Bonn, Düsseldorf and Planned Trips

Hello Folks,

I have been lousy at writing more frequently as I had originally planned to do. It’s time for what seems to be another weekly update from your Bosnitaliamerican living in Cologne.

Friday, April 11th:
As I suggested in my last post, I had no class last Friday. I took the opportunity to wander around the city, explore more secluded areas, etc. Friday was also the day I found out about my German Language placement test scores. As I had expected, I wasn’t placed at the lowest level but at level 2. I still feel it might be too low but in all honesty I haven’t had any German for 8 years now and even though I had studied it in the past, it’s definitely not as good as it should be. The good news is that I have finally started speaking it on a daily basis.
Friday night we went to a place called Live Music Hall. The name is a bit misleading for you native English speakers, as this is not a place where an orchestra or a choir holds concerts. To be honest, my first thought was that this might be a place like The Lounge or Fine Line Music Café in Minneapolis, which are bars that regularly host concerts, whether they are cover bands or upcoming artists. I was mistaken. This was in a more industrial district of town; it reminds me a bit of the Meatpacking District in Manhattan with quite a few what seemed to be abandoned warehouses and hardly any apartment buildings. When we entered the place, this turned out to be a huge warehouse packed with college students. Memories of college parties I attended while at Gustavus suddenly came rushing through my head. It was mayhem. The music was loud and it was played by a DJ, not a live band. People were mingling around the two main bars, which were serving free beer till 11pm. It hit me that maybe I am getting too old for this kind of establishments when an 18-year-old looking punk stepped on my foot and spilt Kölsch on me. And even though the start did not look promising, I ended up enjoying myself. I ran into a few acquaintances from the University. We chatted, danced a bit and left before closing.

Saturday, April 12th:
On Saturday, Nick and I went to an Erasmus student party. Erasmus program is a popular study abroad program in Europe. This social gathering was in Efferen part of Köln, which is pretty much in the boonies. We had to take 3 separate trams/trains, while missing a few connections. Finally, once we made it to Efferen, we realized that neither of us wrote down the directions to the student housing complex. Somehow we managed to find it without really knowing where we were. This part of the city, or suburb I suppose, is very different from the rest of Cologne I came to know, as it is very quiet, dark and lacking personality.
We found the party house as I said and once we got in I experienced another set of college flashbacks. The great thing about the party was that it was attended by students from at least 20 different countries. The loudest, of course, were the Brits (English and Irish to be exact), only because it seemed they were the majority of students. I chatted with a couple of people from Japan and South Korea. The Korean girl spoke excellent English even though she had never visited an English speaking country. I was very impressed as there are foreigners in the US who have lived in the States all their lives and don’t speak English as well as this girl does. Perfecting a language takes skill, but what impressed me is that I, for example, hadn’t started feeling comfortable speaking English until after having lived in the States for a few years.
We left the party kind of early (us old guys) to catch the train. We were lucky as we caught a 2am tram (another one wasn’t coming for another hour), but our luck was short-lived as our next connection was done for the night and we had to huff it across town. I managed to walk into my flat at around 3am; I must have walked at least 5 miles, I kid you not. The entire way home I kept thinking about a friend of mine, Matt, who once walked from Bloomington to Uptown in Minneapolis area (for those of you not from Minneapolis, this is a good 10-15 minutes drive).

