New favorite German city

This past weekend, I went with two other students teachers (who are great friends!) to Cologne (Köln--the German spelling/pronunciation). This city is beautiful and I learned so much.

We started off our day by taking the train from a nearby village to Cologne. This was about 2.5 hours on the train, and I enjoyed being able to see the nice sites and views from the train. Upon arrival in the train station in Cologne, I needed a small piece of home and we found ourselves in a....
Starbucks! It was nice having something that tasted like home. While we were drinking our coffee, a nice English speaking couple leaned across the table asking where we were from (I can't imagine how they knew we weren't from Germany!). We told them our story and why we're in Germany, and this husband and wife were retired teachers from Australia! We were able to sit and have a really interesting, in-depth conversation about education and compare our two educational systems.




After leaving Starbucks, we walked right into the beautiful cathedral in Cologne. This cathedral is Gothic style and leaves you in awe of its architecture. We decided to climb the tower in the cathedral because why not! We had no idea what we got ourselves into. To climb to the top it's over 500 steps...and to get back down you take the same flight of stairs of over 500 steps! Below you can see our faces/stages of how we felt climbing the stairs. For anyone considering visiting Cologne, it is worth it!
 While also in Cologne, we visited the Roman history museum which was wonderful!

Pre-climb

Post-climb

We couldn't leave out the chocolate museum while in Cologne! We are all avid chocolate lovers and wanted to see how chocolate was made (and of course eat all the samples throughout the tour!). We learned a lot about the process of chocolate making process and see the nice Rhine River which many refer to as their Mississippi River! We ended our trip with a little shopping and were exhausted! 

Sunday's in Germany are truly days of rest. Many stores and restaurants are closed so that everyone can spend time with family and friends and rest. Let me tell ya, after a long day in Cologne, I took that day of rest to heart! I propped my feet up and planned my lessons for the week! I'm looking forward to a week of teaching and Berlin this weekend!