Miscellaneous balcony news

A few days ago I witnessed an incident that shook my national pride in its very core. I noticed a public employee of the City of Cologne walking into the town hall – his place of work – at a few minutes to 9, punctual as is to be expected of a German employee. He swiped his employee card to register the beginning of his shift and then – instead of going up to his office – he walked out again through the rotating doors that were still rotating from his entry a minute earlier.

I always assumed that sort of thing only happened “somewhere else”.

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My French flatmate...

...drinks only German wine since he came to Germany four months ago. He's decided he can drink enough French wine when he's in France, now he should try what the locals can do. So every Friday he goes to buy two bottles - a red wine for him and a white wine for his girlfriend - and on Saturday mornings I usually get the latest rating; and much to my surprise, he's not been disappointed so far. His special recommendation: Dornfelder Trocken.

...came into the kitchen the other day and proclaimed: "I love Germany!"
Somewhat flattered I inquired why he had suddenly discovered this love for Germany? Was it a good bottle of wine?
"No," he said. "There are separate containers for white, green and brown glass!!!"

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As I sit here on my lovely balcony on the fourth floor, overlooking the three-storey building adjacent to mine and enjoying the wind’s clatter in the leaves of the two tall lindens growing into the blue sky, the church bells of a nearby church begin to ring –and it’s the first time since I got here that I notice them.
It dawns on me that their sound, while my mind was occupied with a million other things, has quietly replaced that of the mu’ezzin’s call to prayer, which I used to hear frequently until a few weeks ago. While the Moslems’ call to prayer might evoke ambiguous feelings and thoughts of a backward society in some people, the sound of church bells calling to evening mass evokes images of medieval Europe and small villages in my mind. In fact, it reminds me of the German villages in Romania that were built by settlers form Saxonia in the 13th century and were inhabited by them until the fall of the iron curtain, preserving a life story-book, idyllic, medieval hamlets. Built along a dusty or muddy road in the middle of a picturesque landscape of pristine agricultural land, soft hills and dense forests, the only sound one could hear after climbing up the wooden church tower located in the village centre, was that of geese, ducks and chickens roaming freely in the sun and that of an occasional horse-drawn cart in the streets below.
How did I get to Romania? Ah, yes – The apparent peace of these villages was paced by the hourly ringing of the church bell. To me, that sound seems oddly out of place, in a bustling town of one million people from all over the globe.




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Every morning I take the tram to the “Cologne University of Applied Sciences”. It’s just a bit over 30 minutes to get there, so I have to get the train at 8:24 to be there on time for our nine o’clock lectures. Since I got here mid-March, I think I’ve hardly managed 10 times to get that train.
But this morning I did and I tell you, it felt good!

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I discovered the most random corner of Cologne. It is quite an inconspicuous-looking section of a street, just after a railroad bridge, where the Höninger Weg turns into Eiffelstrasse. The particular location is in between two residential areas, next to the railway lines, with no kind of culinary or cultural establishment anywhere near. There’s nothing immediately odd about the place, but if you look closer you notice three extremely odd buildings. Well, no, they’re not odd in themselves – nothing about the architecture is very extra-ordinary or exciting, nor is any one of them particularly rare or strange by itself. It is the combination of these three in such a ‘non-area’, which makes it odd.
The first one says “ANGEL PLACE” in bold letters on a sign on the roof. The house lies behind a yard, which is walled off from the street. You might just think Angel has built himself a nice place… but no. If you go close to the gate you notice a little, almost cute pottery sign next to the gate reading “Motorcycle Club” – this is the Cologne home of the notorious motor cycle gang “Hell’s Angels”, those guys on Harley choppers with their long hair and their leather tassels on arms and legs swinging in the wind.
Next door is a flat, longish building with black sleet covering the outside wall. Two of the three doors in the wall (all black) have no sign or window or anything, making the place look rather sinister, or like it has something to hide. This becomes evident when you read the brightly lit sign over the middle door: “Swinger-Treff, Paare und Singles”. I don’t think I need to translate this.
Well, so that’s the two buildings on one side of the road… now to complete the odd trio: opposite of these two, next to a petrol station is in a flat-roofed, grey, one-storey building with a modest and simple sign above the door, reading: “Saif ad-Din Mosque”.