Monday, January 30, 2012

The Stairs are Making me Dizzy!



It feels like I haven’t posted in a while even though it’s been less than a week. This past weekend was pretty busy. On Saturday, a group of us decided to visit Cologne for the day. While we were there, we visited the cathedral and just perused the town. The cathedral was amazing. Both the exterior and the interior are awe-inspiring. After we had finished walking through it, we decided to climb all 533 spiral steps to the top. This was no simple task but I’m so glad I did it! The view from the top was breath-taking and I hope that we get to do this again on our next trip this week.


On Sunday, we visited the Eifel region as a whole group. Waking up at 6 AM was no fun but I enjoyed the trip nonetheless. We started off at the Maria Laach Monastery with a mass. Even though the mass was not in English, it was beautiful to see the old-style of the Catholic Church. Second, we visited the Castle Schloss Burresheim. It was interesting to learn about the different methods people used to protect the castles. For example, the twisting pathway to the center courtyard and the small openings in the wall so that they would be able to aim easily at invaders were measures of protection. In the next town, we stopped to have lunch and were entertained by the banter of two of the waiters. Last, we visited Monreal and climbed to the top of a hill where there were ruins of another castle. Sadly, I am a little afraid of heights so being at the top and making several daunting climbs were difficult, but I’m so glad I did it. We got some amazing pictures and it was fun being able to see the whole city from the top of the ruins.

I wish that we had more time during the semester just to travel to all of these amazing places. It is such a great experience to be able to travel abroad and learn about so many different cultures. I hope I continue to make trips around Europe while not losing sight of my academic goals!

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