Köln

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Mikael’s aunt was working today so Mikael and I spent the day in Cologne (Köln), it was less than an hour drive and we got to see yet another new city on this trip. We had four stops in Köln and then another last event before this day was over.

First stop: Music Store

Mikael has been talking about getting a new guitar for so long now and he remembered that Köln hade a mega big music shop so we started our day there and he found his dream guitar that was a bit out of his price range the last time he was there. He noted it and will look it up back in Sweden once we are home. 1,5 hours felt not a single minute more than 20 minutes for this happy chap :).

 

Second stop: Früh Kölsch

The second stop was lunch at a very famous brewery from 1904 right in front of the Köln Cathedral: Früh Kölsch. Mikael hade been there before and knew what to order: Himmel und Äärd (black pudding, mashed potato and apple and roasted onion). I thought I was grown up enough to try and order something fun and exciting. But I made a mistake. I should have gotten the same as Mikael, the beef tartare was not to my taste buds liking. I have had beef tartar at Meet (a meat restaurant in Gothenburg) and it was so delicious), this was not quite the same. Even if I mixed everything like you were supposed to, I just couldn’t really find the charm. This is one of the first times I have been disappointed with what I have ordered. Like ever. So sad.

This place is also famous for the waitresses putting a new beer in front of you right after you finish the one you just drank unless you put the cover on top of your glass. And they just will continue to come until you’ve put it there. Not today though, maybe they were too busy?

 

Third stop: Kölner Dom (Cologne Cathedral)

We then went to the main attraction of this city, the Kölner Dom, the Cathedral of Cologne. It’s construction started in 1248 and ended in 1881 when it was inaugurated. 632 years of construction! Insane. But with 300 years of break when no one wanted to finance this monstrosity. It was a really impressive cathedral. I’ve seen my fair share of them while traveling but this one, with the two towers and immeasurable amount of details was in the top, for sure. The winner is without a doubt La Sagrada Familia in Barcelona, but it’s  competing in its own league. We walked around inside for a bit and then we bought entry tickets to one of the towers. 9 minutes later, we were up at the top, enjoying the view over all of Köln. Incredible!

 

Fourth stop: Chocolate Museum

We bought bubble tea on the way to the last stop in Köln and walked along Rhein. The chocolate museum was really great. It had a lot of focus on sustainability and covered many different aspects of cocoa farming. Poverty, child labour, deforestation and so on. I thought that was great.

They showed the process of making Lindt chocolate and then they had a store at the end. I bought a little for the way back to Bonn.

 

Evening in Bonn: Brothers in Arms (Dire Straits coverband in Biergarten)

The day ended at the golf course where we had a cup of coffee before heading over to the other end of the big park where they, every night during summer (except Monday’s) have a cover band in a biergarten and they serve food. Tonight was a band who played Dire Straits songs. It was great! They played all the songs that I really like. The currywürst was amazing and the company was really nice. Mikael and I were youngest by probably a couple of decades but I loved it. All the oldies danced along to the songs and it was such a great atmosphere!

Super tired now after a long and touristy day, but we experience so much on this trip.

Drachenfels and Bonn

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What a lovely day in Siebengebirge and Bonn we have had! Most of the time, it was me, Mikael, Ina (his aunt) and Molly, the dog. Ina drove around through the forested mountains (Siebengebirge) and it was so beautiful!

We started the day at Petersburg Spa and Resort on top of one of the seven mountain tops in the area. It used to be the place where politicians of high rank stayed, presidents and such. Now, it’s a very fancy hotel with incredible view.

The next stop was Drachenfels, the next mountain top where there is a ruin at the very top and a fairly new castle a bit further down. The castle was built in 1883 and is very young compared to most of the castles down here in Germany. Molly was unfortunately not allowed inside the castle, so she and Ina waited outside while Mikael and I walked around inside. It was a cool castle. But you could tell that it was new, and it had taken furniture from different eras so it was not consistent with the 19th century for example.

The third and last stop of the day was at Die Rheinpiraten in Bonn, the adventure golf course that Ina and her husband Burkhardt opened in April last year. We have followed their journey and struggles of putting this dream of theirs into reality and it was so fun to see the final result. It was incredible! So well done and the quality of the course was amazing. Pretty decorations and fun courses. And that’s not everything. They have a biergarten where they sell drinks and light food. For lunch today, we took part in their flamekuchen tasting. On Monday they have to decide what to order, so they had 10 different types that needed to be tasted and evaluated. I’ve never had that before and apparently it’s a French pizza with a very thin crust. It was really good! I just realized that I didn’t take any photos of them, but you could google if you don’t know what they look like.

