On Saturday evening after nearly eight hours of driving (my bad, Nick; sorry!) we rolled into Cologne to meet Andrea and Mary. Poor Mary had managed to injure her ankle on the plane, but we gamely walk/hobbled to an Austrian restaurant where I learned that schnitzel is, in fact, fabulous.
Did you know it was just battered, fried meat? I always pictured something cured and pickled and horrible. No; turns out it’s deep-fried deliciousness, and although there was a limit to what I could sneak off of Nick’s plate, I resolved to eat as much more as I could get my hands on in the next twenty-four hours. Then the waiter joked about handing Andrea some walnut liqueur, and I shifted my focus to getting all of us out of the country alive.
I have to say, I don’t know that we’d go back to Germany on purpose, but I’m glad that we went. We saw my perennial favorite thing (Roman ruins), there was a stunning cathedral, and we sampled the original Eau de Cologne and wandered like star-struck children through the chocolate museum/Lindt factory.
On the other hand, the ruins involved a section of the old Roman sewer, which had a claustrophobia warning at the entrance, which tends to get a person thinking hard about whether or not they’re about to get claustrophobic. It was all kinds of cool, but by the time we reached the end we were ready to claw our way through the other visitors on our way out. Here we are faking it:
And Eau de Cologne…look, it’s landmark and fabulous and neat, but frankly I found it a little sweet. Of course, you shouldn’t go by me; check it out for yourself. I still have to fight the impulse to wrinkle my nose at Chanel No. 5; I’m clearly not the gold standard.
And while I got some delicious chocolate liqueur and nifty sheep’s-milk chocolate in the gift shop, not to mention a fresh-off-the-line truffle out of the deal, I did spend half of the trip through the museum wondering whether Andrea would need a bio-hazard mask to get through the place.
And have I mentioned that there’s something really freaking scary about getting yelled at in German? It’s a long story, but it involves a beer garden and a misunderstanding about a dish containing almonds. Suddenly there are these two beefy waiters shouting their heads off at us and denying flatly that they speak English, French, Italian, or Spanish between the two of them (way to make the Midwest look multicultural, guys), Mary and Nick are on their feet, and Andrea’s shouting in German while I mimic choking to death. Have to tell you: it was a little surreal. In the end, Andrea got a nice, safe plate of schnitzel (nothing wrong with that!) and we went on our merry way, bolstered by some pale Kölner, which is the local beer.
A note about that: on three separate occasions, Nick attempted to order a darker type of beer. Sample a little during our one day in Germany, you know? Anyway, on all three occasions (for each of which he used different words), the waiter would nod, disappear, and come back with more of that yellow-topaz Kölner. Pointing at the menu didn’t help; nothing helped. But it was pleasant beer, so we decided to just call it one of those things.
Oh, but check out the frankfurter I got at dinner. That’s a normal-sized dinner plate you’re looking at there; I got through about half of the thing, but it was fantastic:
And that’s Cologne à la Wilson for you.