Koeln - Cologne

Settled into my accommodation - Buchholz hotel. Very nice - these guys have rooms with and without bathroom and shower. I took a room without for 35 Euro per night and my bathroom and shower were immediately outside my door - i mean as close as being in the room and the room was very close to the front of the hotel and also neatly hidden away - convenient and private.

One thing to note about Koeln is the level of english spoken - this had improved dramatically in comparison to other parts of Germany. Here I could have quite complex conversations and not have to give the german version of every second word I was using. The hotel had a huge broadband connection like 10 megabit and it was free. I had a long discussion with the porter and his friends, the porter had travelled throughout Australia (Adelaide through to Cairns) and was very familiar with sydney and Melbourne.

I was going out tonight - over thrities night at the Kantine in the north of the city - Not much to say about this place - nothing like Hannover that had a similar night. This was more like an old and wrinkly freak show - worn out women in their 40s who had either missed the boat or were divorced and some of the guys were well past their prime - nothing like the group in Hannover who were mostly around the age of 30. So I get a taxi back to the hotel - only 1 problem - the porter has gone home and locked up. I was warned about this and I am not blaming the hotel - normally there is 24 hr service, but not tonight. I also thought the clubs would stay open longer, which was to no avail. However the Koeln Hauptbahnhof (central train station) was. There was food, it was warm, but no place to sleep for a few hours. I could have booked into another cheap hotel close by, but why waste 50 Euro? - it is only a few hours. The safest place to be is actually on the trains - there are video cameras everywhere and germans are generally shit scared of the police. So I buy a 2 euro cross town ticket and ride and sleep on the train, selecting the longest routes across the city to minimise disruption.

By 8 am I had toured most of Koeln by train, even if i did sleep through most of it. I got back to my hotel got myself to my room and got some quality sleep for a few hours.... The breakfast at the hotel was excellent... and it was off to do some exploring of cologne - mostly to avoid the previous night's dissapointment...