We have heard a lot of stories from Ina and Burki about what has happened there in the past year. As a former employee of a service place (Liseberg amusement park), I can relate to all of these hilarious stories. People :).

Around when they were about to close, the four of us went on the golf course. They had of course done it many times before, but Mikael and I did pretty well for the first time. 18 holes and reasonably hard courses. Mikael and I ended up getting exactly the same amount of points, so Ina picked a course to do over. We both got 2. But then I won on the next course Burki chose.

Afterward, we celebrated with ice cream, locally organically produced, and talked to Henning, their best employee.

A really great day in this local part of Germany 🙂 I know I might be a bit biased to family, but for reals, if you’re on Bonn, try out Die Rheinpiraten. Honestly the best adventure golf I’ve ever done. We have lots of them in Sweden, but none of them are themed, and this was such a great and well done theme very close to the Rhein.


Petersberg.

View from Petersberg over Bonn and Rhein.

Molly did so good on the trolley up to the Drachenfels.

Bad Honnef and Rhein.

The Drachenfels ruins.

We walked down to the castle from the ruins.
Winterskönig on this side of the Rhein, Bonn on the other side.
Schloss Drachenburg.

From on top of the tower.

They even had a beach at the course.

Roadtrip layover in Leipzig

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Today we started our trip west in Germany from Berlin to Bad Honnef. But we took a little detour to Leipzig, my father’s hometown. Our first stop was at his old apartment, where he grew up. Philip Rosenthal Straße 15. We went there, took a picture and sent to him and grandma. She replied instantly. So much fun!

Our next stop in Leipzig was die Mitte where lunch was waiting. We looked at Thomaskirsche, where Johann Sebastian Bach lies buried. It was an old church from 1212 if I didn’t misread.

We also looked at the old city hall building from 1556 and the new city hall building which was really pompous.

The second leg of today’s journey was 6 hours and in total we have been driving for almost 9 hours, all the breaks included. Not too bad when you share it.

We arrived in Bad Honnef at 19:30 and were greeted with an amazing barbecue dinner. We stayed up late talking about everything and therefore my post tonight is a bit short (and lacking pictures – I will update with pictures tomorrow!).


This is where my father grew up. According to my grandma, the window on the left was her and grandpa’s bedroom, and the window on the right was the living room. The kitchen and children’s room was on the other side, facing the courtyard.


Thomaskirche where Johann Sebastian Bach lies buried.


    
The new town hall in Leipzig was very pomupous.

And the old Rathaus, town hall was indeed very old.

Inner city of Leipzig was very pretty.

Berlin

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22 000 steps was walked today. My feet hurt, my legs are tired, it was warm, but it was such a great day. I didn’t think it was too warm, but if you ask Mikael, he says it was, haha! I guess it was around 26C, but we were not out under direct sun most of the day.

We started the day by going to Brandenburg Tor which is the monument of peace. We also saw the Reichtag building right next to it. Our next stop was the Berlin Zoo via Voi’s. It was a little bit too far to walk.

I could have spent many more hours in the zoo. I love watching animals. But we left after 4,5 hours so we would have time to do other things. We didn’t get to see the red pandas or the tigers. Both were hiding in their dens when we walked past. Too bad. The polar bear was not there (do they move them in the summer?) nor were the otters there.

After the zoo we went to look at the Holocaust memorial. We saw so many taking “cute” couple pictures or “influencers” posing. So tacky! Show some respect.

Surprisingly enough, there aren’t any museums of WWII in Berlin. Mikael really wanted to see something about it but we had to do the next best thing. There currently is an exhibition called Roads not Taken which reviews 14 events in the German history in the past 150 years that led up to where they are today. We only got 45 minutes there before they closed, but it was interesting. I find it very hard to take in political information though, but I think Mikael learned a new thing or two.

Back to the hotel for a quick shower, then to Treffpunkt Berlin, a small restaurant very close to our hotel. The food was great, the service was great. And it felt very local and genuine. Can recommend.

This cute little desert cat was playing with a dead mouse.
There was this super chill kangaroo that was lying on its side and staring at us. Haha!

Californian sea lions kinda made me miss Cali a bit. They were jumping around in their wave pool.

