German beers, kiosks and Erasmus students...

Even 'Kartoffel' soup!

After having made the most of the morning, we went for lunch in the university cafeteria. Ninety percent of the people who were there eating were blond, as white as milk and had blue eyes, and this isn't an exaggeration... I felt lots of eyes on me.

It was a typical cafeteria full of people, with metal trays, cooks wearing aprons and potatoes featuring in each and every lunch option. After eating, we went back to our room to have a siesta, since after having gotten up at the crack of dawn that day for the journey, I was dead on my feet and just wanted to sleep. After a long, deep sleep on my air mattress, we went downstairs again to meet up with a friend from our university who was also doing his Erasmus exchange in Cologne and was also living in our halls of residence. After dinner at about 9pm, we organised ourselves a bit and went out to explore Cologne. What I didn't know was that in Germany you're allowed to drink in the street and nobody says anything against it. There is a saying though that 'you're not a drunk if you drink after after 11am'. The streets in the city centre are full of 'kiosks', which are just like Spanish ones although the ones here mostly sell alcohol, above all one third and half a litre bottles of beer. In these little shops they also sell newspapers, snacks, biscuits and winegums, and every one you go into is run by Asians. We enjoyed being out in the streets, but after buying a few German beers we went to another Erasmus student's house, who was Jose's friend in Germany.

German beers

German beers deserve a special mention here. From what I can see, and what was explained to me that night, every German city has its own beers, or at least they drink certain kinds of beer in each area of the country. The one I quite liked and that I recommend you try if you go to Cologne was Reissdorf Kölsch, which is one of the ones produced in Cologne, and Früh Kölsch wasn't bad either.

The flat we went to was a typical 'Erasmus student flat': old-fashioned, with basic furniture, a huge living room and, most importantly, full of people. We met a nice group of Spaniards there, an Italian guy, a Portuguese guy... I didn't know anyone, so I spent some time talking to everyone. After leaving this multi-national party, we got the city train (S-Bahn) back to the hall of residence, so that we'd be fresh-faced for the next day and could go to an open air festival in a park near Bonn, another city we visited.

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