Fun With Broken Bikes/Köln, Part 1

I have had a very long day yesterday.

Things got off to a really outstanding start at about 9:45 this morning when, on the way to the pool, as Molly and I slogged through construction, crowds, and pouring rain behind the Hauptbahnhof, my chain snapped mid-pedal. The snapping process took only a fraction of a second, but it had all kinds of fun all-day-type consequences. Let’s run down the list:

1. My morning swim was off the table. My Wednesdays are tightly scheduled, and without a bike there was no way to make it to the pool and back to “campus” (Humbodlt has no proper campus, but most of the buildings are clustered in the same part of the city) in time for French. So, instead of feeling post-workout refreshed and good about myself, I got to be frustrated and stressed out about finding my way around town on unfamiliar public transit. I eventually worked it out with the help of my map, some friendly employees in yellow vests, and good old trial and error, which was a sort of an accomplishment, but if you give me a choice between riding my bike and learning about a bus system, I will choose “ride my bike” every time.

2. When the chain snapped, it caught in a gear and brought the bike to an instant and complete stop. I, being a bit more massive than even my stainless steel Eastern Bloc bicycle, continued traveling forward and whacked my left knee pretty good against the handlebars. The pain was never too bad, but it stayed tender all day. I eventually developed a kind of zombie shuffle/Bruce Willis in Die Hard limp that earned me a few stares and multiple unsolicited suggestions that I go to a doctor. (SPECIAL NOTICE TO MY MOTHER: it feels better this morning, and if it starts hurting again today I really will go to a doctor.) As you might imagine, my slow, wincing gait—I was maybe as fast as a distracted toddler, or like a dachshund* tied to a cinder block—only made getting around through the rain on unfamiliar routes on a busy day into even more of a challenging, exciting learning experience.

3. I was fairly close to the bike shop where I’d had my pedals and tires replaced, and I had a bit of time thanks to my cancelled swim, so I lugged Molly onto a tram and went to get the bad news. 25 euros was the damage for a new chain, installation, lubrication, and adjustment of the chain guard that was probably responsible for the snappage. Despite the euro’s historically low value these days, 25 smackers is still a pretty hefty sum for a poor student like yours truly. I finally managed to get my Begrüßungsgeld (“Greeting money,” 100 euros the German government gives to foreign students for some reason) later that day, so I was able to pay my bike bill without going to an ATM—always nice—but now I barely have enough free government money to replace my worn-out American Levis with no doubt overpriced Berliner Levis, with probably nothing left to help offset my (relatively) massive Köln expenditures.

4. Okay, this one wasn’t an immediate consequence of the broken chain, but it followed pretty much directly from it: on the long (but very direct—I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, public transit in Berlin is amazing) tram ride from the bike shop back home, I noticed that my front tire was flat. Although I did find a little hunk of glass embedded in the rubber, I found the whole situation a little fishy, for two reasons. Firstly, I certainly didn’t have a flat before the whole chain fiasco, and it seems unlikely to me that I managed to get a flat tire while walking my bike from tram stop to tram stop. Secondly, this has happened before, at the same bike shop. I brought in my bike to get a broken pedal and a chronically flat front tire replaced, and later that afternoon I discovered that my rear tire, which had never had problems, was dead flat. Being a naturally forgiving and trusting person, I decided that the dudes at the shop had probably not cut a hole in my tire in an effort to get another 17 euros from a dumb American, but I filed the information away for future consideration. Now it has happened again, and I no longer trust my regular bike shop. I can probably find something cheaper in my new neighborhood anyways—ideally some kind of bike collective where I can learn how to do minor repairs/tuning by myself.

*”Dachshund” is a German word, literally “badger dog,” in reference to the tubular dachshund’s original, terrifying purpose as a breed: going down tunnels and driving badgers from their pitch black subterranean dens.

So that was yesterday’s defining moment. I did eventually get a gentle, knee-friendly swim in (after another round of embarrassing yet effective circumlocution—I need a thing, it’s like a kickboard because it is floaty, but instead of holding it in front of you you put it between your legs, so you don’t have to kick—I learned that the German word for pull buoy is “Pullbuoy”), and I got my self and my bike home without further damage (besides that stupid flat).

Now, about Köln: I did a lot of things and, more importantly, took a lot of photographs in Köln. In the interest of ever getting any of this information up here on the world wide web where it belongs, I am going to break it up into three or four big ol posts, instead of one monstrously long post. Today I’ll cover packing, the train, and Köln very early in the morning.

I packed light for this trip, just my trusty old backpack and a little knapsack full of food, including these carrots with a picture of a kid who frankly looks less than thrilled about carrots:

couldn’t they have found a child with more enthusiasm for carrots

And this terrible bottle of Old Man brand scotch, purchased because it was cheap, because I ain’t had scotch in a long while, but really primarily because it was Old Man brand:And a bunch of other food, not pictured because I don’t have any jokes about it.
(Q: Knock knock. A: Who’s there? Q: Bread!)

Now anybody who knows anything about me knows that Adventure is my middle name, and Crazy-McSpontaneity is my other middle name, and I think Phil’s middle name is Michael, so naturally we couldn’t just travel with a regular, boring, garden-variety during-the-day sort of a train. No, we decided to be young and invincible (and cheap, although not really because we waited so long to buy tickets) and take the night train.

