Relaxing in Cologne

After a wonderful weekend in Cologne things look different this week. I was reading my last post and see that my feelings have been stabilized again. Of course I am still angry, disappointed and sad about the end of my relationship with Erik, but the pain is less then it was last Thursday. Cologne has taught me three lessons:

1. There are people who really care about me
2. I can organize my own fun
3. It feels good to act very intuitive again, and just do what seems to be right at the moment.

Again I was surprised last Saturday how close Cologne is to Zwolle. My Mio maps told me it was only 225 km. I was driving there in 2,5 hours. So I was checked in to the little hotel and on my way to the city by 1 PM already.

I went to the open house of Bear Magazine and met a lot of people there that I know. I was really surprised when I got out of the lift and saw Bill and Barry Rothstein from Tampa. Bill's a contact of mine from FlickR, who had always been very nice to me. After that I did a little shopping, went to Barflo for a cappuccino and called Alain who had just returned to his hotel because his partner Jean Luc needed some rest. We agreed to have a drink later on and have dinner together.

Dinner was fun. The pizzeria we went to was in the vicinity of the Stadthalle in Mülheim and it was full of bears.

At the Stadthalle, the place were the party was held, the atmosphere was like a high school reunion. I chatted to a lot of people. At a certain time I met Aldo, who I knew from Cologne Pride last summer. (He's the guy I will be visiting next Friday in Paris.) It was strange to meet him again for the first time after June and the exchange of just a few e-mails in the last weeks, but at the same time it also felt very confident. We enjoyed the show and the presentation of the candidates together. And what happened after the party will be our secret.

The next day I had lunch at Bagelstation (YUMMY) and headed off to the bathhouse. I saw that Cees from Amsterdam was there and we chatted a lot. Especially the lottery with prices no one wanted to have was fun because it was so annoying. I learned to know J.D. from San Diego, an adorable, nice and very warm and handsome man. It's really good to meet new people.

At 10 PM I headed home. Tired but very satisfied I fell in bed at 12.30 AM.