Somebody in the group had the fantastic idea to meet 2 days before the actual orientation in Köln (Cologne) to meet on less formal grounds. So after a 5.5 hour train ride, I was at the Station Hostel in Köln. I happened to meet 2 other Fulbrighters on the train, which was awesome considering I had forgotten to write down directions to the hostel (my plan was to just walk up to random people hoping someone knew where it was...). So after checking in, I come to find out I was in a room with 3 other Fulbrighters. We basically took up a good chunk of the rooms in this hostel. About 30 of us out of the 140 Fulbrighters decided to go to the meet-up.
With the first night in Köln upon us, what else is there to do besides going out to eat and clubbing? So we found a restaurant, despite Lonely Planet's best attempts to thwart us, and enjoyed some foods. Afterwards, it was time to get ready to go out. First thing to do, get alcohol. Some dedicated members of the group stopped at the Rewe near the restaurant we were at and carried the alcohol the 20 minutes back to the hostel. The rest of us waited until we got to the store near the hostel that was a little bit more expensive. Now that that was taken care of, time for the socializing to begin and what better way than a game of King's Cup, or Circle of Death depending on where you're from. After the game, it was time to find a club. After being too loud to get into the first one (we may or may not have been singing going down the street) and at the second one there weren't enough gay men, we continued to wander around Köln looking for a club that would let us in. Our group got separated but we met up again at a bar/restaurant. Time for another beer! After, we continued on our quest. We saw a club that looked like it'd be fun but we got denied, like velvet rope held so we had to get out of line and bouncer telling us to 'have a good night' denied. So at this point, some people departed back to the hostel. After some more wandering, myself and some others decided it was time to call it a night seeing as it was 2 am.
The next day's goal was to explore. Of course we saw the iconic Dom church and ate meals on the Rhine. Along the way, we found this pretty awesome dog we dubbed Elton John dog...
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| 60 years of friendship |
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| The locks span the entire bridge |
Then of course, time for dinner. For dinner, we wanted to get a big thing of beer to share between the 6 of us. Well, that's not how they did it at this restaurant. We got a meter of beer. That's right, a meter. Then we had another. It looked something like this...
Well, after the fun day that was spent eating and exploring, the actual orientation and our reason for being in Köln was upon us. Monday, all 140 of us met at the Hauptbahnhof (main train station) and got on a bus to ride out to Altenberg, where we would be confined to a monastery in the middle of nowhere for the next 4 days. When I say confined, I mean confined. They locked the gates up at 9. I guess it was a great way to get to know the other people, especially since you couldn't go anywhere. (I think I was able to meet some pretty awesome people and hope to visit some of them because of this) Luckily, to aid in the socializing aspect, after all of the information sessions, the Fulbright people were kind/smart enough to provide us with beer and wine. A few of us had brought our own because what else is there to do in a monastery that locks up at 9 in the middle of nowhere when all of the sessions get done around 7 or 8? So after a few days of getting up early, socializing, going to info. sessions and drinking with a bunch of people you are just meeting, one thing led to another and on the last night, an impromptu sing-along session occurred. It was after the talent show and during the drinking session of the evening. One of the Fulbright teacher people played the piano and the rest of us sang. We quit at about 2 in the morning after a few rousing renditions of Billy Joel's "Piano Man," mainly the chorus because we all would argue over the lyrics in the other versus, and of course "Wonderwall", we all headed off to bed.
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| The monastery we stayed in. |
Now there are 20 of us out of the 140 that are in the 'diversity program'. We got to stay a little longer at the monastery for another separate info. session, while the other 120 got to wake up at 6 and leave by 7:30/8:00. After this info. session, it was back to the Hauptbahnhof and off to Nürnberg to begin the actual work part of this experience (if you consider 12hrs a week work).
Well, hopefully I will catch up with the blog in the next couple days to regale you with stories of exploration and Oktoberfest. Until then, bis bald und vielen Dank!
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