(no subject)

Coming here from south Louisiana is a rather huge change in climate. Back home in Baton Rouge we're still running the air conditioner all night, but here it is already quite chilly, 35-55 degrees. Ryan and Lisza have a nice room (two actually) in a third floor apartment, with plank wood floors and a bed raised almost up to the ceiling. I have a cozy sleeping spot which seems to be constructed out of a stack of sturdy deutsche bahn pallets covered in a layer of various soft and cozy blankets.

In the morning Lisza made crepes--zucchini and cheese, and sweet apple ones--and we walked through the city, stopping to play ping-pong at a table in a park by a church. (Amazingly there are ping-pong tables scattered around in the parks around the city!) Koeln is very much a city, with people walking and bicycling everywhere, and an impressive abundance of public transportation, with strassenbahn and busses and subways everywhere you look. It's almost difficult to contemplate so many people out enjoying themselves in public places (walking or BBQing in the park, etc) after living in BR where the only accumulations of people in public are for big spectator events or parties.

Ryan explained his current project to me, and we talked a little bit about future plans. Ryan and Lisza are talking about moving to the US (or maybe not) and are looking for jobs--the next step in their adventure (which has been pretty amazing: Ant hill co-op, spontaneously moving to south america for several years, and then Germany).

Our tentative plan for tomorrow is to rent a car and head west into Belgium and the netherlands, hopefully couchsurfing somewhere in the countryside or on the coast or maybe in some cool student town (ghent?). We plied couchsurfing.com and wikitravel.org for several hours tonight and didn't find anything mission-worthy yet, though. Does anyone know anyone with a hot tub in Belgium? That would be pretty awesome right now. (-: