Warszawa, Part 1: The Night Train

Because I have a lot to say about my trip to Poland, I have decided to split it up into three different parts. This is just the first part describing my peculiar Journey this past weekend:

During my stay here in Germany, I have been given a wonderful opportunity to visit a good friend of mine, Anna, in her home country of Poland. There is a lot that I want to write about it, so because of that, I will write it in three parts, and this first part is about my exciting adventure to Warsaw from Cologne, by means of the night train.

Because it takes so long to get to Poland, especially Warsaw, which lies on the far East side of the country, I decided that I would take the night train there so that I would be able to get the most time out of my trip. I had asked my boss off of work for Friday, September 12, and I booked my train to depart on that same Thursday night.

I arrived at the train station rather early, and my train left the Cologne Hauptbahnhoff at a punctual 10:28pm. I found my way to my cabin, where four beds were made ready complete with pillows and blankets. There was a khaki jacket that had been left sitting on one of the beds, but other than that, nobody else came and I moved the jacket to the upper storage area and made myself comfortable.

After about twenty minutes from leaving the station, a Deutsche Bahn employee arrived to collect tickets. What was really strange, and had me a bit scared was that he took both my ticket for Poland, and my Eurail pass that would permit me to travel within Germany. He claimed that he would keep them, and give them back to me at a later time. After telling me that I should lock my cabin door to prevent from being robbed in the night, he wished me goodnight.

I had no problem falling asleep-- it had been a long week, and I was exhausted. I slept virtually the whole night, waking up about every hour, or hour and a half, only because of normal train noises, and trying to make myself comfortable. I woke up at about 8:00am, and started to put myself together in my empty cabin. I then proceeded to the doorway, and pulled the curtains open to find a very strange man staring back at me through the window. He had very short brown hair, and was not so tall himself. He was skinny, with a pointy nose, and looked about 30 years old. I opened up the door for him, and he just walked right into my cabin, grabbed the jacket that I had stored above in the storage space, and sat down on one of the beds mumbling in what I assume was Polish. Assuming that the jacket was his, I can only guess that I had locked him out of the cabin the entire night, but luckily so.

He sat on the bed with his head in his hands continuously shaking. After a while of sitting, he tried several times to jump to the top bunk before finding the ladder. When he finally made it up to the top bunk, which I was sure he would fall out of, he didn’t lay down in the bed, but instead laid down in the storage area that hangs over the aisle outside of the cabin. After he laid there for a while, he then moved over to one of the beds where he reached for a big red knob on the wall, and proceeded to pull the emergency brake. The train came to a complete stop in the middle of nowhere, in the middle of Poland. I immediately left the cabin and pointed out who had pulled the brake to the train employees running down the aisle. The man was arrested outside, and was not allowed back on the train. Luckily, I had my cabin back to myself, but unluckily, I arrived in Warsaw about an hour later because of this man.

I later found out that the train had actually started in Amsterdam, and this man had been causing trouble all night since the train was in Amsterdam. I am glad that there are locks on the doors, otherwise I would have had one long night on the night train. With all of that said, I arrived in Warsaw in one piece, and I was greeted by my good friend Anna on the train platform. We haven’t seen each other since we met two years ago in Bremen, so it was a fantastic reunion in Eastern Europe, with a peculiar start to my journey.

I will have more about my trip posted shortly in two other installments, and hopefully with some more pictures. Comments are always welcome!

Neue WG und der Kölner Zoo

So I suppose I have a habit of not updating sometimes, but really I have been waiting for something really exciting to happen, and the past couple of weeks have been pretty mundane for the most part, or at least not worth writing about on here.  So now, I wanted to put up a post on my new apartment, and about my trip to the zoo today!

About three weeks ago, I moved into my new apartment.  I had to move because both of my other roommates were leaving, and it was easier for us to find three people to take the apartment than it was for us to find two people and have me stay.  My reason for leaving wasn't because it wasn't working out, because everything in the old apartment was great.  In the long run I am glad that I moved, because I am in a really great place!  My rent is cheaper, the building is nicer, and I have great roommates again.  The apartment is student housing right by the university, and it is very roomy inside.  I have posted a link at the bottom of this post with the pictures I just took of my bedroom and some of the rest of the apartment.  There are five of us living here, and we all get along very well.  Most days after work, we are all cooking food together, and chatting for a few hours.  It is very much like a family atmosphere, and enjoy spending time together.  

