28.02.10

I slept in for a bit that morning allowing myself to have a good days rest so that I could fit as much into my schedule as possible for my last day in Cologne.

I went up to the Gabe's house and we got bicycles to ride through the city. Cologne is a very bicycle friends city and it couldnt have been a better to day to ride. It was sunny a blue sky's out in every direction.

We rode into the center of Cologne which was a little more than a twenty minute bike ride. Upon entering the main shopping street we heard our dear friends Frank and Joe. We locked up our bikes and went and had another listen to them. They were excited to see us back there. Every time they play they draw in a crowd of about fifty people so it was really nice that they came and talked to us. They told us to bring them to the U.S. so that they can play, that will be a challenge that Gabe and I are looking forward to when we return home.

We both decided to go have a look at the Roman-German museum. It was truly spectacular to see all these things that have been preserved for over two thousand years. There were so many things to see from old cooking utensils, eatery, silverware, coffins, gladiator armor, money, arrow heads, spears etc. One fascinating thing that we learned is that when a slave died, on his tombstone was the name of his master and not the name of his father.

We got to see a tile floor that was composed of almost two million tiny squares about 1cm small. Pictures can be found in my blog of this tile floor, it's the one that im looking at through a window. This floor luckily survived the mass destruction of Cologne in 1945 by being carried into and stored under a bomb shelter.

It was a good time to see all of these artifacts. I was absolutely amazed in the exquisite detail on everything from the dental tools to the earrings and silverware. It was well worth the time to spend a couple of hours there.

After we finished up Gabe and I stopped by REWE a grocery store t get a lot of ingredients for the paella that we were cooking for the Hoyer's. For those who dont know it is a traditional Spanish dish consisting of: rice, green/red peppers, black beans, peas, green beans, some sort of chili's if you like it spicy, tomatoes, some sort of meat(we used shrimp and chicken), and some spices. You then decorate the final product with more red pepper slices and lemons. I plan on making one of these at home sometime cause they were delicious.

After we had dinner Gabe and I went out to meet his friend Leo, we wanted to go to the corconian and irish pub and drink some strong bow but that didnt happen because there was a bouncer at the door and Gabe forgot his id. So we headed down to the beer museum where i fell in love.

We sat down upstairs and started conversing about music and such and it turns out that Leo is into a lot of punk/hardcore music which was great. I wrote down a bunch of bands for him check out. After our first round of beer we looked at the menu and I noticed a 28% be a beer. Leo asked the waiter what that meant for me and sure enough it was what I hoped for, it was 28% alcohol beer! It's name is the Kulmbacher Eisbock. It was a very heavy dark beer that was not translucent in the least bit. It had an interesting taste, one similar to soy sauce but it was great none the less.

After that we set out for a walk and some food, we walked down to the Rhine which I needed to pee in before I left because it is always necessary to mark you territory.
We went and sat at a local bratwurst shop ate some food, talked about how much we hate Mcdonalds and other political subjects and then said our good byes.

I wouldnt have chosen to spend my last day in Germany any other way than with a good friend, a good beer and in the company of a new friend.
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