Cologne Cathedral and Costumes

I was part of the group that ventured to Cologne this weekend, and I've got to say- it kind of blew my mind. I think I made the assumption early on that visiting Cologne (or I guess, Köln) wasn't really a big deal since it's so close to Bonn and pretty easily accessible. Especially in the context of some students going to Amsterdam for a couple days, I didn't expect something so much closer to hold the same attraction. That all changed about five steps out of the train station, when I first saw the MASSIVE cathedral looming overhead. I mean, my host family had mentioned the cathedral and I knew that it was on the schedule we'd planned for the day, but nobody said "Hey, so in Köln there's this giant monolith of a cathedral that began construction in the 13th century and has giant pillars and twenty-meter-tall stained glass windows." So yeah, I was impressed. After climbing a seemingly endless staircase, it was really neat to see Köln from up in one of the spires.

After the cathedral, and all of those steps, we decided to take a break and grab some lunch in the Altstadt (Old Town). We even toughed out the cold and rewarded ourselves with gelato for dessert. From there, we mostly just walked around the city. There was a sporting event later on in the day, and we saw lots of fans from both sides making their way through the city (identified, of course, by their red or blue team scarves). There were a lot of costume shops preparing everyone for Karneval, and we had a good time trying on some ridiculous discoveries. I'm pretty sure my favorite was an Elvis-inspired "king of rock" outfit complete with shiny gold spandex and glasses, but there was a lobster hat in close contention. What more could you want? I still have to come up with a costume, but Maylin (one of Andrea and my host sisters) offered to let us look through a bin of former costumes and wacky clothes back at the house.

On the way back to Bonn, we discovered that our interpretation of the train schedule was a bit off, and took an unintentional detour to a different part of Bonn before having to catch various trams to take us the rest of the way home. Luckily, we were able to figure it out, and probably won't make the same mistake again... no promises, though. Anyway, I had a lot of fun branching out from Bonn, and now that I'm a little more aquainted with Köln, I'm really looking forward to coming back with the rest of the group.