Another thing about my apartment that I am thrilled about is having my flags on the walls of my bedroom!  Whenever I go to a new country or city, I always like to buy a flag from there.  Anyone that has ever walked into my bedroom in the past few years will know what I am talking about, because my bedroom walls used to be covered in giant flags from the world.  Now, I have about eight flags from my time here so far this trip, and have put them up on the walls.  They are great reminders of my travels, and they also remind a bit of home, because it feels like my old bedroom.  Check out the pics to see them on the walls!

Today was a fun Sunday, as two of my roommates, a friend from Scotland, and I all took a trip to the Cologne Zoo.  It was great fun, and was pretty much like any zoo, even though maybe not as great as the NC Zoo (for all of y'all back home!).  I got to take lots of pictures, since I haven't really gotten a chance to use my camera in a while, and got some good shots of some of the animals who were actually quite active.  Another benefit of going to the zoo, was that it really helped my vocabulary with learning how to say some of the animals' names in German.  We had a lot of fun, and came back to the apartment to cook dinner this evening.

That's about all that I have for this post.  I am looking forward to writing my next one, because this coming weekend I will be visiting my friend Anna who lives in Warsaw, Poland.  She says she is going to show me around Warsaw, and Krakow, and possibly her hometown.  It's a lot to fit in in a weekend, but I am taking the night train on Thursday evening, and will arrive Friday morning.  I guess I will have more on that later!

I like reading comments!  Let me know that you're reading!

New Apartment Pics

Ein Herde von Schafen in der Stadt . . .

So I really ought to keep my camera with me when I am out and about in Cologne. Today I had a small errand to run on the complete opposite part of town, and my route to get there involved riding my bike along the Rhine River. There is a path that runs along the whole river, and there are lots of bikers, runners, rollerbladers, and weekend strollers scattered along the whole way. The really strange part was that I was riding along and there is a bit of grass in between the path and the grass, and in this grass I heard a simple "baaaa" coming from behind some bushes. I investigated further down another little path towards the water, and there was a whole entire heard of sheep grazing in the grass and in the bushes! This is in the city mind you, with the Dom Cathedral only a few hundred meters away. I asked some folks who were also checking out the curious critters, and they told me that it is completely normal. The sheep graze along the river from a neighboring town, and they are seen quite often apparently.
Sorry I don't have any photos. It would have been cool to show the sheep with the city in the background. If I see them again, I hope I will have my camera. That's all for this post, I just wanted to share!

EDIT: Thank you to Stephan for finding a great link to the photo that I didn't get!  Click Here!

Mein Geburtstag und Sommerfest!

So this week has pretty much been a week of celebration.  This week I turned 23 years old, and to answer the big question, no, I do not feel any older!  The first notion of my birthday was on Tuesday night, before going to sleep I heard a few whispers outside of my bedroom door, and in came my roommates and some friends singing Happy Birthday to me (yes, they sing the english happy birthday song here) with a candy bar on a plate with a candle in it!  They wished me a happy birthday, and we all drank some wine together to celebrate.

On Wednesday, I still had to go into work on my birthday.  When I walked in I opened my mouth to say my usual "Morgen!" when everyone in the office began to sing to me again!  Everyone, even from the other offices of the company came in to shake my hand, and wish me "Alles Gute zum Geburtstag".  They also had on my desk a HUGE muffin and candy for me to enjoy.  In addition, a good friend of mine, Georgia, at work, who is an intern from England, had also placed an awesomely creative card on my desk.  You can see this cool birthday card (Outside and Inside) in the picture to the right.  Click to make it bigger!  Sorry, Georgia, to make your card so public!  It was great how everyone at work helped to make it a more enjoyable day . . .

That night, I also went with some friends in the park, and we played a nice civilized game of beer pong.  It is not a common game in Germany, so we of course got many looks, and even quite a few people who wanted to try to throw the ping pong ball into the cups!  It was a lot of fun and a relaxing way to spend my evening.  Don't worry, Mom, we didn't drink much.  We needed to keep our energy up for the next day . . . Sommerfest!

The atmosphere at work is definitely a work hard, play hard one.  I gave an example earlier of the Internet Marketing Conference that was really just a great party, but to top it off, on Thursday evening after work, all of us at Hitflip geared up to enjoy the annual Sommerfest party.  

We all left the office together and walked a few meters down the street to find the "Party Bus" waiting for us.  We all boarded this big blue remodeled school bus which had a bathroom, dance floor, and of course a keg of Koelsch.  The bus also had roll up windows, so we could cruise down the road with the breeze rolling in.  We were probably on the bus for about an hour, and made it to our first destination, a typical Koelsch (the word that describes the Cologne culture, the beer in Cologne, and also the dialect, but in this case, I am talking about the culture) restaurant.  It was a beautiful restaurant with open ceilings, and even a tree growing out of the middle.  It had typical German, and Cologne items on the menu, and the company picked up the tab.  

