Our Memorial Day was spent organizing the house (since our furniture finally arrived!) and taking a little road trip to Cologne, Germany!
Cologne is only 2 hours away but we wanted to enjoy the full day and night there so we booked a room. We booked through Airbnb which is a website for people to rent out lodging. They can rent out full houses, apartments, or just a room! This was our first time using this site and it was incredible. We paid $50 for a room right in downtown Cologne where a hotel room in that area cost double that.
We stayed with a girl named Sophie who was in her 30s and taught music at the University. She was extremely friendly and helpful and had a small but nice apartment. After we chatted for a bit and she gave us a key we took off to explore the city.
The Dom Cathedral was the first thing we wanted to see. On our way there we walked through crowded streets filled with people, shops, and food but could see the cathedral the entire time because of how huge it was.
The inside was of course beautiful but we were pretty amazed just staring at the structure from the outside. Even more breathtaking (literally) was the tower climb. Yep, another tower climb. Another tower climb with even more spiral stairs. I actually stayed at the top of this one for a lot longer than the one in Rothenburg. Even though it was higher, the platform was a lot bigger and I didn't feel like I was going to fall off! The view was totally worth the hike.
We built up quite an appetite walking so we made our way to a few restaurants and then the Love Lock bridge! The restaurants were tasty and the beer was tastier. The Fruh restaurant is a popular brewery in town with little .2 liter glasses of Kolsch beer always coming around. We found out after a few that they won't stop coming until you put your coaster on top of your glass. Now we know!
The Love Lock bridge was a very fun experience. There are thousands (over 40,000 to be exact) of padlocks hanging on the Hohenzollernbrücke bridge. Some locks are painted, some are engraved, some big, some small and after you hang your lock you are supposed to throw your key into the Rhine river for everlasting love. So, that's what we did! I know, I know, it sounds incredibly lame but give us a break! When in Rome, eh?
By this time it was evening so walked to find a place to have dinner. We sat outside close to the river and watched street entertainers while enjoying the long sunlight and warm(er) weather. We noticed as it started getting later that more "crazy" people started to come out. There were a TON of bachelor and bachelorette parties going on. Apparently its a very common place to have one! Each party had matching shirts and outfits and went around doing fun pranks to the bride or groom-to-be. I won't go into details but at one point I was chosen to wax a strip of hair off a bachelor's inner thigh.
Once it became dark the streets were full again but this time full of people sitting at restaurants watching Champions League soccer on the TVs outside. We sat down and watched as well. The last event I wanted to do for the day was see the cathedral at night so we walked that way while talking and laughing with some Germans. I always assumed that people could tell we were American just by looking at us or at least by the way we spoke, however, everyone asked us where we were from and then were surprised that was said America. They were super eager to speak English to us and we were happy that everyone seemed to love us!
The rest of the weekend was spent organizing our place again. We have it feeling pretty homey at the moment but it can still use some work!
As most of you know, Taylor had surgery yesterday on his knee. It went very well! So for the next few weeks we will be taking it easy on the traveling and recovering his knee back to full strength. BUT, I still need to blog and show pictures of our day trip to Idar-Oberstien, my fun day in Metz, France and how we are adjusting while living here in Germany. Stay tuned!
