Cologne, Drachenfels, Adenauer, and other Abenteuern

The weekend was amazing. Since I'm really not even sure how or where to start, I guess that I will stick with a general chronological order. That seems to work pretty well...

Thomas and I set off at around 5 PM on Friday for Brühl, which is about 20 km outside of Cologne. It was a long (4 hour) but enjoyable ride. Thomas and I talked about everything from comic books to cars. And I must say that it is an extremely strange feeling to be zooming down the highway at 100 miles an hour and still having people passing by you. But that's another story entirely....

Thomas dropped me off at Martin's flat, and Martin and his wife Alexandra (bless them) pulled out some food so that I could have dinner (it was 9:30 by that time, and I was STARVING). We stayed up talking for a while, and then I went to bed so that I could be up nice and early for Cologne.

I woke up around 8:30 when I heard Lorenz (their son) wandering around the flat. We had an incredible breakfast. They had a ton of food. We had boiled eggs, yogurt, croissants with butter and honey and jam, cold meats and cheeses, coffee, juice, practically everything you could think of. It was amazing, and I was quite stuffed when I finished. Afterwards, fully equipped with with directions to the train station, some maps of Cologne, Martin's cell phone and a set of keys to his flat, I began my long and perilous journey into the unknown!

They were doing construction at the train station on the tracks that would normally go to Cologne, so I had to cross over to the other side. At one point, a lady came up and asked if the train to Cologne was coming on this set of tracks, and I told her that I thought that it was. I apologized for my German, and she told me that it was quite alright. We spent the whole train ride talking together in German. Her ex-husband was from Africa, and so she was used to talking with people who didn't speak the language very well. She spoke slowly and clearly, and whenever there was something that I didn't understand, she would find another way to explain it so that I could understand. It was really wonderful. Plus, I didn't have to buy a train ticket, because she was on her way to work, and her train pass for her job let her bring a guest on the train on Saturdays. Anyway, we ended up exchanging email addresses so that we can talk to each other in the future. I think that it was probably the best experience of the entire day. I was just so pleased that I could understand what she was saying and that I could, to a very limited degree, speak with her as well.

Anywho, I got to the city and headed straight for the Dom. It is incredible. I personally think that it knocks the socks off of Notre Dame, but maybe that is just because it is in Germany. And everyone knows that I'm a bit biased towards anything German. The first thing I did was walk up the tower (which took quite a while....533 steps to get to the top). I was terrified not so much by the height, but by the stairs. It was one of those circular staircases where one side of the step is much narrower than the other. And you have people going up and down the stairs (which aren't very large) at the same time. I was convinced that I was going to slip and fall all the way to the bottom. All the same, there were no major mishaps, and I made it to the top. The view was amazing despite the wire fence all around to keep people from taking a flying leap off of the tower. And here is the Rhine, as seen from the Dom-Turm (turm means tower):

Then I got to walk back down the 533 stairs, and by that point my legs were extremely fatigued. They wouldn't stop shaking. ::sigh:: I need more exercise, clearly. Anyway, after that I walked around the inside of the Cathedral (the mosaics on the floors are astonishingly detailed) and went to visit the treasury. It was full of really old gold things, which was cool, but eventually I decided that it was time to go see some other things in Cologne, so I left. This, by the way, is one of the mosaics on the floor. Ignore the people standing in the middle of it. The Dom was very very crowded.

My next stop was a museum called the Romisch-Germanisches Museum, which, as you can guess, was about the Romans during their occupation of Cologne. There were some really neat things in there, but it was a rather small museum (which I suppose was a good thing because as it was, I still spent about 2 hours in there). During this time it rained a bit, but it had mostly stopped by the time I left. After that, I walked down towards the Rhein and wandered for a while. There are these really neat fountain/sculpture/play areas for people that are quite unlike anything I've seen before. And there are also these guys, apparently:

After the Rhein, I went back up towards the Dom and found a Starbucks (WHOO!) and had some coffee and a muffin. It was delicious. Afterwards, I went to the famous shopping district of Cologne, although I must say that I wasn't all that impressed. It was crowded, and all of the stores were clothing stores. Granted, the prices were cheap, but still. I can buy clothes in the States, thanks. Nevertheless, I looked around and finally decided that I was tired and I wanted to go back to Martin's. Strangely enough, I ran into the lady from the train again on the way back. We had another very nice conversation, and at one point a Guy-with-a-Bike also joined in on the conversation to tell me that he was quite impressed by my German considering that I had only taken two years of it. Also, he wanted to recommend that I speak with people as much as possible, because I will get much better that way. Anyway, it was very nice, and I really enjoyed talking with both of them.

I got back to Martin's house (after getting turned around not once, but twice....curse my inability to navigate), and had a wonderful dinner of wurst and potato salad, and we sat around talking and playing with Lorenz until pretty late in the evening. Finally, utterly exhausted, I headed to bed.

Sunday morning began very much like Saturday. There was a lot of delicious food for breakfast, and afterwards we packed everything up and all went on an adventure together! We decided to go to Drachenfels, a pretty famous mountain which makes up part of the Siebengibirge (the seven mountains). It is known for its castle ruins, its non-ruinous castle, and its view. The lore surrounding the Drachenfels is also really neat. The legends say that it is the mountain where Siegfried killed the dragon and took a bath in its blood to become invincible.

We went to the top of the mountain via the train, and once again, I had an amazing view. With the aid of the binoculars that Martin brought, I could even see the Dom, which was roughly 30 miles from where we were. About halfway down the mountain is a much newer (built in the 1880s, I believe) castle. Martin and I climbed into the top of tower here as well, and let me just say that my calves were not happy about it. But I think it was worth it. The castle:

Then we went to the Adenauer house and took a tour (which, unfortunately, was only available in German). Adenauer was the first Chancellor of West Germany after WWII, and he is extremely well respected and famous here. He was also responsible for having the capital city moved to Bonn for a while. In addition, his house is super cool and he had a great view and some really nifty gardens.

Once we finished that, we took the ferry across the Rhein and drove through Bonn back to Martin's house. We had dinner, and then Thomas and his girlfriend came to pick us up at about 8 so that we could head back to Gottingen. Before I left, Alexandra gave me a children's book in German that should be a pretty easy read. I'm quite excited. Also, she had Lorenz "sign" it for me. It was the sweetest thing ever.

The ride home was quite nice too. Martin and I were crammed into the back seat, which was a bit unpleasant, but we decided that we were going to be the annoying kids that ask every ten minutes if we were there yet. (We didn't end up doing that, of course, but it was fun to joke about it.) Thomas said he was going to have to send us to bed without supper and was somewhat disappointed when he found out that we had already eaten. The whole thing was especially funny when one of the "kids" (not me!) started demanding that we stop so that he could get a beer.

Anyway, all in all, it was a fantastic trip, and I will be sure to post more pictures soon. For right now, though, I think that I will head to bed. G'night!