After the restaurant, we took a short walk over to an asian themed Karaoke bar.  The bar was completely empty until the 30 or so of us waltzed in, and we made it a party.  Co-workers sang everything from good ol' American classics to traditional German tunes.  We also had plenty of beverages to go around!

The last stop of the evening was at a club called the Cent Club.  The club is located on Zulpicher Strasse, the street that I wrote about before, and is a typical young dance club.  There really isn't a lot to say about this stop of the night, but that it was a blast.  Lots of dancing, socializing, and again, the company picked up the tab.  I left the club at about 3am, with only about a five minute walk home, but from what I heard some co-workers were there until almost 6am.  And, yes, I had to be at work the next morning.  Yes, I made it in.  No, some people did not.  

That's about all I've got for this one!  I look forward to hearing from all of you readers!  

Also, check out the music player that I added at the bottom of this post.  I am going to keep updating it with popular songs from here in Germany, and also here in Cologne so you can get a taste of the music here!  Enjoy!

An Old City, Rebuilt . . .

I wanted to write a blog post not so much about what I am doing, but with a little bit of the history of Cologne. One thing that is exciting about Europe is the immense amount of history that is within it. Talking about an old house in the United States might mean that it is fourty to eighty years old. Talking about an old house here in Germany, may mean that the house is a hundred to three hundred years old, or possibly more. I wish that the same could be said for Cologne, but the truth is I can't. Most buildings here are no older than forty to sixty years maximum.

During World War II, along with much of Germany, Cologne took a serious hit by the American military.  Virtually the entire city was completely leveled to the ground, leaving only the cathedral standing in the middle still intact.  That is one thing that is strange about this city, is that so much here is new, but in the middle is a humongous piece of architecture that is extremely old.  Although the cathedral was finished in 1890, the construction actually began in 1248.  The office that I work is about a 2 minute walk to the Cathedral (known here as the "Dom"), and can be seen from most parts of the city.  

Here I have posted a video that I have found on youtube showing tanks in WWII moving throughout the city.  You can see the immense amount of destruction that took place.  The video is slightly graphic, so you are warned.  This is actual wartime footage taken by American troops.

In the video, the tanks are moving through right where I work here. Now this area is full of trendy shops and restaurants, and definitely not the buildings of old. You can also see a couple of other structures that still exist here. There are pictures of another church that still stands here, and you can also see a castle-like structure that is still here in the city, also embedded within all of the new cityscape.


More posts coming soon! Thanks for reading, I enjoy reading the comments!

Why yes, I work in Europe . . .

It's actually been a bit long since my last post, which is too long than I wanted.  I've finally got myself feeling a bit settled in here in Cologne after my first month of living here.  It's actually a bit hard to believe that more than a month has gone by, and my time here is already shortening.  It's really been great knowing that a lot of people have been reading, and the blog has actually started to see some worldwide traffic, which is also really great!  Please keep commenting, as I enjoy reading the comments.  It's a good way for me to hear from you, and it's always a pleasent surprise to know who is reading!

A lot of people have already asked me how work is going, and I have been hesitant to post on here about it until I had really spent some time there and felt comfortable there.  Working at Hitflip Media Trading, has just been great.  The people are all young, and friendly, it's in the center of the city, and everything is going smoothly.  I don't know exactly how much detail I can go into about what I am doing, but I will try not to be too vague.

One thing that is really difficult for a lot of online companies to deal with, is that the reliability on Google is just so huge.  Especially for a company whose business is solely run online, Google controls the market, and if you are not appearing on search results, or in Google advertisements, your business will surely take a hit for the worse.  So a lot of what I am doing is maintaining and improving the company's services showing up on Google searches.  Besides that, I am also doing some customer service work for Hitflip's UK site, and doing some translations that are still remaining there.  As of now I am the only American working there, and the only other native English speaker is a co-worker from England.  Everyone else in the office is German, but all really helpful with my German, and understanding that I can't speak perfectly.  

Last Thursday was an exciting day for work, as we were hosting Cologne's Internet Marketing Conference 2008.  It was held in a VIP section at the local soccer stadium.  There were a couple hundred people that showed up, and plenty of fun.  I think the idea was for a networking event, but I think that the German idea of networking is mostly just an open bar, and a lot of young people.  I left the stadium at 3am.  It was great fun!  There is a link at the bottom of the post where there are some photos.

