Cologne

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So, this weekend was Cologne. We slept a good amount the night before we left (my friend David and I) and got into cologne around 13:00 (1:00 afternoon, incase you're bad with military time).

We walked around a lot. When I say a lot, i mean that my legs were so so so so so tired from walking around so much.

Then we went to the Cologne Dome. It was huge and super beautiful. Right next to the Hauptbahnhof (main train station).

After that, David showed me a huge Fussgaengerzone (walking steet) which was an enourmous shopping zone. When i say enourmous, i mean like, so many people and so so so much shopping to be done. I had no money, so it wasn't that entertaining. We walked through and saw a lot of stores

We walked around the town some more and went over the main train bridge. This bridge was cool because there was some sort of tradition where people who are married or something each put a lock up with their marriage date on it. I need to look it up more, but there were hundreds, if not thousands, of locks with names and dates on them. It was cool.


We checked out the next morning and did luggage things and started our day on the town. Our train didn't leave until 4 in the morning the next night, so we tried to occupy our time efficiently to see things and also to waste some time until the train got there

We went to these cool Botanical Gardens, which were pretty big. We spent a lot of time reading about the history of the earth and whatnot, and I took plenty of pictures of plants and squirrells and things. It was pretty cool, but we took so long that we didn't see the whole park.

After lunch, we went to this jail where they imprisioned jews and prisoners of war. It was a memorial exhibit (with the real jail cells that had origional handwriting on the walls from the inmates and stuff) and a museum upstiars that wasn't the best. The jail stuff was really errie. It was creepy to know they had imprisoned and tourtchured so many people in these areas and you could still see the written pleas for help, the memoirs, the jokes, and the love letters on the walls. They were in so many different languages, but there were displays that translated them. It was a good learning experience, but very eerie at the same time.

We went to a movie that night to pass the time. It was called "Maria, ihm schmecht's nicht" (Maria, it doesn't taste goot to him... literal translation) It was a german movie about this german who is getting married to a half italian, and he goes and meets her italian relivies. It was so funny because they over did all the cultural differences between germany and italy people.

Then, we went to the college town bar place and found somewhere to sit down and have a drink and some nachos to pass the time. We had 5 hours before our train left, so we dilly dallied and whatnot It took us a while to find a place, but we weren't in a rush. At the bar, we bought Nachos for 2,30 €, which seemed like a great deal, but we soon found out that they simply opened a durito's bag and poured them on a plate (we ordered a side of Guachamole...). The buses stopped running very regularly, so about 1:15, we saw our chance to catch one back to the inner city. We paid, finished everything quickly and got out of there

However, we didn't realize until we were in the inner part of the city, that we left our bags in the bar. Oh great. we freaked out and had to get on another train to get to the bar. This train happened to go 6 blocks away from the bar. We had to almost runto get to the bar incase it closed before we got there. We weren't sure if it closed at 2, but we wanted to make sure we got there before incase it did. GAH, that was tough because David is such a fast walker, and I'm not as much. They found our bags and stored them for us until we arrived. They were nice, and we thanked them, but we had to wait 15 minutes for the next street car.

We got back, grabbed Döner Kebap, and walked along the river to the station, where we wandered around with super tired legs, looking for a cheap bathroom.



We got on the train, and I totally passed out. That was the best that I ever slept in a moving vehicle. Switched trains in Frankfurt, where I said goodbye to david, and went to struttgart, where I waited a couple hours, and came hom

Yeah, now we start the second month of the Goethe Institut. Oh joy. Classes start tomorrow...

MUNICH!

So, I just got back from Munich, and it was so so so awesome! On friday night, we had our college-wide bar party. There were a lot of people there, with much dancing and drinking and being merry. There was a fussball table and other stuff to do (i only played that and danced). We concreted our plans for the weekend then too.

(if you couldn't tell, my english is starting to get worse and worse the longer i'm over here)

Then we left really early saturday. We took 3 hours to the train to munich, and on the way, we stopped at Dachau. It honestly was such a cool site, but very overwhelming. One of the people I was traveling with actually ran into someone who he knew from college living in the town. that was odd. But after Dachau we went into Munich.

Some of the munich people were very angry people, while the most of them were super nice. In the italian Imbiss (it's like a cafe where you can get food to go), the worker was pissed off and then got so much more pissed off because we were speaking german with her and she knew english. It wasn't a good situation. Anyway, we toured the city and shopped and walked everywhere.



I know I screwed up those photos, but whatever. Anyway, while touring the city, we went to the Hofbrauhouse. That, was really fun. It was like a biergarden and a beer hall all in one. Super crowded, but quite awesome. We each got a liter of fresh brewed beer. Straight from the brewery (honestly, cause that's where they brewed it). Some of the best stuff I've ever had. There was german/bavarian music, and german food and everything.
Afterwards, we went out on the town again and walked around. We found the Englisher Gartens (English Gardens). It was like a big park where a lot of people just came to hang out. In the center of it all was a Chinese Pagoda, where there was a huge beer garden. We were going to get something there, but it was super expensive and they had a long wait, and there were millions of people standing around.

Afterwards, we took the subway back to the Hostel we were staying at. We had some happy hour drinks there, talked to the bar-tender and then went out clubbing (that's kindof what Munich is known for). There were a million clubs within this one square mile... and when I say a million, i mean, it was like a city comprised just of clubs. We went out with some girls from Ireland and some guys from England (5 of us, plus 4 or more of them equaled a crazy night of indecisiveness)

We got back, and the next morning we went out and about. My roommate wanted to go to mass, so we strolled around downtown again. We went up ontop of a church thing (which is where some of my pictures above are from). It was really really cool. We could see the whole town and it was beautiful (plus the weather outside was amazing!!)

After mass, we went to the Deutche Museum (german museum), which is rated to be one of the best, if not, the best, museums in the world, and we could tell. It was so so so awesome to go there and see a bunch of exhibits. My favorite was the glass exhibit and the paper one. I didn't get to see much of the physics, but what I saw I liked a lot.

Afterwards, we took the S-Bahn (schnellbahn, which literally means "fast train") to somewhere off the map and walked to the olympic part. There was a huge carnival going on at the park and it looked so much fun! We couldn't stay because we had a train to catch, but it was so so so sweet. The rides were kindof like ours, but more awesome. There was also a flea market and whatnot around the area.

Then we took the subway and went back home.

Memories!!!

Illia using the dyson blade dryer and making goofy faces and playing it.
Everyone being pissy, but having fun
The moped that the dog was riding on
Surfing up the river in the Englischer Gartens
Drunk guy on the train on the way home
Clubbing in general
Being memorized by everything while walking around Munich after the Hofbrauhouse (mostly being memorized by water).
Getting super lost on the way to the olympic stadium (our train station we got off at wasn't on the map)
Irish girls
Angry pizza woman
Man flat out ignoring Amber while riding his bike
Creeper man in Dardl Shop creeping on amber
Creeper creeping on me and amber at the museum

Ok, that is all. Here are some more pictures