Fieldtrip to Köln

Happy Pride Day in Cologne!  So many rainbows and unicorns!

Welcome back everyone!  Sorry I'm late but I've been out and about all day long.  We took a trip to Köln- Cologne- and only just got back.  Man my feetsies are tired.

Bonn and Cologne basically touch, they're so close to each other, so a day trip to Cologne is totally possible.  We woke up relatively early, around seven o'clock, ate breakfast, and hopped on a train.  I've praised the european railway system before, but let me just say again: it's awesome.

We arrived at the main station after about twenty minutes to half an hour, and immediately found ourselves at the cathedral, Cologne's most famous landmark.  Once there, we were joined by a young lady named Francisca, who had been a foreign exchange student to UNCW and wanted to come along with us.  Super nice, and she didn't even criticize anyone's German!

After everyone was grouped up, we met up with our tour guide for the cathedral, who was the epitome of the German sense of humor.  That is, a bit of an acquired taste.  Regardless, we watched a "multimedia event" describing the history of the Köln Cathedral's construction.  I don't remember most of it, except that a giant crane sat on top of it for hundreds of years because they up and stopped construction for some weird reason.  Eventually it was finished in... 1880?  And was briefly the tallest building in the world... until the usa built the washington monument.

Anyway, our tourguide was a massive stain-glass window nut, and was all-too eager to describe each motif, especially this one panel with a bubble blowing angel.  I understand why the windows were the focus.  They were something special... one half being from the medieval era, one from the... gothic?... with some being from even further back, some being from the 1800's, and one being from the 21st century.

Your window is glitching out!
This is the newest window in the cathedral, with column 1
mirroring 3, column 2 mirroring 5, and 4 mirroring 6. 
So symmetrical.  So satisfying.

The Cologne Cathedral is particularly special because it supposedly contains the relics of the magi, which the cathedral people refuse to let be touched for DNA testing so we don't know for sure.  It's a pretty shiny box.  While we were for sure able to photograph stuff, we cannot photograph that so I didn't.  Sorry!  If you're curious, I'm sure you can find a picture somewhere.

We finished up the interior tour, and then it became time for the.... roof tour.  Hope you aren't afraid of heights, elevators, or scaffolding!!  The poor austrian bloke was scared of all of these things.  Sadly, we needed him, as we accidentally got a german-only tour guide, and since most of the people speak worse german than me, which is saying something, we needed a translator.

If you ever find yourself posed with the option of the roof tour, I wouldn't recommend it unless you are interested in architecture.  We went, essentially, into the attic of the cathedral after a ride in the most terrifying elevator in the world.  We saw the upper side of those pretty arches pictured above, all the clunky steel supports, and more!  We also walked outside on the service scaffolding to get a good view at Cologne, while Wolfgang (our german tour guide) tried to explain the restoration process. 

So, I'm not sure if you can tell in the pictures, but the cathedral is mostly black.  This is due to the fact that it's made out of sandstone, and because Cologne is a very industrialized city, it used to have a lot of coal plants and steam engines going through it.  The smoke in the air, combined with acid rain, have essentially turned the sandstone into sand, and also colored it black.  So now, the cathedral group is trying to replace the damaged stones.... one gothic piece at a time.  Maybe they shouldn't use such a fragile stone...?  I don't know.

We went to eat lunch after that.  It was extremely meaty.  I ordered herring and potatoes, as it seemed the lightest thing on the menu, it was.... not great.  I liked the potatoes, but I've never had herring before and it is absolutely not my favorite fish.  So I ate the discarded mystery meat slab from someone else, who didn't like it.  It tasted like pig cheeks, which I do like, except a million times tougher.  Anyway.

We split into groups of five people, because the train tickets covered five people apiece, and began our leisurely stroll around Cologne.  Our group was joined by Francisca, who lives in Cologne and knows all the good places, and she assured us that she could take us to the best ice cream in the city.  We walked a long way, making a brief stop for me to pick up some 4711, and got said ice cream.  'Twas good.

Both decked out in leather.  Took us all rather by surprise.

Francisca led us back to the river, where we ran into......  Gay Day. 

Ooooooh boy it was a blast.  We didn't linger, but there were so many rainbow flags, free hugs signs, and buff gay germans in full leather.  Also, every restaurant in downtown Cologne was flying the rainbow stripes.  I love this country.

We parted with Francisca, after she pointed to the Lindt chocolate factory.  We walked in it, to find it too expensive for us.  Not so much that we weren't willing to pay, but it was like 5:00 and we had walked literally all day.  Also, the England game was on!  We didn't leave without stopping by the truffle bar though.  I got myself a dark chocolate, darker chocolate, and coffee truffles.  And ate them all immediately.  I deserved it, by golly.

We then went to a sportsbar, watched the end of the England game (sorry Sweden, was hoping you'd make it through, but I kinda was rooting for England more), before deciding to head back to Bonn. 

We ate dinner on the way back through the city, and now here I am.  All in all, I prefer the atmosphere and size of Cologne (fourth biggest city in Germany) but Bonn feels a lot more safe, and cozy in a way.  Given the choice between the two of them, I prefer Cologne.  Tomorrow, we go to Bremen!