Willkommen in Deutschland

Five world cities in one day: Philadelphia, New York, Munich, Cologne, and Essen. It's now 7:30pm local time and I'm sitting in my friend Roland's house in Essen.

A couple interesting observations to confirm my arrival in Germany. First, while sitting at the gate in Munich airport, reading my book while awaiting my connecting flight to Cologne, I looked up casually to see a woman sitting across from me reading a newspaper. What struck my attention was the photo of a naked blonde woman right there on the front page of the newspaper. That's about the time I decided that German women are nice-looking.

The second observation to confirm my arrival in Germany came shortly afterward, when I was actually on that flight from Munich to Cologne. As the plane took-off from the runway and began its ascent, I looked out from my window seat toward the airport below. In the distance I noticed a long range of snow-capped mountains: the German Alps.

After landing in Cologne and picking-up my backpack from baggage claim, I walked out the door to exit the airport; I saw a girl standing there, so I approached her and asked if she was Roland's friend Tania. Fortunately for me she said yes. And so began my day in Cologne and my first lessons in basic, elementary German. It wasn't a problem, though, because Tania spoke English pretty well. We caught a train to Cologne central station.

As soon as one walks out of the train station, one is standing face-to-face with Cologne Cathedral (Dom). From what Tania told me, it is the highest cathedral in Germany if not in all of Europe. So of course we climbed to the very top; Tania did this, impressively, with high heels. [later I will upload photos of our climb].

As the afternoon wore on, my jet lag began to kick-in pretty hardcore. Although I closed my eyes and even slept a bit on the flight from JFK, there was no escaping the fact that I was walking the streets of Cologne at around the time I should have been just getting out of bed back at the double-deuce and Spruce. Later in the day we went to this great little coffeehouse called Starbucks so that I could try to get a caffeine boost; it didn't really work.

At 3:50 in the afternoon, Tania sent me off on the hour-long train ride from Cologne central station to Essen so that I could finally meet-up with my friend Roland. Although I knew I was risking appearing as an arrogant tourist, once I boarded the train I immediately stretched out, put my feet up on the seat before me, and quickly fell asleep. The alarm clock on my old-school digital Casio wristwatch woke me up in time to get off at the Essen train station.

And now, for the rest of the evening, I've been catching up with Roland and discussing our plans for the coming days. As soon as we reach Cairo we'll catch the first bus out of town en route to a small town near the Egyptian-Libyan border, close to the Mediterranean coast; this will be a 15-hour journey and Roland warns me that it will be very uncomfortable. From there, we'll then travel south to Siwa, an oasis in the middle of nowhere, also known as the Sahara desert; that's where we'll be camping.

Needless to say, some incredible experiences await me. I look forward to seeing the millions of stars under the clear desert sky. It will be good to feel so alive.