Yesterday I left Koblenz for the first time since arriving in Germany. I plan to do a lot of traveling but I decided to start out with a day trip to Köln before trying something farther away–Köln is only an hour away by train, and I very much wanted to see the Cathedral (Dom) there! I found some people from the Erasmus group to go with me, even though I don’t know them that well, everyone here is pretty much a stranger to me anyway. Not knowing what time they were coming by train, or even if they were coming at all, I decided to make sure I got there early so that I could spend the whole day in Köln and caught a ride up there using Mitfahrgelegenheit, a website where people post where they’re traveling to by car so that others (like me) can find cheap rides. I found a woman who was driving to Köln and who would take me for the price of 8 Euros. Not bad, considering the train would have been 13-15. I called her and successfully made arrangements to leave at 7:30 from Koblenz-and phone conversations are especially hard in German since I can’t see body language or anything like that, but I did it! (I think I’ve recovered the German I learned at the Sommerschule by now and then some.)
The drive up there itself was an adventure. The driver told me all about the cities we were going through and what sort of history happened there. She was very nice actually; I seem to have had good luck with people so far. All was good until the van idled and we had to pull over. She very calmly pulled out an emergency sign and placed it behind the van while wearing a bright orange emergency vest that she had under the seats. I got the feeling this happens to her a lot, as she commented when she called the German version of AAA that “They’re never more than a half an hour.” We actually sat there for an hour. In the van, with all the snow outside, waiting for someone to come and fix it. Turns out, it just ran out of gas–the needle was on empty. Ok…so we got towed to the next gas station before we were on the way to Köln again. I arrived at the same time that the train did with the other students, but I didn’t mind so much–I could see the Cathedral!
I’ve wanted to see the Cologne Cathedral for a long time and I’ve been fascinated by it ever since I first saw a picture of it, so seeing it was a big item on my “Must-sees” of Germany! What amazed me upon seeing it in person was how incredibly huge it is. I’ve just never seen a church or a Cathedral or anything that big and detailed in America. Just looking at it, it was hard to tell what to focus on. The detail is extraordinary. I think you could stare at the building for a lifetime and not see everything. Construction began in the 13th century but it’s never really stopped, thus the scaffolding you see on the building. I’ve heard it’s almost always there to keep restoration in progress. I see why it is such a big tourist attraction; imagine, a beautiful piece of Gothic architecture they’ve been perfecting for 800 years! Another great part of that is that the train station is just outside the Cathedral, so you really don’t have to go far into the city to see everything you want to.
The other students arrived shortly after I did, and we decided to climb the Cathedral stairs. Some 500+ stairs lead to the top of the tower on the right (a “Stairway to Heaven” as the man at the admissions booth jokingly commented). Most of the stairs are spiral staircases, so it’s up ~320 feet in circles. And then down again the same way, to the point where I was sure that I would have nightmares of going down stairs in circles and never stopping. We got to see the bells ring, though, which was an amazing experience. Once we got almost to the top, there was another metal staircase that we had to climb–and I have a fear of heights. It was open air and I could see all the way down if I dared to look down or to the side. I decided that I didn’t come this far to stop at some stairs, so I kept moving, only looking up. It’s a pretty big deal for me to have actually made it all the way to the top, as I’m sure anyone with a phobia can understand, but it just made my day that much better–I got my daily exercise and conquered my fear of heights! The view at the top was wonderful; even if I didn’t go far from the Cathedral that day, I did get to see all of Cologne.
For lunch we ate at a very traditional German restaurant in the heart of Cologne. As my first official restaurant in Germany, I won’t soon forget the beautiful paintings and sketches of Cologne on the wall or the beautiful wooden furniture. The food was great too–I ordered Jägerschnitzel with Kölsch. Kölsch is a traditional beer brewed in Cologne, apparently a pretty big deal locally and also across Germany. It’s a sort of pale beer and very good. Local food, local beer, the Kölner Dom–what a great day!
After lunch we went to the chocolate museum. Yes, there is a chocolate museum in Cologne! I wonder why this has not caught on across the world. I now know a lot more about how chocolate is made and processed. There were lots of beautiful chocolate figures, and they showed the molds so that we would know how that is done. I guess my one complaint about it is that we only got 2 free samples of chocolate, and you’d think with admission they’d give you more than that. I did buy some hot chocolate which was very good though, and it was fun to look in the giftshop. They had chocolate in the shape of the Frog King, huge chocolate hearts, even chocolate that looked like a bottle of Kölsch.
Finally, the others decided to go shopping but I broke off from the group because all the shops remind me too much of American shopping malls–mostly clothes stores like H&M, where the only difference between Barton Creek Mall and Cologne is that these stores are outside. I did find the local Hard Rock Cafe and got a look inside. It’s kind of silly, but I really want to see as many of those as I can because of the museum-like quality to them–the more I visit, the more guitars from people like David Gilmour or Jimmy Page I’ll get to see!
Now, one more picture that I took when I went back to the Cathedral at night:
