Our First Excursion!

This week we had our first excursion to Cologne and it was definitely my favorite thing we have done since stepping foot in Germany! My first impression of the city after leaving the train station was “Wow, that’s a big cathedral.” This cathedral was by far the biggest church I have ever seen but I will talk about it more in a second. Anyways, the first stop on our excursion was visiting ELDE Haus which is the former Gestapo headquarters. We learned about the Gestapo’s part in World War II and got to see the different components of the Gestapo’s headquarters. Even though I have already learned about WWII several times in the past, I don’t think any of that could ever fully explain how awful life was for some people during that time than actually seeing it in person. The most eye-opening scene during the tour for me was being in the jail cells, seeing the captions or sayings prisoners carved into the wall, and hearing the personal stories of those prisoners who were treated so terribly. Between that tour and the tour of the Museum of Postwar German History that we took later on in the week, I now have a better understanding of the severity of WWII and see just how much it has shaped Germany and the rest of the world today. After visiting the museum and having lunch, we got a tour of the city. We saw everything from the perfume museum to Roman ruins that are scattered throughout the city, all of which was fascinating to see. Then a group of us went to the Cologne Chocolate Museum while we waited our turn for the cathedral tour, and man was their chocolate good! Not buying chocolate from their gift shop was probably one of the hardest things I’ve done this trip. However, even the delicious chocolate couldn’t top the last stop on our excursion: the rooftop tour of the Cologne Cathedral. My group first travelled up to the top of the cathedral to see a beautiful view of Cologne. The multiple pictures I took from that view do not do it justice, and it is a memory I will always cherish. The tour continued with us winding down the cathedral and getting to see the inside of the cathedral from the rooftop. I loved everything about that tour and was amazed to learn that the cathedral was first built in 1248 and is still standing today even after Cologne was bombed several times throughout WWII. The fact that people were able to build such a large, complex structure back then still amazes me. All in all, the excursion to Cologne was an unforgettable one and I hope to go visit the city several times before these 4 months are up!