Seven minutes into a seven-hour train ride to Berlin, the taste of Cologne is fresh. As the launching pad for our 10-day extravaganza, we came in with minimal expectations for the three days here, and we are leaving with rich memories. Intricate cathedrals, fresh chocolate, beautiful parks, German food, friends, Döners, Kölschs, and Castles, oh my!
I must have remembered incorrectly what my newly-made-German-friend-from-a-Hostel-in-Philadelphia described. What I thought would be a quaint town is actually a bustling city of over one million people — larger than either of the two cities I previously resided in (Denver and Portland’s population is between 600,000 and 700,000). The public transit is robust and confusing, and there are many different areas within and outside of the city to explore.
Fortunately, we had a few tour guides to help us out. On the first night, our friend Dennis who we met earlier this year in Philadelphia took the train in from Aachen with his friend to meet us for a few drinks. The common drink in Cologne is a .2 liter slim glass of a Kölsch beer. So we drank a few of those, conversed about the education systems in our respective countries, our, hometowns and more. A few shots and a beer from the kiosk later, we 
wandered around the city, the dialogue a blur. Though it was a long day of travel for my best friend and travel companion Julianne, so we retreated back to our hostel around midnight.
After sleeping in the next day, we embarked on doing mostly touristy things – seeing the Cathedral, going to the Chocolate museum, walking along the Rhine river. I gained an appreciation for intricate construction that lasts 600 years, for cocoa beans, the process that makes chocolate and the constant fast flow of water. After our day of meandering, we had plans to meet my good friend Erin from college who is living in Cologne teaching English at a Montessori school. We ate classic German cuisine at a classic German restaurant and drank berry ciders at an Irish pub. Finding this kind of familiarity in a foreign place is a unique comfort that I treasure.
Familiar people in an unfamiliar place serve as a bridge to deciphering what is and isn’t acceptable/normal/common. For example, in Germany, we found all of these to be normal: drinking beer on the streets, keeping a tab on the back of a coaster, not checking tickets on public transit. By day two we began to assimilate more to our surroundings and sought out a day filled with walking through hip neighborhoods, parks, and to coffee-shop-mecca 
and kebabs. The day concluded with a language event at our hostel where I felt entirely inadequate only speaking one language. Even in Cologne, the people are global citizens, who travel and immerse themselves in cultures different from their own. Each place you go, language you learn and the person you talk to offer an alternative lens to view the world through, useful in discovering the intent of our actions and how we affect the environment around us.
For our final day, we wanted to journey out of Cologne to a Castle just south of Bonn. Having only seen photos of this castle on the hill we were determined to find it. When we arrived at the river near the castle there was no bridge in sight. To the locals, we probably looked rather odd just pacing near what we learned to be was the ferry station. Though a slow-moving boat eventually arrived and with a 1.60 Euro fee we were granted permission to cross. From there we relied only on our feet. I was sure that we were going to walk up a busy road up a hill, with grime and car smoke. But we were pleasantly surprised to find a walking path with yellow leaves, hills and fresh air. After a quick 30 minute walk, the Castle was before us and we were keen to explore. It was not only a magnificent building but also was a magnificent view. What a magnificent place enjoyed with a magnificent human.
