Day 170: End of the Trip

The last day of the trip was Thursday. Ángel went back early to Bielefeld to clean the rooms that weren’t his but that we had occupied. Dani and Oscar left for Madrid at the same time as my flight back to Dresden: four in the afternoon. So the three of us still had the whole morning to make the most of. We took the metro into the city centre—we wanted to climb the towers of the cathedral, but there was a problem: we had our luggage with us and couldn’t leave it at the hostel. We looked for a left-luggage service at the train station, and there was one, but it was a very strange machine, big, with a slot where, in theory, you had to insert the suitcases. You had to pay €4 per suitcase, and once you’d paid it swallowed them up and gave you a slip with nothing but a barcode. Since we didn’t trust this odd contraption, we had to keep our bags with us and couldn’t go up. So instead we sat in front of the immense cathedral, in the sun, like old men on the main square of any Spanish town or city. We stayed there for quite a while, just looking at it, until the cold drove us away and into the station, which is full of shops (Cologne isn’t immune to the fashion of turning stations into shopping centres). We took the chance to buy a few souvenirs. Afterwards we grabbed something to eat and went to the airport. We sat waiting in Fort Cologne (once again, six months later), recalling the anecdotes of the trip. Then came the farewells (my plane left slightly earlier) and the parting of ways: they boarded a plane full of German revellers heading to Spain to party, while I was on a plane full of German executives. Apparently, executives also go in for budget flights, because the plane was filled only with people in suits (and me). I took a photo with my mobile of a small sample group.

I arrived in Dresden to find everything covered in snow. It seemed I had missed a cold snap. Now it was time to study again: I had to get back to grips with German and prepare for the remaining exams. End of the trip, and end of the holidays.

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