The leaders last night went to a concert at the hall across the street from the hotel. In fact, they all arrived and departed right outside the windows in our workspace. It's kind of funny because they had the media for the stakeout assemble at the press center, a five minute walk from the Mondial. Pool of course sent a crew, who went over to the media center and was promptly bussed back to the Mondial for the stakeout. I haven't quite figured out the logic behind a lot of the things the Germans are doing here.

After our final feed last night, I went out and met up with my colleagues at Brauhaus Fruh, where we went before during setup. I got there as they were shutting down, and our local friends insisted we go and see the "real" Cologne. It was fun, but nothing more special than any other euro bar district. Perhaps it was because of the asshole bartender who yelled at me in English after I had tried to order in German. So much for my effort!

Stay tuned for more, perhaps later today.

Monday 21 June 1999 The president leaves late this morning for Bonn, then on to Slovenia. Our pool will be hot until the President has left Bonn and is in the air. The traveling press have already left, and we are starting to break down the parts we don't essentially need. As the day goes on, we keep breaking down leaving the bare essentials running to keep us on the air. As soon as the president is "wheels up" we hand off the pool duties to Slovenia, and give a big shout for a job well done.

The rest of the day is spent breaking down at a furious pace. We have Tuesday set for a breakdown day, but we work extra hard today so we can have Tuesday free. By nine pm everything is packed up, ready to go, and we are ready to drop dead with sleep. But it's customary to celebrate the pool with a good meal, and we all go back to Brauhaus Fruh. We are all half crazy from the hard work, and make quite a good time for the waiter.

And by the end of dinner most of us have a second wind. So we go back to the night club under the train station. The scene was much better than last week, with more dance music, more ladies, and more friends to have a good time with. Eventually it all catches up with us and we go off to sleep a blissful sleep.