There  were hippos. It’s hard to believe that this clumsy animal is one of the world’s most dangerous.
We saw the feeding of the gorillas. The young one was circling around and was adorable. When the zoo keeper threw food in the proximity of the mother and the child, the mother bonked the young one in the head so she could reach the food first. How rude!

This 18-year old male looked at us all very suspiciously. But he was gorgeous with his silver back.

Meerkats are adorable!
Knacker mit sauerkraut at Treffpunkt Berlin. 80m from our hotel. Really nice service, really good food!
Apfelstrudel mit both vanilla sauce, whipped cream and vanilla ice cream. Insane!

Roadtrip to Germany!

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The alarm went off at 2am this morning. Does that even count as morning? I had, for the first time in a very long time, extremely hard to fall asleep, so I only got 2,5 hours of sleep. Good thing we decided to get a room on the ferry from Trelleborg to Rostock so we could get some sleep. It was so well needed. Mikael drove all the way from Gothenburg to Trelleborg and I drove all the way from Rostock to Berlin. It was fun driving on the Autobahn, I managed to get up to 160 kmh before the traffic hit. It was so slow for more than an hour. Completely still at times. It was hard, even with our automatic car.

We booked the hotel on Stena Line before we fell asleep. We decided to go with Maritim proArte in central Berlin. Everything seems to be within walking distance. We checked in, parked the car in the garage and got ready to leave. We had no idea where to go. City centre/downtown Berlin seems to be everywhere. We ended up looking at some old buildings and walking along Spree where we found a restaurant. Had dinner, walked along the river the other way around back to the hotel where a night of longed-for sleep awaits. It hasn’t been too bad today, but I do feel exhausted now. 15 hours traveling, only 5,5 hours of sleep divided into two sessions. Tomorrow will be fun in the sun! 🙂 Sweden has really bad weather now, haha.

The cabin at Stena Line.

Rostock from the 9th floor on Stena Line while going in to the harbor.

Just another hotel room.

We both overdressed. We thought it looked shadow-y outside, that it was probably a little cooler. But no. 28C is still 28C, haha!

Humboldt Universität.

Berliner Dom.

Spree.

Schnitzel and currywurst dinner by the Spree.

Museuminsel (museum island).

Review of “The Path of Daggers” by Robert Jordan

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Title: The Path of Daggers
Author: Robert Jordan
Series: Wheel of Time #8
Narrator: Michael Kramer and Kate Reading
Genre: Fantasy
Length: 23 hours 25 minutes
Published: 2008, MacMillan Audio (originally published 1998)
My Grade: 2.5 out of 5

GOODREADS’ DESCRIPTION

The Seanchan invasion force is in possession of Ebou Dar. Nynaeve, Elayne, and Aviendha head for Caemlyn and Elayne’s rightful throne, but on the way they discover an enemy much worse than the Seanchan.

In Illian, Rand vows to throw the Seanchan back as he did once before. But signs of madness are appearing among the Asha’man.

In Ghealdan, Perrin faces the intrigues of Whitecloaks, Seanchan invaders, the scattered Shaido Aiel, and the Prophet himself. Perrin’s beloved wife, Faile, may pay with her life, and Perrin himself may have to destroy his soul to save her.

Meanwhile the rebel Aes Sedai under their young Amyrlin, Egwene al’Vere, face an army that intends to keep them away from the White Tower. But Egwene is determined to unseat the usurper Elaida and reunite the Aes Sedai. She does not yet understand the price that others—and she herself—will pay.

 

MY REVIEW

23 hours must be his shortest book, isn’t it? It didn’t feel short though.

I must admit that I am starting to lose some faith in this series now, eight books in. It’s slow. Like really slow. There are so many characters, new ones introduced all the time. And even if they have small roles, they mix up with the main characters and it’s really hard to follow and understand the interactions between characters. Which of course makes it impossible to follow the story as well as I might have wanted to.

Did things really happen except in the last 6 chapters? It sure doesn’t feel like it. Some scenes are memorable, but they are few. For example when the Asha’man start to feel the taint on saidin, or when Elayne is back at the throne room in Caemlyn. Or just all the story in the White Tower. I am not starting to symphatize with Elaida, the Amyrlin Seat of the White Tower, but I realize as I’m trudging along that I want to know what will happen to her and Tar Valon in general.

The last 6 chapters were memorable. Things happened. There was a war, many plot twists that were a little bit hard to follow along with.

