A Wonderful Weekend

Well time to wind it down now.

Friday I came back to Cologne after a short stay in Aachen. Right when I arrived we prepared to go to the Ringfest.

Ringfest is a yearly happening in Cologne to the time of the Popkomm. Popkomm is a music industry convention and it normally starts Wednesday (industry only). Then on Friday Ringfest starts which puts a lot of bands all over the inner ring (or part of it) of Cologne. You can find more info here: <http://www.musikfest-am-ring.de/info/willkommen.html>

As you might notice these are mostly pop bands and dance acts but the entire weekend gets close to 3.000.000 people to cologne! The city is packed!

Now on Friday we just wanted around then entire strip where the bands are playing to get a bit of the vibe, ate some tasty food and then went on to drink a few beers in front of the Crown Plaza. They had their own beer booth and food and most of the hotel staff was there because they got 50% off of the prices. ;)

We had a wonderful time listening to music and talking to a lot of people. We met two of the new trainees of the hotel who both seem to be very nice.

When we went to bed we knew we had to get up relatively early the next day because a friend of ours had their wedding. 1 hour away by car. Far far away in the country :)

The church was a very nice small one on a hill which already put us in a good mood. Then they played the star wars music when the bride came in, which, I have to say, I found a bit weird, at least in the church :) But the bride looked wonderful, as it should be. When the ceremony was done and we all met ourside there was a lot of Uhhhs and Ahhhs and Ohhhs as everybody hugged them and congratulated them :) His football club and some people from his work were also there to congratulate.

The drive to the venue where we would be celebrating was wonderful. A huge row of cars with all drivers steering their cars with the hands on the horns :) Hell, nobody knew us there anyway :)

The place where we celebrated was amazing. Hard to describe really. Like several houses with a place in the middle and walls around it. Hmm… :) You felt like you had freedom to go to a lot of places but still it was very private.

There were a lot of kids and all the people I met were really wonderful. The food was amazing, cooked by only one woman which nobody understood how she was able to do that :)

Then of course there were some nice games played with the newly wed couple which were a lot of fun most of the time :)

The cool thing is that all this started at 12:30 and ended around 2:00 (+ drive home), and it felt like 3 or 4 hours. Must have been good ;)

Today was a bit hard getting up then but we wanted to go to the Ringfest another time. We met three friends at the Hotel again at 1400 and first stayed there for a bit listening to the rock bands playing next to it. But then we wanted to get some real pop/dance in our heads, just for the fun of it and went to the stage of RTL, one of the big television channels here in germany.

After having some food again on the way (sometimes you wonder if this festival is done for eating or listening to music) we arrived and already got in the pop mood. Woohooo! :) So we saw BB Mak, Zee, Rednex, Hermes House Band, Janette Biedermann, Wonderwall, 3. generation … all very very popish and dancish and chatish. And then came SPN-X, total punk rock :) Followed by the ultra popy No Angels, who formed via a TV show (Pop Stars, made to get a 5 girls group to together, No Angels is the result).

With No Angels it was _really_ full. They _are_ well known and you had all these small kids sitting there and screaming their heads of and singing every word of the text. You had to wonder if they know what they are singing. They could not be able to speak english already :)

Then, to clear my head we went back to the hotel and 10 minutes later I got my head cleared with 5 songs from Dog Eat Dog. The mood was amazing, mostly because it was one of the bigger (rock) bands that were playing on the Ringfest. It was a lot of fun. The singer got carried on the crowed and the guitarist jumped of the stage into a water pool which was there to catch the water that was let from the roof sometimes (not rain but a system that created a water wall). It must have hurt. :) I mean the stage was a bit less than 2 meters high and I doubt that the water was that deep down there. He jumped down sideways like a WWF wrestler, probably doing that after his guitare wouldn’t work right in the first two songs ;)

Well now we are finally back. Ahhh… my feet are very happy about that really. They can save up now to the next wedding on the 7th or 8th of next month. Lot’s of weddings at the moment around me, should maybe get me thinking. :)