Saying Goodbye to Germany

My last couple of days in Germany were split between the towns of Trier and Koln. I first went to Trier for a night where I stayed at a great hostel. It is run by this woman named Hille who lives upstairs on the third floor. When I arrived, I was greeted by her meduim sized dog who came bounding down the stairs with her and also her cat who stays pretty much down in the common room. It as nice cause it makes you feel as though you are in a bit more of a home environment.

While in Trier, I went to check out the town and was very excited about it. It is the place north of the Alps that has the most Roman ruins. There was first this unbelievable gat there built in the 2nd or 3rd centuries that is still standing. That was pretty remarkable to see. I next went to the ampitheater they have there and that was huge! It was built to hold 20,000 people and walking into the middle of it on the sand you jsut feel like you are tiny incomparision to the size of the sides where all of the audience would be sitting. Underneath, you can go down below and it is really creepy because it is dark and dank and it is damp too. Needless to say, that was not my favorite part. Next stop, was outside some old Roman Baths there that are still standing. All of these places were built in the 2nd or 3rd centuries and it is sometimes hard to comprehend how old some of the things are over here because there is nothing like that in the States.

After Trier, my final stop was in the city of Koln. This was a pretty big city, about a millon people living there. When I walked out of the train station I was greeted by their huge cathedral, the cities claim to fame. It is litterally towering over the exit. I think that it is the biggest one in Europe. I headed there the next day to check it out and was quit impressed. There are many carinals buried there beneath the ground level. It had a ton of beautiful stained glass windows as well that were pretty amazing. It also had this huge organ, as most do that was pretty impressive. It is not the most ornate one that I have seen, but it is really spectacular still.

Next stop in the city was at the Chocolate Museum there. That was a lot of fun. The company that runs this museum is the overall company that owns Lindt and Kinder CHocolate companies. YOu walk in and are hit immediately with the smell of chocolate all the way through. There is a lot of reading at first, but it is really interesting because it tells all about the Cacao bean and the history of chocolate basically. After that, you go into an area where they actually produce some of the chocolate and get to see how it is done. I haven't see anything like that before so that was pretty fascinating also. I watched and felt like a little kid. There was a huge chocolate fountain at one end of the room and the aroma was unbelievable! They dipped some wafers in the melted chocolate and you get to sample it. It shows you how they make chocolate with moulds, truffles, and plain chocolates. It was really informative cause I haven't seen anything like that before. I browsed around in the gift shop and that was huge, filled with every kind of chocolate confection you could imagine!

I walked around a bit, but unfortunately was not feeling all that well I think because of my walking around in the rain a few days earlier, so I went back to my hostel early and enjoyed a nap to try and sleep off the cold!