Another crazy day in Cologne...

Here I am at dinnertime of another day, completley wiped. I should have known that this is what I would do, so a cheap hotel would have been better, as the roomates I have in my hostel are here for the nightlife, so they were getting ready to go out while I was trying to sleep last night, and came back super late... I was not impressed, but they were trying to be quiet so I didn't say anything. I am going to find some sleeping pills I think for tonight, as this morning I noticed they had a bag full of liquor, so tonight will probably be more of a bang than last night.

But I was up at 7:30 this morning, and made sure they knew it, to be fair haha.

Wow today was long, but started off kind of rocky. I was too early for anything I wanted to do, and had read the hours wrong on a couple museums, so I sat and ate pastries fo about an hour... one after the other. My taste buds were singing, but my waist was crying haha.

When I finally got the day started properly I made my way to St.Ursula cathedral, which had been built for St.Ursula, the patron saint apparently of Cologne... she was a big believer in celibacy and would not cave, even upon her bethrothal. She was the leader of a group of martyrs as well... I want to look up more, there was not much info available, and the info that was was in German... it was more of an off the beaten path type thing and away from the tourist zone, butz really cool. After that I went to the NS-Dokumentationszentrum, which is the documentation centre on national socialism. The building was the headquarters for the Gestapo in Cologne from 1935 to 1945, and had an underground 'interrogation' chamber, which were actually prison cells. There was a huge exhibition on the rise and fall of the Nazi party, with a fine tuned focus on the party here, in Cologne. It was really cool too, and hard to find, so not many people were there, which was nice.

After that I went to the Praetorium, which was the administrative centre and residence of the Roman governors, and is the most important building on the Rhine, the border of the Roman empire. The ehxibit itself was a bunch of ruins underground, but it was amazing. There were many signs and information boards, but none in English, so I will have to do my best with what my imagination tells me haha.

From there I went to the Wallraf-Richardz Museum & Fondation Carboud, which showcases European paintings from the 13th century through the 19th century, along with sculptures and impressionalist paintings. It was amazing to stand and look at something that is 700 years old, and just think of the way the world was back then. It was an opportunity for the mind to wander. There was a special exhibit called The Moon, which basically went through the 400 year history (from Galileo's first telescope) to current images of the moon, and how they have been portrayed in art. It was fantastic. I was speechless with the amount of delicacy in some of the paintings. It was awesome. I looked at a bunch of Rembrandt and Monet work, and realize I don't really like their work haha. I can add them to work of famous artists I have seen, now next to picasso. I think I read somewhere that this museum has the largest or one of the largest collections of art spanning this many years. It was seriously something else.

I went back to the cathedral (the Dom) again today, just the outside, and man oh man I am happy I went yesterday as there was about 35X the amount of people there than when I went, which definately takes away from the experience.

The weather was crap again today, raining on and off and cold. I am still battling this cold, which sucks and is super annoying, but I am hoping to kick it shortly (or give it to the partying roomates haha).

Anyways, I figure I have written enough for today, I haven't even included everything that happened, as my days have been crazy packed!

I leave for Berlin tomorrow morning, I catch a train around 10AM and the trip is about 5 hours, so luckily I can catch some sleep there if the roomates party too hard tonight. I am excited but nervous for Berlin, I am super psyched to see all the history and sites it has to offer.

I am thinking about eating at a South African restaraunt tonight, either that or Mexican, but I can't decide. Now I am just babbling... I will write again in a couple days when I am settled in Berlin!


Love Krystle