A weeks work (and general boredom) in Aachen.

Trip Start Feb 21, 2004

Trip End Apr 26, 2004

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Flag of Germany Aachen, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany
Sunday, February 22, 2004

The scenery outside on the ride from Cologne to Aachen wasn't as pretty as that from Frankfurt to Cologne, but it was a short trip of about 45 minutes so I wasn't too fussed. After some confusion at a station in Aachen's outer suburbs (is this where I get off the train?! Does anyone speak english?!), it wasn't long before I was in Aachen's main train station.

My contact from head office, Dirk, picked me up and took me to my hotel, which was nothing more than a big brick box in the middle of a field. It was nice on the inside though! The day was spent in a dazed stupor wandering Aachen's beautiful narrow cobblestone streets, and being hit in the face by sweets thrown from kids on the floats, which were part of the Rosenmontag festival. After 3 hours sleep, I had a beer with Dirk, and then picked Pete (mate/work colleague) up from the train station, who I hadn't seen in 2 months, before grabbing a steak for dinner.

The week itself was pretty uneventful. We took a few hours off on the monday afternoon to participate in the Rosenmontag festivities, and freeze in the subzero temperatures outside! We had a few beers on the monday night at the hotel, and had dinner at Dirk's place with his partner Karen and gorgeous 3 week baby Lizzie on the thursday night. Friday night was the big game - Alemannia Aachen vs Greuther Furth! We donned our Aachen scarves (needed in the -5 degree temperature and snow) for the unfortunately boring game (0-0), but still had fun heckling the fool from Furth with the bleach blonde hair! Afterwards we joined Michael (work colleague in Aachen) for a pub crawl, and I eventually made it back to my hotel at 4:30am, drunk as a skunk, just 5 hours before I had to be on the train back to Cologne!

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