Germany, day 29: Exploring Koeln

This is the cathedral in Cologne. It's very big, to the point where it can't be captured in one shot of the camera. It's also where we started our day in Cologne. As a group, we took a tour of the cathedral and watched some multimedia related to it. Our guide seemed fairly knowledgeable, and spoke English well.

The cathedral was and is still a site of pilgrimage. It supposedly contains the bones of the three wise men, as well as those of other saints. It has a first-millennium crucifix statue that portrays the death as a victory, rather than a reminder of pain; it also doesn't have a white-washed Jesus.

Another fascination at the Cathedral: street performers. This one has obviously made himsolf to look like a certain Captain Jack Sparrow. I took the opportunity to use my pirate voice and ask, "Yarr! Wo findet man Rum?", which roughly equates to "Yarr! Where does one find rum?". He kind of jumped and opened him eyes wide after being address by a German-speaking American pirate. To be honest, I'm not sure if anyone would expect that. He gave me many handshakes, a picture op, and a quiet "Danke".

This is the cathedral, as seen from across the Rhein. The train bridge you see has a resonant frequency that is activated by trains crossing the bridge. Standing on the bridge while a train crosses is very entertaining!

Of course, I felt compelled to revisit the Roman-Germanic museum. Only one other student decided to go as well, so I thankfully had someone to take my picture as I posed next to statues. They had a special exhibit on Egypt, of which I learned we should not take pictures. I understood the guard as he told this to us in fairly quick German. As it turns out, we arrived at the museum around 4:10, and the museum closes at 5. We followed in the footsteps of great museum-skimmers before us, but didn't have a car engine to leave running outside the Louvre. We got through the whole museum before 5, though, and we very much enjoyed it.

We had group dinner plans at 7, so we needed to return to the hotel by a quarter to 7. This gave us nearly two hours of wandering to enjoy, during which we discovered the remains of the Roman north wall and one of the watchtowers.


For the group dinner, we went to Brauhaus-Sion, which brews the Sion-Koelsch beer of which I am now rather fond. The offerings included a few vegetarian dishes, for which I was thankful. One of the peculiar dishes was the meter-long wurst, which serves four people at a little under 10-Euro apiece. None of us ordered it, which deprived the group of an excellent photo opportunity.

After dinner, most went out to examine the locale, including the beer and its providers. I chose to stay at the hotel and watch the Olympics and give massages. I have learned that I am a pretty good massage-giver. I know there are other words for such people, but most such words are French, and since I am in Germany, I'll not use them.