The second day of developer training was successful and productive. Had dinner and drinks with a colleague from work at an outdoor restaurant, Statdgarten. The restaurant is situated at the edge of a park that forms the inner circle around the city (there are two). After good food, conversation, and more Kölsch, I got a private walking tour of Cologne, complete with the history about the city, different buildings, and neighborhoods. We passed through MediaPark, a business complex for music, media, and technology companies. Very cool urban development smack dab in the midst of an old city with a lot of old buildings and history.
One of the neat parts of the walk was seeing the Stolpersteine, gold bricks in the sidewalk identifying jews who had lived in the building. This was started by an artist, Gunter Demnig, who wanted to make sure the victims fates were remembered. While these “stumbling blocks” lay in the already uneven sidewalk and can easily be missed, it is intended to force people to remember what happened. Once you have seen one, it is easy to notice more as you continue walking. As of mid-July of this year, there were 20,000 stumbling blocks. Very sobering.