Bonn, Köln (Cologne) and EM

For the last holiday for the semester Heather and I went to go visit a friend of mine. Jorina lives in the area around Bonn. We left on a Thursday morning, as soon as the tram started running which wasn't until about 8:30am or so. We then took a train to Trier and met my other friend Julia and we had lunch and chatted for two hours until our train came. We then took the train from Trier to Koblenz which connected to a train which went to Köln, I think or Bonn. We got off in a town called Linz where Jorina picked us up. 

Bonn

That night we went for a walk around her the fields by her mom's house and got to know her family and boyfriend and we had a game night. The next day, Friday, Jorina and her boyfriend took us to Bonn. On our way there we stopped at a hotel that used to be a government building that was used when Bonn was the capitol of West Germany. It sits way up on a hill that overlooks Bonn. It is a super expensive hotel that costs I think about 225 euros per night and a minimum of two nights and that was the cheapest you could get. 

After we were done at the hotel we went into Bonn and went to a museum called "Haus der Geschichte" which translated means "house of history". It was a museum that talked about the history of Germany from about WWII until present day-ish. It was interesting to go through the museum because there were some things in there that Heather and I had seen in one of our German classes dealing with Germany from WWII to the present. It was cool to see the actual real versions of the propaganda and political cartoons that we had seen online from our class. 

After the museum we went to the old part of Bonn where we walked around and looked at the town hall and  a church. We went in the church, which was called a "Münster" in German, and looked around. We then walked beside the Rhein river for a while till we reached our car again. After we were done in Bonn we went back to her mom's house and had supper before we went to see a bunch of hot air balloons lift off at the same time. As luck would have it the weather was really bad so we didn't go watch them. Instead we went and rented a movie and just had a movie night.

Love Locks

On Saturday we got up and ate breakfast all together and then we left for the train station that was in a town called Königswinter. That is technically the town where that fancy hotel is at even though it is way far away from anything. There were six of us but Jorina's boyfriend already had a ticket so the five of us got a group ticket so it ended up only costing 5 Euros per person! I love the transportation system in Germany!! So we arrived at the Hauptbahnhof (main train station) in Köln and we had 15 minutes to walk around until Nathalie my friend from Belgium came.

When Nathalie arrived we went to the Kölner Dom which is the huge church right outside of the Hauptbahnhof. We went up the steps and went inside of the church and we walked around for a while and then when we were leaving we heard people saying that no more people could come in because they were going to have mass...since it was a saturday. So from there we walked along the Rhein river again. We were walking to this gondola which we took across the river into a park. From there we walked to the bridge that most of the trains go across which leads right to the Hauptbahnhof/Kölner Dom.

Nathalie and I

On the bridge people will get a lock and then lock put their initials or names on it along with their husband or wife's name and then they lock it on the bridge and throw the key into the river below. It is to symbolize that their love is locked and they wont ever split or something close to that.

View from he top of the Dom

From the bridge we went to go look at the line to climb up the tower of the Kölner Dom but the line was too long, just like when we first were in the church we looked after we came out and it was too long. So we decided to go get something to eat and then come back to see if the line had gone down. When we were done eating we came back and the line was way smaller so he climbed the tower which had 533 steps...and we had full stomachs.

In the tower you go up a big set of stairs which are only big enough for like one and a half persons wide so I pretty much went up sideways for half of the tower because people were coming down. The first place you can leave the stairs was the bell tower which you could go walk around all of the bells and then you were back at the stairs. While I was up there the bells ran three times, I think, to signal it was quarter till the hour. It was really loud.

Then you could continue up the stair more until you came into this huge room. I am not sure what it would have been used for but there was a new metal stair case in the middle which took you up even farther. At the top you could see all of Köln it was pretty cool. I wasn't able to get super good photos because there was a netting fence thing that was not big enough to let my lens through. In any case I still did get some pictures. Then to get back down you had to go to a staircase that was like the way up until you got back to the big room. Then you had  to go back to the staircase where people were coming up as you were going down.

My Torte

Once we got done climbing down the steps we went to go get a coffee and sit down for a while. While we were there I got to use my awesome translating skills to help this lady. I don't drink coffee so I bought this piece of Torte and it was over 3 euros. It was kind of expensive and it wasn't as good as I thought it was going to be so I was a little disappointed.

When we were all rested again we left and walked along the Rhein river again but the other way. We went to  a chocolate museum. It was the history of Lindtt chocoalte! It was really expensive to go in so we just went into the store instead and I bought a really yummy chocolate bar. There was also a Noah's Arc boat in the water outside the chocolate museum.

The chocolate museum was the last thing we did in Köln for the day. We just walked back to the church and sat on the steps in front until it was time for our train to come. It was really fun to catch up with Nathalie and Jorina! Heather and I spoke a ton of German that weekend and then of course English with Nathalie! Nathalie has picked up a British accent which is funny to me. I like it.

When we got back to Jorina's mom's house we had supper and then the Germany v. Portugal soccer game was on so we eat fast so we could watch it. This was the second day of the the EM (Europameisterschaft). Which is just like the World Cup but for only Europe. Germany won so that was pretty sweet it was an intense game I was freaking out a couple times when Portugal almost scored but then they never did so it was okay. 

I will probably write more about the EM later once it gets closer to the end. This post is already pretty long so I will just end it here. Enjoy the pictures!

Inside the Dom