Cologne Germany...for work...really!

Those of you who know me well know that I had the opportunitiy to change jobs last summer. I am now a member of the International Certification team for the Hawker Beechcraft Corporation (HBC). Well, one of the posibilities that I was very excited about was traveling to interact with the national aviation authorities in the various countries where HBC customers register their aircraft. The organization that overses aviation for the European Union (EU) is the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA)...located in Cologne, Germany.

So that is how I happen to be in Germany right now. So I want to share some of trip and my first day here. Oh, by the way, I'm traveling with my boss, Jim, and a colleague, Laura. Enjoy!

(And some of my pictures didn't turn out the way I had hoped, but I hope they communicate the city of Cologne any way.)

This is where I got my first stamp in my passport...

This is the high-speed train that we didn't need to take, but it was fun because the members of our team are International Certification Engineers...ICE! And we have a quasi-theme song, but that's for another post, baby.

This is the challenge we had finding a train...nolt only did we have to know the local time, but we had to know which stop we were getting off at. It was a good thing Jim was with us!

I had to stretch my neck slightly, but this is the Cologne city lights from my room at the Hyatt...right on the Rhine River.

This is the Cologne cathedral, I believe the name is Dom. It's beautiful at night and impressive in the day. The only detractor is the repairs and such underway.

Ah, our new best friends in Cologne, Linda and her husband Tielel (in the red vest) and the manager of Peter's Brauhaus. It was a great diner of beer, schnitzel, beer, apple strudel with ice cream, and you guessed it, beer. Good thing a glass is only .2 liter...Tielel is holding one. Did I mention that all the people in this picture speak only their native language? A 15 minute conversation took 2+ hours...and beer.

The massonry at the foot of this building was put in by the Romans when they settled on the rive...very cool.

This is the view of our hotel (the short square building) in front of the EASA building (tall round building behind hotel). I'm in the top of a spire of Dom. The following pictures are about how I got there...

Me outside the spire...yes I'm holding on!

The stairs going up...you have to either hug the wall, center post, or the person going the other directions to pass.

Here is a close up of the steps at the top. They haven't been replaced like many lower steps...notice the wear.

The descent! I kept thinking that if i had fallen going up, I would just bang my shin...but to fall on the way down would be quite another matter! Brave Jim was in front of me just out of sight; he would have probably broken my fall...glad we didn't test that theory!

Inside the cathederal...sorry they don't do it justice...

Stay tuned! We're going out again tonight for another diner adventure...with the big German dictionary this time...