Travel, Art and all that Jazz
Cologne was fantastic. It is a truely beautiful city and I would recomend visiting it to anyone. Im not exaclty sure what I expected, Ive been to Munich and Berlin before and enjoyed both cties, but Cologne had something really special about, a very unique character.Everybody that Ali and I came into contact with was extremly friendly, and willing to put up with my feeble german. Next time I go (I definatly want to go again) Im going to ensure that I speek a lot more German; the all too common and extremly arrogent British attitude that you do need to bother learning other langauges infuritates me. The ability to speek foreign languages is an amazing skill and something that I would love to be better at.
Ali and I were staying right near the centre (also on the edge of the gay district) so we were in the perfect location to see as much of the gorgeous arcatecture as we could fit into five days. The cathedral was espically sepctacular, and once we'd foced our unwilling legs up the 500 plus steps to the top the tower the view over the Rhine was brilliant.
My views on grand religious buildings like that are always a little ambiguous, on the one hand most Cathedrals, Colonges being a prime example, are beautiful buildings, that show incredbile skill in construction and artistry in design, but on the other the majourity of the population at the time(Cologne cathedral was started in the 13th century) would have been kept out, either flatly refused entry or frozen out intellectually as most services were conducted in Latin, that only the rich or those in the church (oddily enough frequently overlapping categories) could understand. Then there's the fact the these buildings cost an obscene ammuont of money, it seems quite hipercritcal to me for the church to spend millions on places of worship while many of it congregation are in poverty (this is still the case in central and south America). Having said all of that I would still very much like to visit the Vatican one day, although I cant quite pinpoint exactly why, being as I am of no religious persuasion.
Another great palce we visited was the Museum Ludwig, a huge modern art gallery. The gallery had a lot of Picasso's early work, which was really interesting, as Ive only really seen his later more serealist stuff. There were early 1930's sketches on display and you could really see how his more famous later style developed, for want of a better word it was cool. The best bit of it for be though was the Henri Cartier Bresson exibition. He's always been one of my favourite photographers. His work was deceptivly simple, but he had a way of capturing a moment, and all the emotion behind it almost perfectly. Tiny little humam details which can change a whole scene, very emotive and unconventially beautiful. Although many of his photos were of people in extreme poverty and opression, they seemed to me to show hope in some way, the strength of the human will.
The night life in Cologne, is pretty damn good to. The fact that bars dont stop serving at eleven like they do here not olny meant that we could stay and enjoy our cocktails for a lot longer, but also meant that there wasn't the same amd rush to drink as much as you can before closing, resulting in a whole load of drunken twats pouring out at the same time. I wish we had that system in Britian.
Now im back in the uk its back to work (I should be going to bed,as my shift starts at six) and then lectures start again soon. Im looking forward to starting the second year, my brain needs to be engaged again, a summer of being a till monkey has been pretty mind numbing. Hopefully second year will be as fun as the first, and with better connected laectures. Also I hope it will contain many more evenings of being happily curled up on the sofa with the boy x
Ali and I were staying right near the centre (also on the edge of the gay district) so we were in the perfect location to see as much of the gorgeous arcatecture as we could fit into five days. The cathedral was espically sepctacular, and once we'd foced our unwilling legs up the 500 plus steps to the top the tower the view over the Rhine was brilliant.
My views on grand religious buildings like that are always a little ambiguous, on the one hand most Cathedrals, Colonges being a prime example, are beautiful buildings, that show incredbile skill in construction and artistry in design, but on the other the majourity of the population at the time(Cologne cathedral was started in the 13th century) would have been kept out, either flatly refused entry or frozen out intellectually as most services were conducted in Latin, that only the rich or those in the church (oddily enough frequently overlapping categories) could understand. Then there's the fact the these buildings cost an obscene ammuont of money, it seems quite hipercritcal to me for the church to spend millions on places of worship while many of it congregation are in poverty (this is still the case in central and south America). Having said all of that I would still very much like to visit the Vatican one day, although I cant quite pinpoint exactly why, being as I am of no religious persuasion.
Another great palce we visited was the Museum Ludwig, a huge modern art gallery. The gallery had a lot of Picasso's early work, which was really interesting, as Ive only really seen his later more serealist stuff. There were early 1930's sketches on display and you could really see how his more famous later style developed, for want of a better word it was cool. The best bit of it for be though was the Henri Cartier Bresson exibition. He's always been one of my favourite photographers. His work was deceptivly simple, but he had a way of capturing a moment, and all the emotion behind it almost perfectly. Tiny little humam details which can change a whole scene, very emotive and unconventially beautiful. Although many of his photos were of people in extreme poverty and opression, they seemed to me to show hope in some way, the strength of the human will.
The night life in Cologne, is pretty damn good to. The fact that bars dont stop serving at eleven like they do here not olny meant that we could stay and enjoy our cocktails for a lot longer, but also meant that there wasn't the same amd rush to drink as much as you can before closing, resulting in a whole load of drunken twats pouring out at the same time. I wish we had that system in Britian.
Now im back in the uk its back to work (I should be going to bed,as my shift starts at six) and then lectures start again soon. Im looking forward to starting the second year, my brain needs to be engaged again, a summer of being a till monkey has been pretty mind numbing. Hopefully second year will be as fun as the first, and with better connected laectures. Also I hope it will contain many more evenings of being happily curled up on the sofa with the boy x