1. Essen Spiel
Though we've never really gone to any big conventions before that weren't for work, our love for board gaming has grown like crazy the past two years. So when we saw that the world's largest board game convention took place shortly after our move, we just had to go. Essen is not far from Cologne, less than an hour by train. Tickets were only about 18 Euro for the convention, far less than the 40 Euro (round trip) for the train.
2. Street Art Bike Tour
Biking is a major mode of transportation throughout Europe, but we haven't biked much the past...uh... ten years, and our only experience biking in a big city was a bike tour in Chicago this past summer. That had been a lot of fun, in spite of the heavy rain through the second half of the tour, so we thought another bike tour would be a great way for us to get accustomed to biking in our new city.
Colonia Activ offered a couple of bike tours, and we opted for the Street Art tour. During previous visits, we had seen a couple of murals on the sides of buildings, and it seemed the type of tour that would be hard to replicate on our own. There were many fantastic pieces we never would have known about. It was another successful bike tour, again in spite of rain.
3. Museum Night
One Friday night, a substantial number of Cologne's museums participated in a city-wide Museum Night. For 20 Euro, participants were provided transit and entry to the museums between 7 PM and 2 AM. Some of the larger museums we passed, like the Walraf-Richartz museum, had a huge line to get in, though they were featuring Rembrandt works so no surprise.
For our night, we visited Kolbhalle Artist Community, Bunker K101, the workshop of the local Banana Sprayer, the Ubier Monument, and ended at the Chocolate Museum, though just to get a couple of hot chocolates.
4. Start of Carnival
Around here, they say there are actually 5 seasons, with the 5th being Carnival. It is a massive party with a full week of activities and celebration in February, but it all starts on 11/11 at 11:11. We were warned many times that if we weren't ready to jump in the deep end, maybe we should avoid going out that day. Even though we didn't jump into the party and get wasted by noon, we wanted to see what the big deal was.
The main gathering area was in Altstadt, the historic city center. Unfortunately, we didn't actually make it there to see the madness because it was so incredibly crowded, the police had barricades up and party-goers were lined up a long ways, hoping enough people would leave to give them a chance to get in. Even though we didn't get to the main attraction, the entire city was dressed up and out in force. Think Halloween, but without a focus on being scary.
5. Chocolate Market
Just outside the Chocolate Museum, a large number of vendor's tents were strung along for the Chocolate Maker's Market. A bunch of vendors came from Italy, Belgium, and elsewhere to sell a variety of chocolate goods, chocolate liquors, chocolate art (as in somebody painting with dark chocolate on a white chocolate background), and of course, winter-appropriate food and drink. Our culinary curiosities included white gluhwein (mulled wine), gluhbier (mulled beer), melted milk chocolate in a cone, a variety of chocolate truffles, and Argentinian empanadas.
Those are the highlights of what we've gotten to do and see the past 6 weeks and with the holiday season upon us, the next 6 weeks promise to bring some of the most fun yet. Weihnachtsmarkt (the Christmas markets) start tomorrow, the Cologne Zoo has a Chinese Light Festival starting soon, and the Cologne Philharmonic orchestra's season is in full swing.
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