With Daggi and Rolf in Cologne

              

Beautiful house and garden.

Daggi, Liane, Katrin, Rolf and Heather, dinner outside on a warm evening in Cologne.

Barbecue with Daggi and Rolf.

Cologne Cathedral – started in 1278!

Feline is good prospect for the Euro 2012 final.

Ripping down the autobahn at 140 kph, Mercs passing us at twice that speed, while the
Rolling Stones howl out Gimme Shelter!

Performance art – Euro 2012 put firmly in its place.

Quiet coffee in Bonn old town.

Peace outside Cologne.

The flash Paris-Cologne train – Thalys – took about three and a quarter hours traveling at 180 kph. Interesting views of the French, Belgian and the German countryside, but where are the animals? For all the agneau, boeuf and chevre on Parisian menus, hardly an animal to be seen.

The long, curving platform at Koln HBF (Cologne main station) disappeared far into the distance but from out of the sunset appeared a running, yelling figure with arms wide – it was Rolf last seen at Fairview over 30 years ago.  He and Daggi, who we met later at their lovely house, are like us, much the same only older. They live in the country, 20 minutes from Cologne and are wonderfully welcoming. The house was converted from an old half-ruined cottage and a barn, designed by architect Daggi and built by Rolf and friends. Later we met Liane and Katrin, twins born a few months before Sam.

Rolf is a respected performance artist in Germany and Daggi is an independent architect.  One evening Rolf took us to a performance of a group of artists that he organizes. On the way we picked up another artist, Beate with flaming red hair. She had props such as a naked mattress (springs only), a huge blow-up seat thing like a soccer ball, and two thigh-high prosthetic legs. Loading a small car with the props plus now four of us was obviously a problem and we offered to take the train back to Cologne. Rolf refused and we bent and squashed springs, snapped legs, and wobbled off. Beate asked for some calming music. So while the Stones sneered out Gimme Shelter at impossible decibels we roared down the autobahn at 140 kph while Mercs and BMWs passed us as if we were standing still. It was a bit surreal. H is a timid backseat driver (this is not true!! Blogger's wife) who does the peddle movements if she’s a passenger so I asked her if she was scared. She said she wasn’t and calmly looked out the window at the occasional nuclear power station. 

Lunch in front of Cologne Cathedral.

Daggi's strawberry tarts.

We got to Bonn at 4pm so H and I went for a walk into the old town for a coffee etc and we got lost, well I got lost; H unerringly navigated us home. I can’t do it any more. Later we watched the performances including Beate’s which included she belting the huge soccer ball around with a latex penis, showing Euro 2012 and all male sport 'what for'.

Went to the supermarket with Rolf. He sprinted ahead and lobbed groceries back into the trolley pushed by me. Fun!! Incidentally, it was stunningly cheap and made me realize what a high-cost place NZ is. Fruit, veg, wine, cheese, butter and bread is mostly all cheaper. Maybe it’s the buying power of over 80 million Germans.