There are also links already added to the side column of the blog.  There you will find the three projects that we have at Hitflip.  I am currently doing work for Hitflip UK, and Hitmeister.  Check the pages out to see a bit of what I am doing.  

Sorry I don't have any pics or anything for this post.  I hope to add some to it shortly.  Maybe a shot of my desk or something, we'll see.  

Thanks for reading!  Feel free to leave comments!

See Pictures from Internet Marketing Koeln 2008

Zulpicher Strasse . . .

I wanted to show a little bit about what it's like here with the European Championship going on here in Germany. Here is a video that I found on YouTube from Zulpicherstrasse here in Cologne. This is a street with a lot of bars and clubs, and is famous here in Cologne for where you go for nightlife. Oh, and it's about a one minute walk from my apartment. I am somewhere nearby in this video, but don't think I'm in it. Oh and don't forget, the Euro Cup is taking place in Switzerland and Austria, but this is just Germans celebrating here . . . .

Eine Wochenende in Baden-Wuerttemberg . . .

So I am going to try and keep this post a bit shorter than some of the other ones.  I am going to try to cover several topics but in several posts, instead of many topics in one post.  Yes, I have finally begun to work here in Cologne now that I have received my visa, but I am going to cover that later, when I finish out my first week.  

Over the weekend I had a really great time in Baden-Wuerttemberg.  I went there to visit my friend Michael who lives in Berlichingen, a very small village there.  If you are not aware, Germany is made up of several "states" or "Bundeslaender" just like in the United States.  Cologne is in the Mid-West of Germany and is in the state Nordrhein Westfalia.  There are other states such as Bayern, famous for Munich and the "Black Forest", Hessen, Saxony, and also Baden-Wuerttemberg.  All together there are 16 different Bundeslaender.  

Michael is a really good friend of mine who was an exchange student in the US for a year, and since then I have seen three other times; in Rome, Germany in 2006, and also again when he visited the US for a second time.  It was great to go down to his village again, and spend time with him and his family, who are all extremely welcoming.  

It was a three hour drive to get there, and once you are outside of Cologne, Germany is completely different.  Cologne is very much a large city with big streets, big buildings, and it's fair share of graffiti.  Once you travel a bit south of Cologne, the cities become much smaller, and you can experience much more of the German culture.

I think that every American who has not been to Germany has an idea in their minds of what it is like, but they don't actually believe it exists.  I know myself, before I came here, I thought about biergartens, burly men playing accordions, sausages, people drinking and singing songs, and of course lederhosen.  Well, let me tell you, in Baden-Wuerttemberg it really does exist!  

Michael's village and surrounding villages only have a couple hundred people in them, and they are far out in the countryside.  There are rolling green hills, streets with no middle line, and little clusters scattered about where people live.  In the villages, the streets are all cobblestone, houses can be as old as the 1600's, and some villages even have a great big wall that surrounds them, from medieval times.  It is truly an incredible experience to see, and believe me, they don't have many tourists here.

One thing that was cool, was that during the summer time, all of these villages hold small festivals.  The area is known for it's vineyards, so the wine season is typically a reason to have a party in the streets.  I went to two of these festivals, and it was really incredible to see.  The main road was turned into a biergarten, there were all kinds of vendors selling sausages (wurste) and beer.  There was a traditional German band playing, and the whole village was attending.  

I tried to capture some of my weekend, but didn't take too many pictures.  I did however take a couple of videos with my camera, even though they are not the best quality.  I have linked up a video I made to the blog post for you to see, and just combined all of the video I took, and some of the pictures within it.  The video is taken while riding a bike into Michael's village, Berlichingen. 

I better end here, as it's time to get to bed so I can get up for work in the morning!  There's another blog post coming very shortly!  

Keep the comments coming!

Tschuess!

Meine Reise Nach Koeln, Und Lebe Hier . . .

So I have been in Cologne for a few days now.  I have been getting myself adjusted on the six hour time difference, and just adjusted to daily life here.  With the visa problems that I had I am truly lucky to even be here.  

Less than a week ago, I was still in the United States, and thinking that I wasn't going to get to leave for Cologne for another three weeks.  The problem was that the German powers-that-be were being slow with processing my working visa that I had applied for at the beginning of March.  They said that it would take an extra three weeks to process it and get it sent to me.  They were also holding my passport since your visa has to be issued with your actual passport.  So the day before my flight was supposed to leave I was in Charlotte and got a phone call from the German Consulate in Atlanta that they would send me my passport overnight and I could fly the next day.  (To change my flight was going to be over $800.)  Apparantly my friend's father (a german with some political presence) had asked for a favor, and I would be allowed to enter the country.  So the good news is, I saved $800, made it to Deutschland, and alles ist klar!  The bad news is that I still don't have my visa, and have to wait a couple of more weeks without being able to work.  Ok, so I am in Germany and can't work, doesn't sound so bad, but keeping myself from spending money while I am waiting for my visa is hard to do, and I have a negative income!  But that is the story of how I was able to get into the country.  My flight was alright, and my roommate's boyfriend was kind enough to pick me up at the airport.  I feel really lucky that everything fell into place like it did!

