It struck me as quite funny that the first bloke these two German youths asked (they were not from Köln), was a young man from Chicago, who spoke excellent German. Not many locals would normally go to the Altstadt - especially when there's a trade fair on. Jim and I walked out of it, through one of Köln's less salubrious areas (Eigelstein), and on to a more typical part of "real" Cologne. Mind you, the Kölsch there was so abysmal ("Dom") that we opted for Weizenbier.
Hope we see and hear Jim here again and maybe some more of you other Mudcatters.