Blogs from Cologne, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany, Europe - page 20

So I figured I'd take a few minutes to give you an idea of what a day in the life of Paige Brown is now. :-) I wake up usually around 7:15, get ready for school and look outside to see what the weather looks like. It was really hot for a few days and then the last few days have been super rainy and cold, so my clothing varies a lot between the week. I try to leave my house around 8 am so that I can make either the 8:07 or the 8:17 S-Bahn (schnell stadtbahn) into town. I live in a small suburb outside of Köln called Lövenich. I have about a 10 min walk to the train station which really is kind of nice on the pretty days. Not so much when ... read more

From Helsinki we flew to Cologne, Germany. We just had one night there and had found a great deal at the Hilton, so we got off the plane looking forward to a nice quiet night filled with bubble baths, television in English, and high thread-count sheets. That wasn’t exactly what happened, however. As we got off the train from the airport in downtown Cologne we noticed big crowds of people everywhere and lots of commotion. We finally figured out that it was Christopher Street Day, a huge annual gay pride celebration, going on just outside our hotel. We dropped our stuff in our room and headed out to see the city and have some dinner, picking our way through the crowds of people. We went to see Cologne Cathedral, the biggest tourist sight in the ... read more

Today has been so much fun so far! First off, I went to bed at 9 yesterday!! Haha. I was sooo tired. I guess it's fair since I did get up at 4 that morning. But I woke up at 8 this morning, got up and changed. Came down to the lobby and got some breakfast. Then my hike began. I walked along the Rhein to the zoo. It's like a two and half mile walk. I went and spent two hours wondering around the zoo and aquarium. Matt, you would have loved the aquarium!! I took some pictures to show you, but it was sweet! Then I took the cable cars across the river. That was a little scary because they would shake and your pretty high up, but it was such an amazing view ... read more

what a great night ! thank you to everyone who came out to wish me well and buy me many drinks! after arriving in Paris, I hopped the 4 hour train to Cologne Germany, then 2 more trains to a small town called Plettenberg. My good friend Hanno met me at the station and brought me home just in time for dinner. Hanno's mother is a great cook, but unfortunately for me, her specialty is meat! so I snacked on cheeses and bread. for meat eaters, germany is the place, you can get your meat with a side of meat! especially once you get away from the city where people tend to be more traditional. Hanno's mother and i went to do a bit of food shopping and she told me to get anything i wanted. ... read more

As of yesterday, neither of Gerard nor I had ever been to Germany, so naturally we were very keen to see what it had to offer. The train journey from Amsterdam was beyond comfortable; even though we were in second class, it all felt abit 5-starry! As the ´Intercity 225', (ironically the name of a toy-train i used to play with my brother), began its journey into western Germany, I couldn´t help noticing how lush the countryside was. Germany has recently been pelted with rain like England, yet somehow instead of looking dank and depressing, the landscape glistened. (I started to understand why this country has been the inspiration for so many fairy tales :) ) We are now in Köln (Cologne), and although it has been a slight trek off our scheduled path, fortunately ... read more