This middle part of the series is slower but I will make it through to the end. But this one gets 2.5 out of 5. The lowest of the series so far. I hope it will turn upward now.

Review of “A Crown of Swords” by Robert Jordan

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Title: A Crown of Swords
Author: Robert Jordan
Series: Wheel of Time #7
Narrator: Michael Kramer and Kate Reading
Genre: Fantasy
Length: 30 hours 24 minutes
Published: 2006, MacMillan Audio (originally published 1996)
My Grade: 3.5 out of 5

GOODREADS’ DESCRIPTION

Now ruling Tear, Andor, and Caemlyn, among other nations, Rand is recruiting all men capable of channeling to be trained as his Asha’man soldiers. The warrior Aiel clans have pledged loyalty to Rand, acknowledging him as their chief of chiefs, even though the Shaido Aiel remain a threat.

Split into two factions, the Aes Sedai of the White Tower and their rebel counterparts both seek to ally themselves with the Dragon Reborn. Rand knows all too well the manipulative nature of the Aes Sedai, no matter which side of their internal war they stand upon. But even he cannot predict just how desperate, cruel, and treacherous they can be.

And in the shadows, the Forsaken and the Dark One are conjuring even more chaos…

 

MY REVIEW

Thirty hours is on the “shorter” end for Jordan, for sure. But I’m still impressed that he manages to write that many pages on a storyline that takes place in basically just one place. Of course it doesn’t. But this book’s main focus lies with Nynaeve and Elayne and their quest of finding the bowl of winds in Ebou Dar. There are so many new characters introduced that I find it very hard to follow honestly. And it’s impossible to know whether a character is going to be of great importance or no. At this point, seven books into it, it’s starting to become a little confusing and overwhelming.

This book focused on fewer storylines than previous, at least it felt like it. And I’m not sure whether that is a good thing or if it’s better to jump between several characters all the time. With long sections at a time, there are so many details crammed into the story which makes it a little bit harder to focus sometimes. But at the same time, it’s better to really get into the story.

Another thing that is starting to bug me is the descriptions of people. They are always the same. I have lost count on how many times a new female character is described as slender…

It’s still a good listen. But I really want it to move forward now. The story is progressing way too slow. But I’m not gonna give up, I’ve heard that it will end epically!

3.5 out of 5 for this instalment in Wheel of Time by Robert Jordan.

Review of “Elantris” by Brandon Sanderson

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Title: Elantris
Author: Brandon Sanderson
Genre: Fantasy
Pages: 638
Published: 2005, Tor Fantasy
My Grade: 5 out of 5

GOODREADS’ DESCRIPTION 

Elantris was the capital of Arelon: gigantic, beautiful, literally radiant, filled with benevolent beings who used their powerful magical abilities for the benefit of all. Yet each of these demigods was once an ordinary person until touched by the mysterious transforming power of the Shaod. Ten years ago, without warning, the magic failed. Elantrians became wizened, leper-like, powerless creatures, and Elantris itself dark, filthy, and crumbling.

MY REVIEW

Why haven’t I read anything by Sanderson before this? I’ve heard so many great things about Sanderson in general. “Mistborn is supposed to be amazing”, “Stormlight Archive is the best ever”. Elantris I’ve been told has been incredible as well, but definitely his weakest novel. Which is understandable since it was his very first published book. I haven’t read anything by him until now. And all I can say is, if this is his weakest writing, I can’t wait to get into his other works!

At first, I had a hard time getting into the worldbuilding. So many new words were used like I was supposed to know them. If it is correctly written, you should know by context, but that wasn’t quite the case here. Of course, you got there eventually and forgot how much you didn’t understand at first.

Usually when there are multiple storylines and characters to follow, I pick favorites and there are some chapters I almost kind of want to skip, but of course don’t. But not with Elantris. I truly loved all three of the characters: Raoden, Sarene and Hrathen. I was as excited to read about Roaden’s experience inside Elantris, as of Sarene’s political plots outside in Kae as I was reading about Hrathen’s religious invasion and insecurities.

The absolute best part of Elantris was the worldbuilding though. Everytime I picked up the book, I was there. Every scene played up in my mind like it was right in front of me and that was so amazing! Many authors are great at that, but I think this was the best that I can remember ever reading.

Brandon Sanderson’s debut was fantastic and I’m sad I didn’t pick it up sooner. But I now know that I am in for a treat. This easily gets the highest grade, 5 out of 5!

