Trip to Bonn and Cologne, Germany

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Last Thursday, I took a four-hour train ride to Germany to celebrate the yearly Cologne Carnival that started at 11:11 on November 11.






And who was dressed up in a pink suit like someone from Saturday Night Fever when I stepped out of le train?
My friend, Martin!

Taller than six feet with a flamboyant suit and bright smile, he stood out in the crowd. What a great welcome to Deutschland!

We left all of mes affaires in a locker at the train station and headed to meet his friends and start the celebration.



Giant frogs, cats, cows and all kinds of colorful masqueraded people paraded on both sides of us while a group of musicians played an upbeat song with their saxophones and drums... "Kölle Alaaf!" or "Cologne Alive!" could be heard by the crowd.

We met his friends: vampire, disco man, plumber, little girl. What a fun group this was during carnival! "Prost!" or "Cheers!"

And that was only the first day in Germany... that night, we took the train to where he lives, Bonn. We were prepared to pay about 20 euros each, but le controleur let us get off without paying because we were almost at our destination. Lucky us!

The next two days were filled with delicious cuisine allemande, a sightseeing bus of Cologne, a pizza and film soirée and interesting discussions. On Sunday, it was time to leave Germany behind and its lively scene, cobblestone streets and chilly weather.

Martin drove me back to Lille on the famous German "autobahn". It took three and half hours, and of course, we were hungry arriving to Lille. We ate some moules-frites au sauce à l'ail paired with some white wine.

It could not have been a better ending to a beautiful weekend in Germany.
Thank you so much for everything Martin! Merci beaucoup! Danke! :)

Martin and I first met during the 2008 presidential election in Phoenix, Arizona where John McCain was giving his speech. I interviewed him for a news story for the Cronkite School about international media that was covering the historic election. Martin is a reporter for Phoenix TV in Bonn, Germany.

Gold medalist and pictionary

I met an international gold medalist at the airport.

My friend Mayra and I were about to play pictionary (with some words she had written down on pieces of white paper) when a young man approached us. With no real greeting, he just sat down next to me and asked, "What are you girls playing?"

I thought maybe we were bothering him with our laughter and he wanted us to keep it down, but I answered anyway.

"We're about to play pictionary... want to play?"

And that is how Mayra and I met Babak Mafakheri, a 25-year-old electronics design engineer from Tehran, Iran. He had just come back from iENA, the International Trade Fair for "Ideas-Inventions-New Products". It seeks to solve global economic problems with innovative product ideas.

This year it was held in Nuremberg, Germany with more than 800 innovations from more than 37 countries.

Mafakheri is part of a four-member team and an advisor who designed a remote control boat which can take off vertically from a water surface. He explains that this innovation could help in research by looking in "some places which are not easy for people to go" like in swamps.

This was Mafakheri's first time in an international contest, and his team won first place. He was the only one from his team to come to the trade fair and represent the design.

He hopes to get accepted in a university in Europe to continue with his higher education. His main choice would be a university in Germany.

It was very pleasant to talk to Babak and share stories. It is neat how many interesting people you can meet at the airport or any other public place. For being an electrical engineer... Babak's drawing skills in pictionary were not that bad either:

(Top: onion, bottom: pizza)