Europe: Köln (Cologne), Germany (Jan 18 - Jan 19)

January 18th, 2013:

We took the rental car and drove to Köln, Germany (know as Cologne to Americans). I found it interesting you could just go in and out of the borders of the neighboring countries over there, but I wasn't complaining.

We arrived at night and immediately saw the Dom. It was magnificent -- even in the dark!

The hotel room had a large photo of the Dom on the wall as well:

The first place I had to stop at in Germany was a Pharmacy. I found a place called Apotheke, which is in one of the stores pictured below.

I told the woman pharmacist of my symptoms, and she immediately recommended me two items, which I went ahead and bought. I instantly felt better. My brother Kyle is graduating from UF's Pharmacy School in May, so I made sure to send him a photo of the drugs I was taking.

We walked around some more after that and just enjoyed the city. In the first photo below, you can kind of see a bridge off in the distance.

We stopped at one brewery/restaurant called Früh.

This isn't a great pic to explain what we first witnessed when we were inside. Waiters would walk by with metal crate looking things that reminded me of what a milkman would carry. It was a very fast paced process that these guys would pour beers, and waiters would swing in, grab beers and rush back out.

We only had one beer there, then headed out to find some dinner. We stopped at a Mexican restaurant which was actually VERY good. We did have a couple of problems there though. My boss ended up getting a beer spilled on his lap by the waitress. Kind of hard to tell in the picture, but I believe he ended up getting one on the house.

The other awkward experience was watching a mouse scurry across the floor. That little sucker was FAST! It literally made me want to keep my feet off the ground.

We decided to stop at a "Disco" after dinner to check out what it was all about. The place was dead inside, but the music and laser lights were going as if a party was happening. Eventually a couple of us danced to try to get the party started. I don't think anyone else joined in unti 1 am. I believe the discos are opened till 4 am there, but we didn't stay that long.

When we got back to the hotel, I saw that Jamie was still on-line, so I took a photo with Shaine and Wesley and sent it to him with a "good-night!"

January 19th, 2013:

The next morning, we met in the downstairs lobby and looked over the maps we had.

We set out to explore the city in the day time, taking advantage of more pictures of the Dom, including inside. It just so happened that a cardinal priest was present inside the church while we were there. It was cool to see and hear the loud chimes.

I never got tired of looking at the Dom. The pictures do not do it justice.

Some of the snow was still fresh in areas, so I took advantage of drawing this heart with my finger:

Shortly after that, was walked upon a group of people holding a bunch of heart balloons. They were getting ready to release them into the sky. We figured out that a wedding had just taken place and this was their reception time.

This was also near a historic part of the town because archaeologists had fences around where they were digging up old ruins.

It was recommended to use to check out a cable car that goes over the river there. I found information on my phone, found it on the map, and then took a train to it.

Tried not to breathe on people since I was still sick:

Waiting for our train:

On the train (with froggy name tag that my parents bought me for Christmas):

Finally we arrived to the location of the cable car (Rhein-Seilbahn)........ but because I have such great luck, the place was closed down for the winter. I was extremely disappointed.

So we moved on to find the Museum Ludwig.

They didn't let anyone take photos inside, but we saw all sorts of arts. Some of it was good, some of it was just okay, and other stuff was just plain CREEPY. It was nice thawing out in the warmth though.

But when we left, we jumped right back into the cold by playing in the snow.

Snowball coming right at me:

Here is a series of great action shots where Wesley said, "Kara, take my picture", and my boss said, "Take a bunch!"

We stopped playing around and grabbed a couple more photos with the bridge over the river in the background:

It was super windy by the river:

Here are a few more random photos from around the city:

To the right in the picture below is one of the train stations. 

At one point, we were inside the train station and a cat food company had a little kiosk set up where it was giving free cat food away. There was a large cardboard advertisement standing up like a wall with a small cut-out hole towards the bottom. The representative was asking people to "meow" into the cut-out and someone on the other side would give them the cat food. Fortunately for me, the woman didn't make me meow, she just handed it to me. I knew that Jamie's daughter Kailey would love it for their cat at the house.

Check out the cat's eyes. It's tripping out, I swear.

Also outside the train station was a rally that was kind of scary. I'm not exactly sure what it was about, and it appeared to be calm for the most part, but the police were all around the action:

We continued forward to stop at one souvenir shop before we headed out of town to go to Belgium. I wanted to get Jamie a stein (which I did get him), but it would've been cool to bring him back one of these beasts! The top isn't even on the one of the left it was so big. It was also a lot of money, and I don't know how I would get it on the plane. ha

With souvenirs in tow, it was time to load up and head to our next destination.