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Published: January 26th 2009
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Cologne, Germany 121
at the bistro on the train This past weekend I had my first hostel experience in Cologne (Koln), Germany. It was a lot of fun. We left really early Saturday morning and took a 3.5 hour train ride to Cologne. Once we got off the train the cathedral was right there towering over us. It is a very old, huge cathedral. We saw our first Starbucks in Europe. (Though it is expensive here, around 4.5 euro for a tall drink!) Then we walked to the hostel. It was only a minute walk which was nice so we had easy access to food, the cathedral, and all the museums, train station and shopping. Once we arrived at our hostel we had our PB&J sandwiches and got ready to go out and see the city. The hostel wasn't that bad...there were beds and lights for us all and we had our own room so we could lock all of our stuff in the room instead of hassling with lockers. They provided sheets...if that’s what you call them! haha They were very stiff, but they kept me warm so that's all I needed. The walls were pink! We started off by going and walking around the cathedral and then we
Cologne, Germany 123
our wonderful breakfast on the train climbed to the top. 509 tiny, spiral stairs later we made it to the top. You could go even farther to the tip of the point, but those were unstable looking stairs very, very high up and so I just stayed on the platform where I was already plenty high!! It was hard navigating up the stairs because people were going both directions and they were very narrow steps that spiraled so it was hard to want to let go of the railing but you would have to stop and step over and walk up without the railing for parts of it, which was a little crazy. Then we headed down by the water to the chocolate museum. I actually really enjoyed the chocolate museum (and not just for the samples!), but it was really cool to see all the machines working and making the chocolate and then wrapping and bagging them. We saw machines that just made the simple squares of chocolates, and then one that made the truffles, and then one lady making the hallow chocolate shapes (we watched her make soccer balls). It is all such a process, that it was cool to watch. At the end
there is a huge chocolate fountain that they dip wafers in and let you sample the chocolate. It was very good, so obviously we scammed them for a few samples. After our first sample there was a switch in who was working so we went to get a second sample, then just came back after walking around upstairs and played dumb to get a third. After the chocolate factory we hit the main shopping streets and walked around all the shops. There were many similar stores to the stores in Trier, but still a few new to check out. We sat in a cafe for a little while to figure out what our plans for dinner would be and warm up a little. Then we started the longest trek ever for dinner. One girl we were with was insistent we find a "hole-in-the-wall off-the-beaten-path authentic German restaurant" (well lets just say with the criteria, we never found one!) There were a few options, but some were too smokey for some people, some were way too crowded to wait so 2 hours later we found a fun little restaurant and got to eat. The waiter was really nice and spoke English
too so that was helpful so he could translate the menu for us! I got this interesting pork dish. The pork ended up being really good, the 'break' was interesting. It was more like a mix of bread, potatoes and pasta with a weird consistency, but it was worth trying it. We sat in the restaurant for 3 hours and had a lot of fun. Our waiter made up a game where we had to list all the American presidents we could think of and we got 10 minutes. So it was 5 American girls against our German waiter. Sadly...we lost! I know it was a little embarrassing. The table next to us was two men and they found our game pretty entertaining. Sunday we got up and went over to Ludwig Museum (an art museum). They had Picasso, Andy Warhol, and many many others there. There were a lot of cool pop art pieces there. Then some of the girls wanted to have a nice meal, but Emily and I were felt like just picking up a pastry and walking around. So we ended up getting a 1 euro sundae at McDonald's before heading off and we ran into
a large group of older women all dressed in cow dresses. It was the funniest thing ever, they were singing and passing around shots and taking them. Let's say, nothing that would ever happen in an American McDonalds. So Emily and I had to go up and ask to get our picture with them. They found it very entertaining and were all for getting their picture taken! Then we walked down by the water and walked over the famous bridge of the city and hung around before catching our train back. Then we had our train ride back, where I practiced some of my French (good for me, maybe a little unfortunate for all those around me!) Then we got our bus home and made some grilled cheese and tomato soup for dinner!! Overall it was a very successful weekend! Now it's just deciding where we are headed off to next...
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