Bellerophon symbol, variation 7 jonath.co.uk
Sunday 27th Jun 2004
I can't remember much about this place, but that guy in the background, stood against the bar, had an amazing beard; I think I was just trying to capture its full glory. These pictures were taken at 00:42 and 00:44 respectively. Oh, and I like the way the burning end of a cigarette somehow came out pink.
13:13 in the next morning. I think Paul got back during daylight hours this morning . . . I'm not sure. At midday, we all had to check out from our rooms (I had a single room and the others had a six person dormitory to themselves). Liz wasn't staying over on Sunday night so I became the sixth person, surrendering my single room in order to prevent some random backpacker from taking the vacated bed. So some people would have had about 4/5 hours sleep before being forced to pack up all their belongings and de-camp to a different six-bed dorm one floor below. We got to this dorm and, well . . . I think this picture speaks for itself. Paul was actually asleep for several hours at this angle.
and then more of the cathedral . . . taken at (going left to right 17:31, 17:32 and 17:35). As Simon pointed out, the cathedral has probably spent most of its life with some scaffolding attached, so erm . . . it seemed better just to acknowledge it than try and find a scaffolding-free angle. I think we went inside today. There was some kind of, erm . . . ritual taking place inside and Simon got told off for wearing his cap. Apparently it's disrepectful to be in such a building wearing a cap. But, erm . . . there wasn't really much to do or see inside, perhaps because of this service that was going on . . . I'm not sure. I wanted to see the odd crypt or two, perhaps walk up the spiral staircase to the top of one of those spires . . . but no. There was some pretty impressive stained glass things going on, but I didn't trust my camera to take a decent picture in that kind of situation.
So, erm . . . I wanted to do a bit of exploring, so I suggested we take a walk across one of the many bridges spanning the Rhine. One such bridge, the Hohenzollernbr ücke, was right behind the cathedral, so we went for this one. The first picture (from the left), taken at 17:40, was done by M**** . . . something about the fantastically engineering train station in the background . . . blah, blah, blah. I'm also in the background, as is part of Tarn. But better than any of that, check out koala man, looking straight at the camera, with some kind of rectangular object attached to his head. Those kerr-raaaay-zeee Germans, eh? I think M**** took the next two pictures as well (17:40, 18:55). There wasn't so much sun today, as you can see. The Lonely Planet said we would be afforded an excellent view of Cologne from this bridge, hence the picture on the right. S'okay, I guess. Bit grey.
. . . then at 18:59 I took this picture. I think by this point we had gone over the first bridge, stopped briefly to see a couple of guys preparing themselves for a bit of climbing action up (down?) some tiny man-made structure, and then . . . erm . . . we stopped at this cafe for a quick drink . . . coffee, apple juice, K ölsch (sorry - I can't do foreign characters without putting spaces before them . . . a little bug in my scripting). I seem to recall loads of cyclists . . . and there was this little kid, must have been about three or four . . . he (she?) was sat on this bike and using their feet to push themselves along . . . as if there were no pedals . . . maybe there weren't. Hmmmm.
Anyway, we carried on walking and then crossed back to the original side via a different bridge - Deutzer Br ücke. We stopped off at some bar for a couple of beers, wandered around the southern end of town (checking out a few restaurants) for a bit . . . perhaps thinking, "These bars look familar," before settling on an Italian restaurant (middle and right picture, 21:01 and 21:38 respectively). It was a bit confusing being here . . . parts of the menu were in English, the restaurant was very Italian and yet we were in Germany. Anyway . . . the back of the restaurant was set in this cute little square thing. That's Paul walking away there.
. . . and then we went to this, erm . . . Spanish themed bar, possibly. This one was taken at 23:39

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