Our trip began last Saturday when Julia, Tessa, and I took the train to Paris and the Metro to Charles de Gaule Airport. We discovered that French airport security doesn’t care of you take liquids just so long as you drink the liquids before you leave the security area. We had uneventful flight to Cologne and after struggling with the train ticket machine Julia used her German skills to ask directions and we soon were at the train station where we had planned to meet our friend Sarah who is studying in Erlangen, Germany. While waiting for Sarah’s train to arrive we ate the first of what would be many pretzels. They were a day-old and sort of stale but very cheap and still delicious. Sarah arrived and we found our hostel and discovered that our roommate was already asleep so we decided to just to go bed.
The next day we woke up and discovered that our roommate was in fact a friendly Finnish guy who had just finished studying in Switzerland. We chatted with him for a little while before heading to the Chocolate Museum. We spent the next three hours learning more than we ever wanted to know about the cocoa bean, drooling while watching chocolate be processed, and watching German Ooompa-looompas. There were free samples. It was beautiful. The best part was watching the expressions of the German children as they watched the chocolate. I’m told I looked similar. Then Tessa and Sarah and I went on a walk while Julia visited with a family friend who lives in Cologne. We walked around and saw lots of shops and churches. Then we met Julia back at the hostel and found some dinner. I decided to be authentic had Wiener schnitzel and the local beer. It was delicious which is saying something considering how much I don’t really like either meat or beer. We then went back to the hostel and hung out until our new roommate showed up and was a middle aged man at which point we decided to go to bed.
The next morning we got up and went to the cathedral, which is called the Dom and is considered to be the best example of High Gothic architecture in Europe. The British were even asked to not bomb it during WWII so it managed to survive relatively intact. It was indeed very beautiful. We climbed the 500-some steps to the top of the tower and enjoyed the lovely view of industrial Cologne. We then descended and did some more walking. We found some more pretzels and the 4711 house which is where cologne was invented. There was a glockenspiel. It was mildly exciting. We tried to visit a former Gestapo prison but it was closed. We did end up finding a Golden Ford Fiesta that was some sort of weird German art. We also went to the Roman-Greek Museum and stared through the window at a large mosaic depicting Dionysus. After deciding that we had pretty much exhausted what Cologne had to offer we went grocery shopping and bought ice cream cones. Then we made some pasta for dinner at the hostel kitchen which was delicious. Then we went to bed since we had to get up early the next morning to go to Asia…
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