Sunday, April 13th:
I woke up around 11am and saw a message from Nick asking me if I was up to going to Bonn for the day. Even though it was raining, I decided to go since I skipped the organized tour of Cologne’s twin city the previous week. We took the train from the Köln West train station and traveled about 30 minutes to Bonn’s central station. The great thing about this trip was that we got to ride for free as University of Cologne students. Once we arrived, we headed directly into town, which is within walking distance from the train station. We wanted to find a restaurant or café to have lunch. We walked past McDonald’s and Subway as we wanted to have a more meaningful, real German experience. Two minutes into our stroll through town we realized that the city was totally dead because it was Sunday. Two minutes later a torrential downpour started and neither of us had an umbrella, so we started running for our lives and like a thirsty bunch seeing an oasis in the desert, all we could see is a nice, warm shelter, which was none other but Pizza Hut. Now, I am one of those people who wouldn’t set a foot in a Pizza Hut in the US, let alone Europe. Pretty comical that by trying to avoid being a stereotypical American, we were forced by Mother Nature to go into the least German of restaurants in all of Bonn.
But Pizza Hut in Bonn is not your average Pizza Hut. We were greeted by 3 different people on our way in. We were asked which table we preferred and pretty much treated like celebrities. The waitress then came with two plates and silverware and took our orders. Do they even have silverware in Pizza Hut in the US? I wouldn’t know, to be honest, but really one could notice that of the American in this Pizza Hut was the food but nothing else, recognition by this company that their model needs to be altered in Europe for it to work.
We ate our pizza while all of a sudden it was really sunny outside. By the time we left the restaurant, you guessed it again, it started pouring again. We ran to the subway stop and got on the first train that came without really knowing where we were going. We wanted to see a museum and had heard from others that Haus der Geschichte (History House) was the place to go. Like another miracle, I saw a sign at the second train stop that pointed to Haus der Geschichte, so we hopped out the train and followed the sign.
The museum focuses on recent German history, starting with Hitler, so the 1930s and on. Both Nick and I were impressed at how much information about this era Germans are willing to show and therefore admit it being part of their recent history. I think most people deal with it well by not avoiding it but by confronting it as a way not to fall into the same trap again. Some of the images and footage shown on different screens were very powerful. I usually have a hard time with Holocaust images; and even though Schindler’s List is one of my favorite movies, I’ve only managed to watch it in its entirety once. One of my relatives was I believe an Auschwitz victim, while a couple of others managed to escape the Nazis on numerous occasions.
The second part of the exhibit focused on post war Germany, or Germanies. Interesting differences were shown, like the first Mercedes and Trabant (East German) cars. The quality of the two couldn’t be more different, and by only observing the two one could just sense that East Germans weren’t given a chance. Then the exhibit showed pictures of millions of Stasi files; images closely related to the ones described in the movie “Other People’s Lives”. There were also 3 big pieces of the Berlin Wall on display.
All in all the day went ok, but maybe visiting Bonn on a Sunday is not such a good idea, especially when it’s raining.

Monday, April 14th:
Another school week started. On Monday I had 3 classes, but 2 were really extra sessions of my Tuesday class. In Germany, most courses come with an Übung (exercise) and a Tutorium (tutorial) sessions. The first is geared towards working on problems with the TA, the second is more of a discussion session. They are optional sessions, but being the good student that I am (for now), I attended both. The Tutorial session was a case study discussion. This was very different than case study discussion at the U of M. The TA asked a question, when someone answered, she showed the given “correct” answer on the overhead projector and all of the students took their time to write the answers down word by word. In the US, the Professor uses the given “correct” answers to keep himself/herself on task, but lets the students lead the discussion and only intervenes when necessary. The point of a case study is to put oneself in the shoes of a manager and given the data or facts try to come up with a plausible game plan. I am not sure that the German way of addressing these is really giving the students practice; in other words the answers to the case are really a guideline, but the purpose should be to challenge students to identify strategies that might even be better than what the case suggests.
The one real class I attended was “19th Century Germany and Europe and the Economic Development”. I am not sure I will be taking this class, but I went to it to take a look at it. The professor is really young and fun. His approach to class is awesome, by relating current events to events that happened over 100 years ago. He picked on students a bit by asking them questions, but it was all in good nature; I believe he does it to keep you awake and keep the sessions interesting.

Tuesday, April 15th:
Another day in class……….but it was over by 11:30 am. On this day I went to see FC Köln soccer team play. Alex, a German friend with Russian origins, took me to the game. He is as big of a soccer fan as me. During each of Cologne’s games, the city runs an extra Tram Line, named E and only soccer fans board these trams. It takes you directly to the Stadium. Once we got there, I of course bought a little souvenir, an FC Köln scarf. Before the games here is not much different than tailgating before a Vikings game. There were plenty of beer tents and street vendors. The interesting part was when the opposing team’s fans showed up escorted by police on horses. There were no incidents, apparently these two teams aren’t as big of rivals, which is ok, it will make my mom happy to know that this time around I was safe (as a young kid I snuck in a city derby game, which usually is preceded and followed by two fan bases fighting each other).
The game was a lot of fun. The stadium holds about fifty five thousand, but on this night there were only forty thousand in attendance. FC Köln won 2:0 and the fans went absolutely berserk each time their team scored; I of course did the same; as the saying goes: when in Rome….
Tuesday night is a social night at Flannigan’s Irish Pub. Nick, Dieu, Kerstin, Svenia, and I met up there. It was another bar that was extremely packed with students. It was ok to begin with, but as the night progressed it became overwhelming with the number of people and the cigarette smoke. We left around midnight and went home.

