January 31, 2014 (Friday)
Bre, Regina, Suzette, Aaron, Monica, Nick, Christy, and I left for Cologne, Germany in the afternoon on Friday after all of our classes. It was about a three-ish hour train ride with a couple of switches at different stations, but everything went very smoothly. The hostel we booked was actually REALLY nice, definitely not what I was expecting. It will be hard to not get my expectations up now when going to other hostels because this one was pretty similar to a hotel; we had split up into groups of four so we had two four-person rooms, which were actually pretty big for a hostel and they each had their own private bathrooms. After getting everything unpacked and situated in our rooms, we ate dinner at a German restaurant, which was absolutely delicious. We then found a dance club that was geared toward people our age (and played American music -- who would have thought I would get to dance to Backstreet Boys in Germany?) , so we went dancing for a couple hours and returned back to the hostel extremely exhausted.
February 1, 2014 (Saturday)
Saturday was the day that the real fun began. We started out by grabbing breakfast in a bakery on our way to downtown Cologne, which was near the train station we had came in to the night before about a twenty minute walk from our hostel. The first thing we did was go to the Cologne Cathedral, which I can't even begin to describe. Words and pictures aren't enough -- it didn't even look real, it looked like a massive backdrop someone put against the city. It was one of the most beautiful places I've seen in my entire life. I can't even try to explain how absolutely enormous this place was, or how intricate and detailed the architecture was. It just amazes me that people have the ability to build something so beautiful and have it last for so long. After looking around inside, we decided to climb to the top, which, surprisingly, didn't take as long as we thought it would. It was 533 steps, over 300 feet. We were all very sore and very tired afterwards, but the view from the top was worth it. After walking all the way back down, we went to a chocolate museum that had a ten foot chocolate fountain and tons of information on how chocolate is made and the role it plays in different cultures. Once we finished up at that museum, we grabbed a quick lunch and headed out to an art museum (Museum Ludwig). They had a huge collection of Picassos and Warhols which were very cool to see in person. But my favorite exhibit was one by Barbara Kruger. She had an entire room full of photographs and texts exposing the propaganda and brainwashing society feeds us, complete with an audio of a German hate speech. It was absolutely mind-blowing and eye-opening. After Museum Ludwig, we headed back to the hostel and took a breather before we ate dinner at a different German restaurant. We were too tired afterwards to do anything else, so we went back to the hostel and played cards and just sat around a talked. It was the perfect way to end a great trip.
February 2, 2014 (Sunday)
Sunday (today) was pretty mellow. We basically woke up, checked out of our hostel, grabbed breakfast, and walked by the cathedral one more time and took a few more pictures. We caught a train around 12:30 and stopped at Trier, where we changed trains and got back to Luxembourg City at around 5:00. The only issue we ran into was mixing up what "to" and "from" meant at the Cologne station, so we ended up sitting in the train yard for a good fifteen minutes before the conductor found us and informed us that we were in fact not going to be going anywhere. He was nice enough to drive us back to the station, though, where we got on the right train. I was back in Bettembourg by 5:30 this evening. But to sum it up, this was an absolutely perfect weekend. Everything went so smoothly, it was almost unbelievable. The city is absolutely gorgeous and there were so many things to do and see, but perhaps the best part was getting to grow so much closer to the people I traveled with. I'm very excited to see what next weekend (Amsterdam) has in store!
Bre, Regina, Suzette, Aaron, Monica, Nick, Christy, and I left for Cologne, Germany in the afternoon on Friday after all of our classes. It was about a three-ish hour train ride with a couple of switches at different stations, but everything went very smoothly. The hostel we booked was actually REALLY nice, definitely not what I was expecting. It will be hard to not get my expectations up now when going to other hostels because this one was pretty similar to a hotel; we had split up into groups of four so we had two four-person rooms, which were actually pretty big for a hostel and they each had their own private bathrooms. After getting everything unpacked and situated in our rooms, we ate dinner at a German restaurant, which was absolutely delicious. We then found a dance club that was geared toward people our age (and played American music -- who would have thought I would get to dance to Backstreet Boys in Germany?) , so we went dancing for a couple hours and returned back to the hostel extremely exhausted.
February 1, 2014 (Saturday)
Saturday was the day that the real fun began. We started out by grabbing breakfast in a bakery on our way to downtown Cologne, which was near the train station we had came in to the night before about a twenty minute walk from our hostel. The first thing we did was go to the Cologne Cathedral, which I can't even begin to describe. Words and pictures aren't enough -- it didn't even look real, it looked like a massive backdrop someone put against the city. It was one of the most beautiful places I've seen in my entire life. I can't even try to explain how absolutely enormous this place was, or how intricate and detailed the architecture was. It just amazes me that people have the ability to build something so beautiful and have it last for so long. After looking around inside, we decided to climb to the top, which, surprisingly, didn't take as long as we thought it would. It was 533 steps, over 300 feet. We were all very sore and very tired afterwards, but the view from the top was worth it. After walking all the way back down, we went to a chocolate museum that had a ten foot chocolate fountain and tons of information on how chocolate is made and the role it plays in different cultures. Once we finished up at that museum, we grabbed a quick lunch and headed out to an art museum (Museum Ludwig). They had a huge collection of Picassos and Warhols which were very cool to see in person. But my favorite exhibit was one by Barbara Kruger. She had an entire room full of photographs and texts exposing the propaganda and brainwashing society feeds us, complete with an audio of a German hate speech. It was absolutely mind-blowing and eye-opening. After Museum Ludwig, we headed back to the hostel and took a breather before we ate dinner at a different German restaurant. We were too tired afterwards to do anything else, so we went back to the hostel and played cards and just sat around a talked. It was the perfect way to end a great trip.
February 2, 2014 (Sunday)
Sunday (today) was pretty mellow. We basically woke up, checked out of our hostel, grabbed breakfast, and walked by the cathedral one more time and took a few more pictures. We caught a train around 12:30 and stopped at Trier, where we changed trains and got back to Luxembourg City at around 5:00. The only issue we ran into was mixing up what "to" and "from" meant at the Cologne station, so we ended up sitting in the train yard for a good fifteen minutes before the conductor found us and informed us that we were in fact not going to be going anywhere. He was nice enough to drive us back to the station, though, where we got on the right train. I was back in Bettembourg by 5:30 this evening. But to sum it up, this was an absolutely perfect weekend. Everything went so smoothly, it was almost unbelievable. The city is absolutely gorgeous and there were so many things to do and see, but perhaps the best part was getting to grow so much closer to the people I traveled with. I'm very excited to see what next weekend (Amsterdam) has in store!