First two days and first impressions

I will spare my readers from learning about our experience in the plane using Continental airlines to go to Germany and instead will start telling you the story of our first few hours and days from the time we arrived at Cologne airport. After passing through the immigration and customs lines, which are nothing compared to our U S immigration, as we basically just had to say hello, guten tag, and pass through after a scan of our passport and a stamp of their country, we were welcome by a little girl holding a sign with the Rotary Emblem. As the daughter of the leader of the GSE team from their district, she was accompanied by her father and all of the host families who were going to host each of us in our team for a few days near the city of Cologne and Bonn. After the warm greeting, my host, also named Michael, took me to the hotel in which our team rested for the first night in the town of Swisstal Heimerzheim. I cannot help but add a little detail to the story. My host offered me something to drink in the parking garage and pulled out from his neatly arranged trunk a cooler with several beverage options. He suggested i mix sparkling water with orange juice and this is when it struck me i had arrived in Germany. There is nothing more typical than sparkling water mixed with wine or juices than in Germany. Germany is of course more known for its beers and brats but right after that is the tradition of bottled sparking water. It's what you get when you order water. But the first thing we did while arriving at the hotel was try their famous Kolsh! Ein Kolsh bitte simply means a beer please, but instead of saying 'bier', they name it after the city of Koln (aka Cologne). There are actually 27 breweries in the city of Cologne and one of the largest ones in Germany is in the city center called Fruh. Beers from Cologne are very light and refreshing and served in small glasses that contain about 8 oz of beer only. To my naivete, i thought it was like in France where you ask for a demi which is a half beer, but actual there is a logical reason for serving it in small glasses. It preserves the coldness of the beer longer and thus is less bitter or hoppy to the palet. Smart idea! And even better, the server continues to serve beer until you ask him to stop. In fact, you have to put a coaster on top of your glass to indicate you no longer want any beer. I really like to learn about these cultural insights as it explains the ways people behave. But back to our first day.

The Rotary club gave us one day of free time to rest at our own pace in a charming gasthaus hotel in a very small town about 20 miles from Cologne and 10 miles from Bonn. The landscape in that region is like the place where i was born, Luxembourg. The trees and bushes are trimmed, the roads are in great conditions, and the environment seems very orderly. There are fields of corn, wheat, and brocoli in every direction you look. And the region is also known for its fruits, notably cherries, apple, strawberries, pears, and plums. My first breakfast in Germany had a flavor of the region: at least eight different choices of homemade jams, fruit juices, four types of water, coffee, cereal bread, nutella, ham and cheese, and a fresh egg. The freshness of the ingredient leaves not room for doubt. it taste authentic, organic, fresh and simply delicious. The yolk of the egg was closer to orange than to yellow. Most cars we see are of German brands but my host drives a Renault Scenic, a French car ironically, and his wife drives a Peugeot, also a French car. Michael speaks a little bit of French too but I kindly asked him to speak in German so I can practice. It's no longer a coincidence that they assigned him to me. But to my surprise, I know more German than I thought. I can follow a conversation between the hosts and get a sense of the conversation and sometimes answer back in German. When i am unclear, we revert back to English, which every person we have met so far is kind to do. Germans are very good with languages, that is a known fact. So I make the same effort to learn German to not fall under the stereotype that French or American are monolingual.

After eating a little snack our group separated to rest until dinner time. During this down time, Chris and i refreshed and went walking in the town. As it is a Sunday, stores are closed and the streets are phantom. But we spotted a little cafe-bakery with great German desserts. We tried a cheesecake and an apple sauce tart. The rest of the evening was quite unexciting as we all felt jetlagged and needed to rest. I can easily talk for everyone and say that we crashed in our beds!

Monday morning, at 11:45am, we met Roberts, a Phd student from Bonn University and a Rotarac member, who accompanied us to visit Cologne. Our tour started in the Ratthaus, which is the city hall. It s located in a historical building from the medieval age and located just near an excavated jewish bath from the roman era. Cologne was a Roman city and a strong trade center for the region. There was an acqueduc built for a stretch of 30 miles to transport fruits, cereals, and other produce down to the southern region. There are roman vestiges all throughout the city but Cologne is known for two things , the cathedral and the eau de cologne. So with our limited time, we focused on our walking tour on these two sites. We first visited the museum of Eau de Cologne, which is the oldest parfumerie in the world. It goes back to the 18th century, and it was founded by an italian merchant whose family still exists and owns the factory today, Farina. The cologne was meant to be a refreshing spring scent that would be made entirely with organic products. This is why it dissipates so fast after sprinkling it on the skin. And this might have been why Napoleon I carried a bottle of about 100ml in his boot and consumed almost one bottle a day. The eau de cologne was reserved for only those who could afford it, priced at half the annual salary of a middle man for a bottle. So it became very popular within the monarchy and bourgeoisie classes, until it was commercialized and made for the public mass. A few streets down from the museum is the famous gothic cathedral of Cologne. Worldly renown for its splendor, magnitude, the cathedral is also a symbol of the city because it stood during the world war II. 80 percent of the city was destroyed, flattened by the bombs during WWII, but onlz one of the two clock towers was destroyed. One was left untouched because the Airforce used it as a mark to fly over the city. The cathedral clock tower stands as the tallest building in Cologne and we got to experience it first hand. Not just with our eyes but with our feet. We all took a special trip to the top of the tower, at 153 m height. That meant climbing 500 steps to arrive at summit of the tower. From there, we can see the city 's diverse architecture. Because of the bombardments, the city had to rebuild itself very fast after the war which resulted in a shamble of various types of housing and commercial buildings, which does not lend itself to a unified theme for the city. Even the people that we met who live there say the architecture of the 1950s and 1970s have ruined the embellishment of the city, shadowing the historical roman and medieval heritage. But the city still has beautiful pedestrian streets, walkways along the river, cafes on large plaza, and a very progressive community. Cologne has the most art studios per capita after New York City and is also the capital of LGBT of Germany. Creativity, liberal lifestyle are pronounced in the way people think or dress. Personally, I enjoyed the atmosphere a lot, people are very open minded, welcoming, and enjoy life like latin cultures. The city has gained a new nickname as the most northern italian city in Europe! Mix the roman heritage, the great food, and joie de vivre together and voila! Well, as an Italian, I still have to cringe when I hear that but i respect the comparison.

I'm now staying with my host family in a small town outside of Bonn. Everyone is so welcoming and the food is delicious! I feel so grateful for this experience and hope to come back enriched. Tomorrow, we are going to spend a full day in a chemical plant and then my host will have a welcoming party in his yard in honor of our team.