Ugh, there was a horrible banging. It was far too early for banging and now it was accompanied by a horrible booming voice. "Ahhh ! Sweet morning !" it boomed. "I'm wide awake ! It's time to do stuff !" it continued booming. There were showering noises followed by further bangings and boomings intimating that they were moving out into the world to do things and bang and boom somewhere else.
It was only early afternoon but it appeared it was time to get up. Richard re-appeared with some croissants and very welcome orange juice and revealed he was the early morning banger and had been out for a look around. It appeared we hadn't got back to the hotel until around 5AM, much to the amusement of the night porter. I think getting back at all was a minor achievement given however it was I was pronouncing the hotels name was totally different to the correct pronunciation and our supplementary directions were probably just confusing to the poor taxi driver.
Whilst waiting for Rich to get back and Phil to finish making himself beautiful I was watching some kind of festival going on somewhere in Germany. There was a large stage filled with people in silly hats and a large drunk looking audience swaying from side to side. Threatening to introduce their audience to sea sickness the large team of middle aged presenters were also swaying from side to side throughout all their presenting. Everyone appeared to be in fancy dress and the whole place was beginning to look very familiar - wasn't that a giant cathedral, didn't that stage look very similar to one we'd seen them erecting the square yesterday ?
We caught the underground into town, also getting the underground into town was a lady dressed as a devil drinking a large bottle of lager.
The main sight which greeted us on exiting from the station was not the huge cathedral but rather the crowds of people in fancy dress, the empty brandy, spirits and lager bottles arrayed on every available surface, groups of staggering drunks bedecked in fancy dress singing heartily and weaving their wave towards the old town. We decided to follow.
The crowds grew thicker and drunker looking as we approached the old town, all the pubs, bars and restaurants we host to huge throngs of koelsch swigging revellers and the singing was our constant companion.
All this looked intriguing and fun but we really needed some proper breakfast so we edged away from the main crowds and found a relatively quiet cafe where we satisfied our hunger. During the course of our breakfast we were almost ran down by a police car speeding through the pedestrian arcade we were sat in at around 40MPH, the waitress tutted "Nicht Gut". Later on an ambulance folled the car but at a more reasonable speed.
Although we were eager to embark on a drinking spree and join in the merry making we wanted to do something vaguely cultural first. The most obvious thing to see was the cathedral so we had a wander around that - it was just as large inside as it was outside ( well apart from the difference caused by the thickness of the roof anyway ) but otherwise not that impressive. More exciting was the climb to the top of the tower which involved climbing 509 spiral stairs past the bells to the balcony at the top of one of the two spires.
509 stairs is a lot of stairs and I was knackered after around 5 or so. Rich and Phil sped on upwards whilst I wheezed and gasped in their wake. I arrived at the top before them and spent sometime walking in circles around the balcony and taking some photos. I could see the main square with the stage and all the streets and bars leading up to it crowded with people. Somehow I managed to avoid meeting Phil & Rich on the way down where I stopped off to look at the bells so I waited around for 10 minutes at the bottom and we went for a well earned beer.
It appeared almost everyone in town was by now totally shit faced and dressed in various types of fancy dress, pirates and cats seemed to be the most popular costume. We decided it was time for us to become as shit faced as possible too and since we were feeling like angels at an orgy to deck ourselves out in fancy dress as soon as possible.
A huge fancy dress warehouse furnished us with the requisite gear and the numerous off licences, bars and beer stalls with the beer. The main square was awash with drunks and seemed to be surfaced with a foot thick layer of broken glass, in places the glass had accreted into mounds over two feet high. The drunk germans oblivious to this were heartily singing along to the cover band karaoke. Everyone seemed very happy and drunk and it was only 4PM. We set up station next to a beer stall in an area where the glass was not as deep as elsewhere and settled down for some proper drinking and singing.
At some point we had something to eat and some more beer, followed around various segments of marching bands and generally marvelled at the sheer quantity of drunkards in fancy dress. Eventually we ended up back in the main square where it was now dark and the piles of glass were threatening to subside and bury large numbers of the revellers, the music, singing and drinking was continuing unabated.
Phil met a chatty German called Marienka who spent quite a while trying to talk to us. I don't think we clearly understood anything she was saying but that may have been because all parties were the worse for drink as to do with the language barrier.
Phil had indicated the Paul, Kerri, Rob, Caroline party was en-route to their hotel so we headed to our rendezvous at the Station Bar ( attached to the Station hostel ). Richard seemed captivated by the music which was in fact quite good and we only had time to drink 2 or 3 large bottles of Becks before the others barrelled in and introductions were made. It appeared we had succeeded in our mission of being drunker than Paul but maybe not by such a large margin as we'd hoped. A few more beers and we headed out to see what had become of the carnival.
The Carnival had moved into the pubs by Rhine which were all now packed elbow to elbow with bellowing Germans, being English it was but a simple matter to defeat the unlucky Germans and capture the attention of the bar personnel to safely acquire many more glasses of Koelsch.
After a few hit and run raids the crowds began to thin out and we it became possible to sit down and drink which we took full advantage of and sent the waitresses scurrying to and from the bar to maintain a steady of river of beer moving towards our eager throats. Kerri is apparently unsatisfied with merely one glass of beer and opened a ruthless campaign to capture all the other beers on the table to add to her hoard, fortunately with only two hands to protect her ill gotten gains it was possible to mount a counter action and repatriate at least some of the unwilling victims.
After this the night really does become a blur although I do remember Richard receiving a "good talking to" and a lecherous ( possibly ) Kebab Shop Owner soon seen off by Paul.
Having compared notes the next day it seems we must have arrived home sometime around 6AM, the night porter was once again gripped with mirth on our arrival.
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