About three weeks ago, I got an email from one of my high school friends from China. Lalith had started at the international school of Beijing at the same time as me in 1996, we both lived in the area of the school, on the edge of town unlike the majority of the other students whose families lived in the diplomatic compounds in downtown Beijing. We were great friends in Beijing, but he went to school in London, and I headed back to Canada, and it had now been four years since we had actually last seen each other. Now we were both at least on the same side of the Atlantic, and he had found some reasonably priced airfares to Germany, so we tried to meet up in Cologne for a long weekend. We had picked a weekend, but hadn't finalized anything. I sent him an email to see if he was still coming expecting a no, but was surprised when I got his reply saying he was coming that evening. Perhaps I had been living in Germany for a little too long, and my sensibilities for planning everything were shocked, how could this be? I told a few of my coworkers, but apparently it struck them even more so, because when Lalith did arrive safely and I introduced him, they all asked "oh, so you're that crazy guy?" That was unfortunate. I had send Lalith my phone number and instructions to both the main train station where I could meet him, or at worst, my house if he couldn't get a hold of me earlier. I ended up picking him up downtown, and we sat up late in my kitchen talking about the good times, and what we might have missed over the last few years of sporadic communication.
The next morning was unfortunately a Friday, and I hadn't actually asked to take the day off, since I hadn't really expected the visit to work out, so I settled for taking a half day off, and meeting Lalith for lunch. We met at the AIESEC office, and then headed downtown to have a look at Cologne. We started off as per usual at the Dom, and headed for the Rhine to get some German food. We had a couple of sausages with K�lsch and a pretzel. This gave me the chance to demonstrate that although I've been here nearly a year now, I'm still anything but an "old hand". I was nine tenths through my white sausages before a very disturbed waiter ran over and explained that one doesn't normally eat the skin. Ooops. But the sun was shining, and nothing could stop us from a little touring.
We made the trip up the Dom, which I have actually never done on a sunny day, so we were able to get a few good pictures. The Dom is amazingly still one of the tallest buildings anywhere near Cologne, and offers a great view from it's observation deck.. From there we headed through the market squares downtown, had an ice-cream and dropped by the home of the original Cologne. (perfume) the 4711, so named because of the street numbers handed out by the occupying French forces in Napoleonic times. The medicinal water known as the water of Cologne, became a perfume to avoid new laws requiring all medicines to publish their ingredients. So, to protect the ancient recipe, eau de cologne became an eau de toilette. and famous all over the world. Lalith told me about how popular it was in Sri Lanka when he was growing up, and how his grandmother would be so happy he had been to the original house where it all began. It is pretty amazing, they have the stuff running out of a wooden cask in a continuous pour like a fountain.
By the end of the afternoon, Michelle had gotten off work and we went out for dinner to a small Italian restaurant not far from the apartment. While we ate, Janik (from work) and another AIESECer Nicki, prepared our house for their birthday party. We had agreed to accommodate the party, as surprising as it may sound, we have one of the larger apartments in our little group. We paid the bill and headed home to join the party.
Sunday morning we woke up late. The party hadn't been very crazy, and so there wasn't much of a mess to clean up, but Janik and Nicki came to clean at 11. We managed to get it looking good as new, and then Lalith, Michelle and I set out to visit Cologne�s museums. We started with the delicious chocolate museum, and then walked to the neighbouring sports museum. Which to be honest, we had never even thought of visiting before because of its rather utilitarian, industrial waterfront exterior. Although it turned out to be quite nice inside, it still isn't what you would call a real draw in and of itself that will bring tourists flocking from . We had another gorgeous sunny day, and got some good walking in downtown. We bought a rather large pizza as a snack and then, as if that wasn't enough, we went home and cooked up a huge stir fry. After that, a bit of a siesta was in order, and then we somehow managed to gather the energy to head down to the university to go to the annual takeover party where AIESECers new and old fete the new executive board's relieving of the old one. That my time and especially that of my colleagues was beginning to draw to a close was further reinforced the next day when we met to take pictures for the office. (each year has a team photo on the office corridor wall). I went with Lalith and Michelle to a small palace outside of Bonn in the morning, and then went back to Cologne to take the pictures. We met up again for dinner. Michelle and Lalith had continued on to Bonn to visit Beethoven's house.
We were all a little tired by this point after having been up late the last three nights, but we finally got up the motivation to head downtown for Chinese food. Michelle had seen a good looking restaurant just the other day that we had been meaning to try, and we were happy to find out that it was indeed a Mandarin restaurant. Lalith broke out his Chinese, and wowed the wait staff who spent the whole night talking about the funny brown man that could speak Mandarin, and in Germany of all places. I'll have to go back to the restaurant to verify it, but the food was delicious. I say that because Lalith asked them to prepare everything in authentic Beijing style, and not like they do for the normal clientele. We had a delicious meal and went to bed that night feeling perfectly content.
This feeling didn't carry over to the next morning though. I trundled off to work just like every other morning, but again took the afternoon off for lunch. We met downtown for 'real German food'. I had kn�del which is even more fun to say than it is to spell. We started another good conversation, but cut it short when we realized that we didn't have much time before Lalith's airport shuttle was due to leave, and we still had to get his bag out of storage from a locker in the train station. We hurried over to the bus just as the doors were closing, and Lalith made his way back to England.
