Belgium Quarter

Only five minutes from the center of Cologne the towering spires of the Dom are no longer visible. Neither are the ever-present, bug-eyed tourists, which is just fine with Tassilo, a 22-year-old student majoring in design communication. Tassilo and his friends Jimmy, 23, and Schumi, 25, often hang out in this part of town, known as the Belgium Quarter. It's where you can find the "hip" cafes, the boutiques with the latest English and American fashions, and the best music stores. It's also where the true "Kölner" relax, showing off their shiny new BMWs at trendy outdoor cafes on the weekends, and shopping for the kind of specialty condoms you can't find in corner drugstores. In front of a squat Romanesque church, which marks one end of the Belguim Quarter, a handful of children play near a group of homeless men.

"Can you kick the ball over, Angelo?" shouts one of the children, waiting as the man sets down his beer and gets up to kick the ball over.