift you flowers and special treats (large choc. bars, unique coloured roses, etc.).
This parade had over 100 floats and lasted 4 hours! Friends pulled out their accordions, drums and tambourines to jam together on the street, all ages wore costumes, there was shouting and dancing and singing the entire time... We didn't stay until the end, but the musical atmosphere and excitement of the Kölnians was addicting.


Zoo animals at the larger parade in Köln (L to R: Georg the monkey, Mark the tiger and Siobhan the dancing bear).


More of our kind....

Today is Rosen Montag (Rose Monday), the day for the Köln's largest, craziest parade. Supposedly, you must get to your standing spot on the street hours in advance and seats in the bleachers set up along the parade route must be bought months before. This is a professional parade, consisting of Karneval "groups" who have a lot of money to buy things to throw to the crowd. Needless to say, we are not attending, but are spending a quiet day at home before the work-week begins again tomorrow.

Really, the question is now...what to be next year???