Brunch in Cologne

Wow. Managed to keep myself awake untill about 1:30a local time, then when I crashed, I crashed hard.  11:30a was when I finally drug myself out of the bed to get moving and let housekeeping in the room. I had a good hour long pedal around the windy streets of Cologne, wiping dust out of my eyes and looking for somewhere interesting to eat, but wound up settling for a place on Friesenplatz only a short walk away from my hotel, Bar Cologne. They've got a nice brunch set out, fresh food, and good prosecco.  There's a bit of the painfully hip young crowd here, with their white pants, black jackets, and red raybans, but in the interior of the building, there's young families, and a few grey haired people reading the paper, and I recall that things are a bit egalitarian in some corners.

This is strangely the first trip of the year for me, and really the first one that's to somewhere where I don't have some people I know already. It's not been too problematic, at least for the first day - there's lots of exploring to do.

The flight over was a non-event, and in fact a bit disappointing. I thought it would be packed, but there were empty seats scattered across the plane, including next to me. The 747 kind of stunk though, literally, and there were no personal video screens so I did my best to snooze to stuff on my ipod.  The train was full, even in business class, so while the economy is still in the doldrums, people are still getting around.  Today a nap is probably in order, then a trip to the Agrippabad to stretch out a bit. Maybe some sun.