Rejlers in Alicante day 3

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The last day in Spain with Rejlers was a very surprising one. Since this was a conference, we had to have some kind of organized activity together and the plan was for a few suppliers to hold product presentations. They introduced themselves and they all said things like: “During my hour of presentation, I will go over a detailed history, statistics, and an overview of all our products”, “We will take short breaks inbetween”, and so on. One slide said: “Does this seem like an okay agenda?” Everyone just nodded solemnly, because we did after all get a lot of free time and this was “the price to pay”, haha! The next slide said: “OR, we could go and do something fun instead?”

Haha, wow, they had us all fooled. Or at least some of us, me and Lisa didn’t really understand at first, maybe we were tired. They will have the product viewings back in Sweden and this day we focused on team building instead which I felt was very neccessary since I never work together with the other groups in Buildings Gothenburg. We were divided into 4 teams and first we had four stations with activities to solve together as a group. Then there was a very thorough scavenger hunt throughout Albir. They had done an amazing job of putting it together. It involved tasks such as dressing one person up as a pirate, doing a self portrait of one of the team members made out of toilet paper and the referees had to guess who it was. We built a tower out of the rocks on the beach. It was a really fun activity together. The self portrait of me made by toilet paper. I was the only one with long hair in our group so it was easy. Our beautiful rock tower.

It was much more windy than the day before so the rest of the day was spent by the pool except for two hours when we went for a walk to a lunch restaurant where I had the best grilled goatcheese sourdough sandwich ever.

The trip home started with our alarms going off at 3:50. Transfer to the airport at 4:20. Take off at 7:00 and then bus and tram all the way home. It sucked coming back to 8C and rain, but it also is very nice to be home. being around coworkers 24/7 (even if I didn’t join them at bars and nightclubs in the evenings) was exhausting for me as an introvert. Lisa was an amazing roomie though 🙂

I understand  why they booked the trip mostly on a weekend, but it was hard coming back home and going straight back to work and an overfull email inbox. Great trip though! 🙂

Rejlers in Alicante day 2

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The second day of RejTrip was spent on the beach. And yes, a Swede’s first real day in the sun definitely resulted in sunburns. Even if I had sunscreen on! But it was so great. Laying on the beach. Reading. Going in the water. Talking to coworkers. A full day on the beach was what I needed today. My original plan was to go to Alicante (we’re staying in Albir, 40min northeast of Alicante) and play beach volleyball with the local club. I was so excited, but last night I learned that the taxi would be 100 Euro. One way. No thank you. A small break could be good again.

Breakfast at the hotel was better than the dinner buffet. They had all the usual stuff. Nothing super extraordinary. Many people were hungover and Farid and Andreas didn’t even make it to breakfast because they felt so bad, haha! I’m glad I went to bed early because I’ve been feeling amazing all day. Lisa and Farid used electric scooters and went around the city. Andreas joined a big group of us at the beach at lunch time and people came and went through the day. Stefan and I were the two who stayed the longest, until 6pm.

The weather wasn’t great today though. The day started with amazing weather. Completely blue sky and 23C perhaps? Many people went in the water early on but I wanted to get a little bit warmer first. But I waited too long and when I should have felt ready, the sea smoke rolled in and it got cold. It lasted for so long, that fog usually clears pretty fast, but this didn’t. It was a while after lunch that it cleared and it got super nice again. By that time, Lisa and Farid had joined us and all of us from Project Management (except Annika, our boss), went into the ice cold water. It couldn’t have been more than 16C. It was cold. But I’m proud of myself for calming down and actually staying in for a bit. It didn’t take long after that when the fog rolled in again and it got cold once more. But the sun came out pretty quickly for the third time and the rest of the day was perfect.

 

The fog rolled in over the plateau.

It’s been like a typical Swedish summer day. The wind is kinda chilly, but the sun warms you up. I definitely wouldn’t mind 8C warmer though. I missed Gili T today, haha! 30C both on land and in the water, haha!

Dinner today was better than yesterday and Lisa and I decided to spend the evening in the room instead of going out and doing exactly what they did yesterday. We went for a walk in Albir, looking for a supermarket to buy some chips and snacks. Both of our bodies screamed after salt.

Tomorrow morning we will go for a run and do a workout at the beach before breakfast and at 9 we will start the conference part of this trip. So our alarms will ring at 6:30am, woho!