Wednesday, October 30, 2013

Cologne, Germany with the DAAD Stipend Recipiants

Hello Everybody!

To start, I would like to say that unfortunately my weeks tend to be pretty typical, so if there is a week when I do not post, it is because I have not done anything more out of the ordinary than going to lectures, cooking, eating, exercising, and learning.  I figure that stuff is not all that interesting, so I can leave it out for now.  In saying that, however, my studies are becoming a little bit easier!!  After the first two weeks, I am starting to develop a routine and getting used to the speed at which the lectures are being taught.  For every lecture I have, the professor has his/her notes posted online that I can print out, bring with me to lecture, and make my own notes!  It's a perfect situation!  Anyways, let us talk about Cologne!

Well last week Friday, I was to wake up at about 6:00am for I had to pack, eat breakfast, and prepare to head off to Köln/Cologne, Germany for that Friday and Saturday.  I got to the train without any troubles, for I had woken up early enough to recompense for any delays.  The train ride was only about one hour, and it left and arrived just as punctually as the reputation (which is more of a stereotype) of the German train system upholds!  After arriving in Köln, I had to walk but five minutes from the train station to the hostel, in which I was to be staying over night.  Once there, I met up with a small group of other DAAD students, and we waited together until our check-in time at 11:30am, so about one hour.

Once we received our keys, we went up to a conference room to meet the faces of our contacts at DAAD, with whom we had up until that weekend only been communicating through email, and to receive some general information about the itinerary for the weekend and the DAAD organization.  The it was off to see some sights!

Our hostel was on the east side of the Rhein River, and we were walking over to the west side to see the Dom.  A side note that we learned from a Köln resident on our tour: the West side of the river in Köln is considered the 'right' side, and the East side of the river is considered the 'wrong' side by the Köln people!
But anyways, here was the first sight we could see as we began crossing the bridge to the 'Right' side of Köln.


And as we crept up upon the Dom from the south side, this is what we saw.


And then again the Dom from the west side of it.  You can see that while standing under it, it is very difficult to capture all of its monstrosity.


We were then met by a group of tour guides, who took us on a tour around some of the historical areas in Köln, including a museum with a very wonderful mosaic, unfortunately I did not take many pictures during my stay in Köln.  We also got to learn a lot about the Dom and some of the other surrounding monuments.
The Dom wasn't finished until the 19th century, if I remember what our guide said correctly, but it also is the home of the bones of the Three Wise Men, for those of you who know the story.  At the peak of the Dom, there is a gold star, the Star of Bethlehem, under which the bones of the Wise Men were to be held, but they are instead held underneath a different part of the Dom, and there is a golden cross for the Wise Men to rest under.  (In the first picture, you can sort of see the cross and the Star of Bethlehem.)
On the south side of the Dom there is also a door with a blue crest on it.  Our guide told us that that door is only opened for one person: the Pope.

The rest of our tour took us through some other historic sites, like I had said, including a Roman structure, which was completely destroyed during WWII and rebuilt, and the world's first cologne production facility.  No, cologne was not invented in France, it was in fact invented in Köln (Cologne), Germany.  Go figure.

After our tour, we went to a tower to see a 360 degree view of Köln.  The weather was not very nice, so I only managed to get two good pictures from this tower.


Then we ate a fabulous dinner at this restaurant called L'Orange.  After that we went back to the hostel for a short while before heading back across the river to have a few drinks and experience the beer famously known as 'Kölsch.'  Since we had to wake up early for breakfast the next day, we all were back in the hostel around 11:30 for bed.

The next day was a bit less exciting.  We had breakfast, and then we were given a lot of information about the higher education system in Germany, and it gave me some ideas for if I wanted to pursue further education after my Bachelor degree.  We had a coffee break during the information session to catch up and talk with many others about our experiences in Germany so far and what not.  After the information session, we had lunch and were then released from our DAAD responsibilities for the weekend.  A friend of mine, who I had just met on Friday, and I went on another short tour of Köln before I needed to head to the Hauptbahnhof to catch my train back to Frankfurt.

That was it for the DAAD weekend in Köln!  I met a lot of really awesome people from Canada and the USA, and I hope that I can visit some of them if I am ever in the cities in Germany in which they are currently studying!








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