So a little bit about what life here is like . . .  I am living in an apartment just outside of the city center, with two others.  My roommates are very very nice and very helpful with getting me adjusted to everything here.  My first day here, I spent the majority of the day sleeping since I had not slept the entire flight.  It's safe to say I was exhausted.  The next day was the start of a good few days.  Several of my roommates' friends came to the apartment to make a house party before going out to a kneipe (club).  They taught me a little bit about German drinking culture, and more specifically Cologne drinking culture.  In the picture, you can see the typical and popular beer here in Cologne, Reissdorf Koelsch.  Koelsch is the type of beer that is specific to this region, and Reissdorf is one of several brands sold here.  Those of you in Raleigh, if you go to the Flying Saucer downtown, they have Reissdorf Koelsch on tap, but I believe it is a good six dollars for a pint, and it is probably not served in the traditional Koelsch glass as seen in the picture.  After having a drink or two, I also learned that it is NOT illegal to just carry your beer with you on the street.  Upon leaving for the club, I left my unfinished beer in the apartment only to find everyone else just casually drinking theirs on the way to the "Purple Club" just a short one minute trek from our front door (yikes).  When we got to the club, they had 200 liters of free Koelsch.  I am going to stop the commentary here for that night.

It is important for me to mention that while I have been here, the commodity of speaking English has been refused to me.  One of my roommates does not speak English, and the other roommate refuses to for my own good, and so do the rest of their friends.  It is exactly what I need, and has been good so far.  A lot of times I have to ask for someone to repeat to me, and hopefully communicating with me has not been too frustrating, but it has been a great learning experience, and I feel like every minute of the day I am learning something new and my German is improving.  I never realized, however, how mentally tiring it is.  All day long to comprehend, and try to communicate back, it takes a lot of energy, and I've never felt my thoughts feeling so tired before.  Fluently speaking in language is a gift that we probably take for granted.

Well, I am already writing too much for one post, so I am going to stop here and continue with more later.  I miss everyone at home, however, I am having a great time here as well.  The first week is almost over, and I can tell that these six months are going to go very fast.

Bis Bald!

The First Blog Post! - Herzlich Wilkommen!

So if you are reading this, I probably gave you my blog address so that you know more about my life in Germany. There's also a slight chance I suppose that people may stumble upon this blog from google, in which case, if you find this interesting, go nuts! I know that there are a lot of people who will want to see pictures, or hear about what I am doing, including friends, relatives, and probably even my parents' co-workers. All are welcome!

The title of my blog is "Andrew Gegen Koeln" which translates to Andrew versus Cologne, and even though I do not consider myself against Cologne, it sounded like a fun name for the blog!

One thing that I am really sad about is that I will be leaving all of my friends, and family behind for the next six months. I am currently still at UNCW, and the thought of finishing and not coming back in the fall is really hard to deal with. I have had so many experiences here at school, and have met so many wonderful people. There is still so much at UNCW that I would like to do! However, one cannot stay too comfortable for too long, so I am moving on to other things.

A couple months ago, I accepted an internship in Cologne with a company called Hitflip Media Trading. You can visit their website at http://www.hitflip.de/ or at http://www.hitflip.co.uk/ for more information on what they do. I will be living and working in the city center of Cologne and marketing the company's services in the United Kingdom. I have signed my contract, and I begin work on June 2, and my last day is November 28.

Luckily, I am not too unfamiliar with the city. I have spent a couple of days there before during my travels in 2006 while studying abroad in Bremen, Germany. The city is absolutely beautiful, with lots and lots going on! The picture attached to this post is a picture I took in 2006, and is taken from a bridge on the Rhine River looking at the city center, where I will be working, and living.

I will have plenty of time to experience a different place, with a different culture, improve my German, see old friends, and make new ones! Most importantly, however, I want to be able to keep in contact with all of you. This is my communication to you, and I hope that it will open up an opportunity for you to communicate back to me. Please feel free to leave comments on the blog, send me an e-mail, message me on facebook, or catch me on Skype while I am gone!

Thanks For Reading!