Wednesday, April 16th:
My Wednesday classes were either canceled or postponed to a later date. So with no class and nothing else to do, Nick and I (los gringos) took off for Düsseldorf. This is the city about 35km north of Cologne. There is a historic rivalry between these two cities that used to be really heated but now is still kept alive in mutual jokes about each other. The rivalry nowadays is expressed by the two different beers these two cities brew and love. Cologne, as mentioned earlier, is proud of it’s Kölsch; Düsseldorf, on the other hand, loves its Alt. The difference, the temperatures they are brewed at, which makes Kölsch light in color and Alt darker.
Most people in Cologne will tell you that Düsseldorf carries this indifferent mentality and that its people, unlike those in Cologne, are very standoffish. With that in mind we got to Düsseldorf expecting to be spit on or beaten up (haha). The lady at the tourist info center was really nice; but that’s her job so no big surprise there. In reality, Düsseldorf is very business oriented and it shows. There were hardly any people on the streets during work hours (in Cologne there are always people on the street due to its big student population). The city is pretty clean, and it reminds you a bit of an American city. Its old town doesn’t seem or look that old, and its modern part is its trademark. In the pictures I posted earlier you can see a few buildings to get a sense of the modern architecture at work.
We took advantage of the Rhein Turm observatory, which is about 180 or 200 meters high; not quite the John Hancock building in Chicago but still a great view. The windows in the observatory are tilted at a (I am guessing here) 45 degree angle, so if you’re standing right up against the glass and look down, it seems like you’re floating in the air. Not recommended for those of you who are afraid of heights or suffer from vertigo.
After having walked for miles we decided to head to a local spot for some food. Nick brought a tourist book and found a place that is not very touristy (how’s that for an oxymoron?). The place had lunch menu, which was significantly cheaper than its regular menu. We both ordered Wiener Shnitzel mit Pommes und Salat and Alt beer of course. Since it was lunch menu I was expecting the portions to be smaller, but the lady came with our plates full. We both had two big Shnitzels, and basically had a hard time keeping the food on our plates. Definitely a great find!

Thursday, April 17th (Today):
I had my first German course lesson today. It was fun to be exposed to learning a foreign language again. Most students in my class are European with a few exceptions: two girls are from Mexico and a couple of people are from China and Japan.
Also, today I finally received my ATM/Debit card from Deutsche Bank. So now I have an official bank account in Germany with one catch: no money on the account. That will change soon, but it is kind of ironic that a guy who works for the 5th largest American bank has a German bank account with no cash in it (sounds like something from a Seinfeld episode).
I just came back from my IFRS Financial Statements Analysis class. I am actually learning quite a bit about IFRS regulations and how they differ from US GAAP. From what I’ve learned so far, IFRS is a bit more lenient than its US GAAP counterpart, and interestingly enough the US companies will (and some already are) have to adopt this set of standards due to their global operations. During the class I asked a few questions that the professor had to explain the differences between IFRS and US GAAP. At first I felt bad because I thought I was being this arrogant American caring only about rules that pertain to the US, but after the class the professor encouraged me to pose more such questions as the other students have probably not been exposed to US GAAP in the same manner that I have not been exposed to IFRS.
And that’s all I have for last week developments, which leads me into the final topic of this post.

Travel Plans
In the last few days I have pretty much filled my free time and weekends with planned trips. Here they are:

April 19-20 Frankfurt
May 3-6 London
May 13-16 Barcelona
May 16-20 Stockholm
May 23-26 Prague
June 5-8 Amsterdam
TBD – Paris, Munich, Berlin, Brussels

Arrivederci

Stasha