We pulled out of Berlin at 12:30 and rolled into Köln at about 6; the five and a half hours in between were not my favorite five and a half hours of the weekend. In fact, it was a highly unpleasant experience! Six of us were crammed in a little compartment, facing each other on two narrow benches with no reclining capacity whatsoever. The benches were fairly well-padded and I had a little elbow room; it would have been a slightly cramped but tolerable ride…had this been one of those regular, boring, garden-variety during-the-day sort of trains. This was a sexy exciting night train though, so I basically got to close my eyes and breathe deep while sitting bolt upright for five hours instead of sleeping. I was in the middle of the bench, so I couldn’t really lean left or right, and this old woman sitting across from me kept putting her feet up on my seat.

Alright, I think I have complained about my first-world train ride problems enough. The only important thing about this train is that it did not in fact go straight to Heck. It went to Köln. Look, here is the train station in the misty morning:
We had had vague plans to sleep away the morning in a park or something, but the single-digit (Centigrade, naturally) temperature kept us moving, hazy and confused, through the empty early streets of Köln. I like this deserted Platz—every chair represents a tourist who is still sleeping in a feather bed somewhere.
Thanks to the excitement of being in a new place and in a ridiculous sort of situation, I was able, through sheer force of will, to avoid Grouchy Tired and go straight to Goofy Tired. This is the vaguely pleasant, heady sort of fatigue where everything is funny and strange for a while. I guess I was basically a little drunk off of lack of sleep, which was whole worlds better than being really pissy about it.

Phil—who plays him a little guitar and studies music technology—drooled over this music shop for a while. The key-tar was a steal at a mere 888 euros:

i'm sorry guys i didn't buy it i only had 887

We eventually found the first breakfast place open in central Köln. We ate some hard boiled eggs and bread, and nursed a couple cups of coffee while it warmed up outside, watching the early morning customers: a business man in a black suit, probably up to catch a flight; a tough old crusty bike messenger in workpants and a canvas cap; a couple of gay dudes, one of them wearing women’s cowboy boots and fl-aming, on the tail end of their night out.

Phil, who ain’t much of a “posin’ fer pictures” sort of feller, was insane enough with fatigue to drool over this enormous jar of Nutella that the very patient woman behind the register was nice enough to furnish us with.
The coffee was good but eventually gone, so we moved on to the next step in our extremely vague morning plans: “go look at the river.” Köln is on the celebrated Rhein, Germany’s Mississippi, the big-daddy father-figure nation-defining highway of the soul for Deutschland, and I gotta say, I thought it lived up to the hype. The Rhein ended up being kind of the focal point of this whole excellent trip, and it is my new favorite German river.

We pulled on our packs and tromped across the nearest bridge. This particular bridge is apparently home to a tradition where you and your sweetheart write/scratch/engrave your names on a padlock, then lock that padlock to this fence. Because there is no greater symbol for our love than a hunk of mass produced steel hanging uselessly from a chain link fence. I photographed this part because I thought it was particularly dense with love-locks:And then 25 meters I found out how wrong I was:Some sets of lovebirds made half-hearted attempts to personalize or differentiate their locks—lock is red, lock has a heart painted on it, lock is heart-shaped—but nobody could hold a candle to Lorena and Jan’s display on the opposite railing:They must really love each other.

I guess this must be the Weird Communal Display Commemorative Bridge or something, because the opposite bank featured this awesome Michael Jackson shrine:The candles were out, but the flowers were fresh. I guess the morning flower guy didn’t have a lighter on him.

Out of all the many excellent images, many of them lovingly removed from magazines over decades, this was my favorite:

Michael Jackson is extremely pleased with this photo

The opposite bank also featured this surprisingly comfy rock-filled bench, Situated just above this mossy drain that Phil felt compelled to take a million pictures of. In his defense, it looked pretty cool:

We eventually got our fill of the Neustadt (Neustadt means new city, and although the part of town on the eastern bank is thoroughly old, it is in fact new in comparison to the Altstadt [old city] that was once a bustling metropolis on the northern edge of the Roman Empire) and tromped back towards the center of town. I liked this boat:And Willi Ostermann struck me as a fine, respectable name for such a boat:

this is my boat, willi ostermann

This isn’t a bad picture of this American flag banner, but I get sort of distracted by that big weird church thing in the background. What is that, anyways?

OOOOOHHH it’s Köln (Cologne) Cathedral, the biggest darn church in Germany and tallest church in the world! I almost forgot!

Here is one of the less ornate out of the way side doors. Phil included for scale.

I gotta get this up on the internet and get my flat fixed and go eat food with friends, so believe I’ll leave you all with this big beautiful thing for now.

Did this seem like a strange start to a vacation? Well it gets stranger. Köln Phase Two: The Bizarrening coming up later this weekend, hopefully.

P.S.: I have been getting a lot of postcards and letters and it is extremely great! I need to write ya’ll back and recognize ya’ll up here on the blog eventually but for now please accept this all-around Thank You You’re Great! Send me more things! Joe Mauer Postcard Contest remains (mostly) wide open!