Köln

Sooo Kenra and Audrey both left me this week, so I am on my own for a few weeks! Tuesday evening or Wednesday morning Audrey left at 2:30 am and flew to Dublin, Ireland where she met up with her best friend Laura and her family from home. They have been in Europe for a week and now they are going to visit Ireland and London. She will be back on Tuesday. I walked Kenra to the train station at 4 am that same night so she could catch the bus to the airport in Frankfurt. She flew back to Kansas City for 2 weeks for her best friend’s Wedding!

So I am here alone but I have lots planned to do and places to go! So that same night that both the girls left I left that next morning with my friend Tiffany who is from K-State as well. I did not sleep at all that night which was a huge mistake but I thought I could handle it. I could have but somehow I got really sick about that same time.  Anyway Tiffany and I hopped on a train at 8 am and went to Köln. Köln is the 4^th largest city in Germany and is located along the famous Rhine River. It was a 3 hour train ride and I somehow managed to stay awake the whole time. Tiffany and I talked the whole way. Her and I have known each other for a year now but haven’t been all that close. It was nice to get to know her better and take a trip together without Kenra and Audrey, it was different and I had a blast.

We decided to follow my Rick Steven book and take the walking tour through town, the main thing to see is the GIANT Cathedral. It was Breathtaking!!! We walked out of the train station and there it was, it was huge and unbelievable! The construction of this huge cathedral was started in 313, between bishops and wars, different buildings were constructed and torn down, then re constructed again as they tried and tried to build this huge cathedral. In 1300 they decided to start the construction of what is standing today and they worked on this thing all the way until 1880 when they finished it!

So we gawked at this thing for ever and the inside was about the same! SO large and amazing! We then decided to take the long climb up to the top of the tallest steeple. It was 157 meters (515 feet) and 533 steps to the top and it was a very narrow spiral staircase all the way up to the top. I was so sick by the time I got to the top and exhausted!!! The view from the top was wonderful though! And totally worth it!!!

The Rhine River was Beautiful too, we got to walk all along it and even decided to take a river tour since we had an extra hour to burn till our train left to go back to Trier. The tour was pretty good, just a large river boat that took us a little ways then turned around and went the other way a little bit. I didn’t see as much and I thought I would, and the entire ride was with a hundred very loud Asians… so that was annoying but it was very relaxing on the water!

We ate lunch at a very traditional German restaurant and Tiffany had a traditional German thing I’m not for sure exactly what the name of it was but something like Black pudding… it looked ok. But I felt really bad all day, I was so sick. I don’t ever remember being this sick. But I ordered the traditional German soup and it was good! Hit the spot perfectly!

We also went to a chocolate Museum!! It was pretty neat, we were kind of short on time so we had to rush through it but it was really interesting. It talked about the different types of coco plants, where and how they grow and how chocolate is made from the fruit! It went through all of that then we got to watch them actually make chocolate on the machines and the process of how the chocolate is molded and formed. Even got to try some of it! Then at the end there was a HUGE chocolate store. This is when you could tell that I really was sick… I spent half an hour in that store and didn’t even buy one thing!!! If I was normal I would have spent $50 or more J ha ha haa

We caught the train home at 8:30 that night and it was the longest and the worst train ride of my life. I was so tired, not sleeping for so long really caught up with me. Plus on top of that I was soooooooo sick! And my body hurt so bad, I tried to sleep and did a little. But anyway I made it home and crashed very quickly!

Tomorrow I am going on a day trip to Bonn with the college group! Then on Wednesday I will go to Heidelberg with Tiffany for another day trip!!!