Damn damn damn!!! I've totally failed to keep to my new plan of at least weekly updates here! Oh well, I'll have to try harder.

So, Cologne:

Well I got there, met with Gareth at our hotel after a frantic search for a taxi and nearly leaving my bloody suitcase on the train (I seemed to have regained traveller virginity recently: first my wallet gets pickpocketed in Paris, and now I nearly lose all my luggage!), and we promptly went out to a nearby tapas bar that Gareth had spotted earlier. We stuffed our faces with more food than is seemly, then waddled along to the Sufjan Stevens gig which was the original reason for meeting up this weekend.

Hm, Sufjan Stevens' music is a bit strange. Kind of minimalist but growing into waves of cacophony. Not exactly catchy, but sort of mesmerising.

After the gig we wandered back to the Ring Road near our hotel and found a pleasant bar in which to sink a few beers before retiring for the night.

The next day was 11th November, the official start of Carnaval in Germany. And Cologne is one of the major Carnaval centres in this country. They even get extra bank holidays and stuff. So the kick-off day was always going to be a big party. And true enough, when we headed out onto the freezing wet streets there were groups of revellers dressed up in fancy dress and waving bottles of beer around. This was about 10.30 in the morning.

Our destination was the Heumarkt, the big square in the centre of the historic bit of Cologne, where at 11.11 am on 11/11 there is always a monster countdown and piss-up (a bit like New Year's Eve I suppose). I have never been in such crowds on open streets!! It was as much as I could do to stay upright. The masses of drunken youths reminded me of Oktoberfest, only here we were in the centre of town, threading through mediaeval streets, rather than in purpose-built structures where the flow of people is a bit more regulated.

As soon as we could (which was about an hour later - there were that many people there in the square which we had to cross) we escaped the crush and headed into the less busy parts of the centre of town. We grabbed a cup of tea in a nice café and then ate yummy Japanese food, before heading back onto the streets to soak up the atmosphere.

There were dozens of live bands playing big band music and all sorts of street performances, as well as crowds of passers-by all drinking beers and having a good time despite the bitter weather. Later Gareth & I worked our way back past Heumarkt and onto the riverside. We walked upstream along the Rhine until we reached the chocolate museum, where we had some coffee and cake and flirted outrageously with the waitress. The rest of the evening we spent visiting a few bars.

I have to say, Cologne residents are renowned for being friendly and open, but that wasn't our experience (apart from that waitress in the chocolate museum). Perhaps because everyone was out with mates, or perhaps because they'd all started drinking 12 hours before, no-one seemed that willing to strike up conversation with us. Ah well, we had plenty to talk about anyway, what with Gareth about to move to India for a few years, and me not having seen him since March in Vienna.

On Sunday the weather cheered up a little bit but it was still basically pants, so we headed to the Roman-Germanic Museum, where they have lots of artefacts from when Cologne was a Roman city, including a fabulously preserved huge mosaic ballroom floor from a Roman villa replete with gods and wild animals. All that culture made us a bit peckish, so we had a late brunch in town. Then it was pretty much time to head back to the hotel, get our bags, and make our way to the airport.

Our fond farewells were amusing. Gareth's flight to London was due to take off 10 minutes before my flight to Munich, so we had a quick coffee and then did the big goodbye. I turned to head to my gate, only to have Gareth rush back to find me a few minutes later. It turned out his plane was delayed by an hour. So we had another coffee, and then repeated our big goodbye. I went to my gate, only to discover that MY flight was delayed too! So I rushed back to Gareth, and we hung about in the newsagent reading the covers of magazines for a while. Then we said "cheerio" and went our separate ways. I mean, it would have been just too embarrassing to do the big goodbye with hugs and laughter a THIRD time!!

I got home tired and late, but the weekend away had been lovely. And I will definitely be going to visit Gareth in India...