I decide to enjoy a glass of apple juice - they don't serve beer here. I notice an exhibit set up, outside the Center, to support the Palestinian cause. After I recover from my exertions, I go out to look at it. The site features a number of photos of alleged Israeli atrocities. Many of them are of the English girl who was run over by a bulldozer while protesting the Israeli effort to knock down houses to provide an obstruction free zone between Gaza and Israel. I approach the person in charge of the exhibit intending to ask, "Where are the pictures of Israeli children and other innocents blown up by Palestinian suicide bombers?" I can't ask, though, because I don't speak German and the man doesn't speak English. I'm still incensed at the one-sidedness of the presentation but I can do nothing about it.
Pam returns saying how much she enjoyed the Roman Museum. We decide to see the multi-media story of the Cathedral. We buy our tickets for the next English language showing. We descend into the bowels of the building and get lost. The place is not over-signed. We try a number of doors and finally we open one, to find ourselves in the midst of a German language presentation. We quickly retreat and wait for the German contingent to leave. We re-enter, take our seats only to be accosted by an usher who asks, "How did you get in here?" I do not mention that if she had been around before, we would have entered normally. I figure German-American relations are bad enough.
The slide and sound presentation is mostly interesting but boring in spots. Worth our time, though. We have a much easier time getting out than we had getting in and decide we've seen enough for today and head for the train station. The train we want is crowded. Nevertheless we are able to sit together in our mutually exhausted state. We are no longer surprised when the train arrives late to D�sseldorf.
In our room, Pam works, I nap. Pam working on the bed cannot stop me from immediately falling asleep. Later we decide to eat at a near-by restaurant. We just want to have a light supper.
We find an outdoor caf� near our hotel and down the street from a bus stop - a different sort of bus stop. All the busses are going to Eastern European countries and the sidewalk is covered with passengers and their luggage. There doesn't seem to be any organization or structure to what's going on. I catch myself staring at everything. I realize how lucky I am.
Our luck runs out at the restaurant. Our waiter is a newbie and speaks no English. Ordering is a communication adventure. I've had better luck in the remotest parts of China. Pointing at the menu doesn't help. It turns out he doesn't read much German either. I fantasize that he just got off one of the nearby busses and was immediately handed an apron and told to go to work. To our waiter's credit, he is embarrassed and fetches a waitress with whom we can communicate. The food is actually quite good and we tip the waiter when we leave for trying. I hope he shared it with the waitress.
Pam announces she needs to spend some time with e-mails so I grab a seat at a nearby internet place. Only One Euro per hour. That's cheaper than the Philippines. I soon find out why. The place also has phones for International Long Distance calls. The cacophony of many different languages is almost too loud to think. The ventilation is non-existent and the aroma of many different bodies with little opportunity to bathe is even more overwhelming. I take it as long as I can, read a few e-mails, delete the spam and get out of there.
I decide I owe myself a reward for going above and beyond�so I treat myself to a gelato, a large gelato. I save a little for Pam who is just finishing up her internet foray. I watch the latest bad news from Iraq on the BBC and am soon asleep.
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Today Pam and I mark our 25th wedding anniversary. Neither one of us makes a big thing out of it, agreeing to celebrate when we get back to Hong Kong.
I did not sleep very well last night. I think it's because, I ate too much so I have no one to blame. I have a hard time getting out of bed. When I finally go to breakfast, I meet a Thai woman, working in the dining room, who married a German some 10 years ago. We discuss how she likes living in Germany. She acknowledges she likes it O.K. but still hangs on to her dream of returning to her home in Phuket, soon.
We are slow to get to the train station and we struggle with the ticket machine. Suddenly, a man pops up and starts to help me figure out how to use the machine. It has multiple options and I'm not sure which one to use. With my Good Samaritan's help, I select a five person all-day ticket for 25 Euros - what a deal! We can use it on any train except an Inter-City (IC). The trains have so many designations; it's difficult to sort them all out. There's IC, EC, RE, S, and A trains. We pick one that we assume is going to K�ln. The train is late. Are we really in Germany?
We arrive at K�ln Dom Station. Because of construction, the place is a mess. It takes us 10 minutes to figure out how to get from where we are to the square in front of the K�ln Cathedral. We can see the Cathedral, we just can't find it. We are late for the English language tour of the cathedral so, using our trusty guide book, we explore the place on our own. I've seen many churches and cathedrals but this one is in a category all its own. We spend almost two hours exploring. You can see the pictures on my K�ln photo site.
After the Cathedral, everything else is likely to be a disappointment, anyway, so we choose the Stollwerck Chocolate Museum for our next stop. A wheeled tram makes the run in about five minutes but true to today's rhythms, we just miss it and decide to walk. I'm glad we do. The paved path along the Rhine provides vistas and photo opportunities by the dozens. The people-watching is fruitful, too.
We enjoy the Chocolate museum far more than we thought we would. I learn a lot more about chocolate than I ever wanted to know. I like the historical information best. I also enjoy watching people make the chocolate and am fascinated with how they create chocolate sculptures in so many sizes and shapes. The museum is surprisingly crowded. I guess chocoholism is a universal disease. We eat in the museum cafeteria and the food is quite reasonably priced and good. I can't believe we skip dessert.
