Koln

Top of the Dom

Hello from Cologne (Koln as the Germans call it)! We hope that all our mothers are having a great Mother’s Day! The past couple of days we have been all over the place. On Thursday we left Interlaken and went to the capital of Switzerland, Bern.  Then on Friday we went to Basel, near the German border to meet up with our friend Nadine. Now since yesterday we have been in Cologne. Although we have been to a lot of places in the past week we did not do too much.  We are tired and are ready to come home.

Old Town

Bern Bears

On Thursday we arrived in Bern. Before arriving to the city we did not know too much about it. We only stopped in for the day because we had time to spare before we met up with Nadine on Friday. We were pleasantly surprised to find a small medieval looking city. Mainly we just walked around, and then we went to the bear pits where the city keep three bears, the mascot of the city. This night we also tried what is called “couch surfing”, which is a website that helps you find people’s couches to sleep on.  We stayed with this guy named Claude who is a bio PHD candidate. He invited us to go out that night with him and his girl friend and we went to a place called Reitschule .  Reitschule is kind of like commune created and run by anarchists.  The commune is in a large building that use to be a riding school in the early 20^th century.  Now this building contains two bars, a concert venue, a small movie theater and living arrangements for the cities anarchists. It is a big hang out spot for Bern’s university crowd and it reminded Orry and I of Asbury Park.  

With Nadine

On Friday we went to Basel to meet up with Nadine. While we were waiting for Nadine to get done with work Orry and I walked around the city and along the Rhine. Basel is nothing special so we did not do too much. Later on we met up with Nadine and she took us out to dinner and then to a place called “City Beach”, which is a lounge that is made up to look up like a beach. The funny thing is that “City Beach” is located on top of a parking garage and we would never have known if it was there if Nadine did not take us there. We had a good time catching up with Nadine and it was great to see her.

Yesterday we came to Cologne, which is home to the second tallest cathedral in the world. Yesterday when we arrived we met up with one of Nadine’s good friends that lives in Cologne. We met him at his friend’s apartment where they were having a bbq on the roof. They were really nice guys and later went out for drinks with them.

The first thing we did today was climb to the top of the Dom, which is what they call the cathedral. To get to the top we climbed 533 steps, which felt like nothing. Unfortunately we weren’t very impressed with the view we saw from the top because we expected more. Also you could not go all the way up, so I was kind of disappointed.

Chocolate Factory

After our climb we went to the Lindt Chocolate Museum and Factory. Here we learned all about the process of making chocolate and the chocolate trade. We also got to see chocolate being made. The museum was okay, I wish they gave out more free samples then they did though.

So tomorrow we are going back to Amsterdam and will probably just relax for the day then on Tuesday we fly home. It has been a good trip and we both got to see some pretty amazing sights. Until next time,

-Melissa and Orry