Cologne and FIFA World Cup 2006

Alhamdulillah, we managed to travel to Cologne and came back safely. We flew off to Cologne on Wednesday 29th June and came back on Friday 1st July. It was a tiring but an "eye-opener". That was my first ever trip to a country which most of the people there do not speak English. Luckily I borrowed my ex-classmate's German "phrase book" for the trip. Thank god, it was definitely useful for us.

When we reached the airport or another name for it is Koln/Bonn Flughafen, we had to find our way to the town or the Central train station in Cologne. Its the Koln Hauptbahnhof(HBf). Guess what? We had to buy tickets from the machine. And its all written in German! Arghh... They use codes for different types of towns or cities and you need to know where you want to go in order to buy your ticket. Key in the code, and the machine will tell you the amount to be paid. We struggled. Waiting for the train was another issue as we did not know which platform to go to. We ended up asking another tourist who was also heading the same way.

It took about 20mts to reach the Koln HBf. The station is so huge. There are a few types of train that use the station as their main station. We managed to find our way down and again had to ask people for directions to the tourist information centre as all the signboards are in German. The information centre was about 50metres away from the station. Thank god.

Our accomodation which was the Backpackers Station Hostel was only around the corner. Hmm......we could actually tell people that we stayed at the Hilton Cologne because it was just opposite the road! To tell the truth, this was the 1st time ever I have ever travelled to a foreign country and stayed at a backpackers hostel. I couldn't imagine how it would be like. It cost us 16Euros per person per night. We planned to stay for only 2 nights. They provided the sheet, blanket and the pillowcase - but we had to collect them and put them on ourselves. That's ok.

Oh...did I mention that we booked the cheapest available beds? It was in a 6 bed - room. When we went in, we saw 3 beds were already occupied. We were hoping that all of them are girls or at least they are nice guys.(bear in mind this is a hostel in Germany). We guessed the 1st bed belonged to a girl, the 2nd bed too (coz the owner uses Kao Biore and has a make-up bag and a nice pair of bedroom slippers) and the 3rd owner was a guy. We got the 2nd one wrong. She was a he....or more like in between. He was a very nice chap from Japan. Managed to get some info from him though. The 3rd guy was a French guy who was interested to convert to Islam. Oh man....I felt bad because we gave him a bad impression by staying in the room eventhough we still had our tudung on. The girl came back quite late so we didn't have the chance to talk to her. When we left the next morning, she was still asleep and checked out before we returned. I wasn't feeling comfortable staying in the same room with strangers. I guess this is part of the survival if we have a tight budget.

The next day we went and visited the Dom Cathedral. It was amazing. It looks like one of the Lord of The Rings Building. Yeah...yeah...I know.....I am obsessed with LOTR. What can I do. I just love that movie. Its is so huge and so grand. We did when in and it was very impressive on the inside. We also visited the Imhof Stollwerck Museum which is a 'chocolate' museum. They showed how the chocolate is processed and made. And at the end of the machinery there was this chocolate "fountain" which produces chocolate non-stop. We could actually dip wafers in it and eat it immediately! I wish I could have one of that in my house! We also went to 2 more museums which are Smisch-Germanisches Museum and Museum Ludwig. Well, I guess museums are still museums. No need for me to elaborate on that.

We took lots and lots of photos of the Museums and the Dom Cathedral. Yeah...without me in the photos coz I don't look photogenic and will definitely spoil it.hahaha. Talking about food - we had chips twice and fish twice. For me, no rice for the whole month is still ok. But not for my cousin. By the end of the 2nd day, she was weak. The third day, she had problems to carry her bag which is only a quarter of my bag's weight.

Since it rained the whole day on the third day, we just went for window shopping. I guess we didn't come prepared with raincoat. Oh yeah...another thing we noticed was that a lot of the people there uses bicycle to move around. Its not even the "mountain" or "racing" bicycle, its the old type that my late grandpa use to own. The big, black one which is quite difficult to ride. They even have a place where you can rent it! No thanks for me. It has been ages since I last rode a bike. My brother has 3 and offered me to use it, but its just still lying there in the basement.

I enjoyed my trip to Koln, especially when I know that Koln is the host for FIFA World Cup 2006. I bought some souvenirs too.hehehe...just to proof that we were there a year before the actual one.

I hope one day, I will return to Koln and also other countries/town in the European Union.
Yeah...I would love to go to Brazil and Barcelona.One day.......