My time in Germany was starting to pile up, but I still hadn't really spent any time in my new home town. (as my lack of furniture in my apartment clearly illustrates) This weekend, Katja and Tille invited me to go swimming with them in the morning before doing a little shopping. Not feeling particularly excited, picturing an hour of laps, I accepted. One important thing to remember that I rarely do, is that none of my coworkers have lived in this town much longer than I have, and have traveled just as much or more than I have negating most of their head start. Thus, they had never been to the pool either. We were all happily surprised, this place is amazing. You pay a fairly steep 8 marks to get in, but it's worth it. The building is of warehouse proportions, but very nicely built. The west wall is made entirely of glass and curves in a semicircle up three stories from the ground to meet the cathedral ceiling which covers the mouth of a giant waterslide and several diving platforms. The waterslide exits outside of the building into a group of smaller outdoor pools. From outside you have a beautiful view of a neighbouring church, a site best enjoyed from the comfort of the warm water Jacuzzi style wading pool. Swimming was fun.
Finally we dragged ourselves out of the pool, changed, and hurried a few blocks over to the main shopping district to meet a friend of Katja's to go shopping. Hohe Str. has been a major walkway in Cologne since the Romans colonized it 2000 years ago, today it is home to a huge number of shops. It's just like walking through a mall, but it's outside which is great for walking around but makes it a little hard for people that want to drive and shop. The others bought a bunch of clothes, but the highlight for me was discovering that Germany has a fast-food fish chain (Nordsee) which serves up delicious fish on demand for a price even I can afford. I love it.
