Location: Koln (Cologne), Germany

Mmk, so upon some encouragement by a dear aunt of mine I will update, life has been hectic so I'm sorry this is a little old, about a week now. So here it goes, another adventure.

Say Hello to Cologne! Bad picture, it was cold and raining, so I only took one, buuuut, this is the amazing Gothic Cathedral in Cologne. Suppose to be the biggest in the world, but I could be wrong. So here's the story, Stephani and I had plans to go to Koln and I invited two friends, Eric (a friend of about 7 months now), and Kevin (a brand new RM, got released like 2 hours before we left). So the four of us went up there, and holy heck, this thing was breathtaking! Truly, but this is only the outside!

So this first picture is by far my favorite. This is a gargoyle located on a speyer. Unfortunately I did not take a picture of the whole speyer but it used to be placed on top of the cathedral but some reason it is no longer there. Too bad... but it gave me a great pic! So inside the cathedral it was dark and cold, but there were still some good photo ops, including one containing the "three kings". Of course this is all just speculated, but oh well. Sorry for the bars in the way, but the church owners wouldn't let me go inside the bars to get my picture. But I still believe it's an ok picture.

So then as Stephani and I were walking around taking pictures of this she looked up and saw something on the ceiling. The Cathedral being dark didn't make it possible for us to read it without taking a picture, so I did... If anyone knows Old Latin and would like to help me, here is the pic... kinda funny it being on the ROOF!!

Most cathedrals have the bishops buried in the cathedral, most yes are in the basement in a *forgot the word for it* but cemetary like thing, but here in the Koln they were buried on the ground level and had some cool coffins. Check this one out. I am not too sure as to which bishop this is, but heck, if he can be buried in a box that resembles a castle wall, I figure he must be important. I have also decided if anyone ever decides to throw me into a cement box as my coffin I want a cool lookin one like this too!

More images around the cathedral, we spent a lot of time there and I'm not even half through with the pix! So a bird of some sort, but we are unsure as to what it is of importance or what he has in his talons.

But it doesn't matter, After we took a turn about the cathedral Stephani and I decided to climb the 509 stairs to the top of the cathedral. Now this is where it gets fun! I am a little skeptical of heights, but I think it's more when my family is around and the railing is low. So anyhow, the two guys decided they did not want to join us. Leave it to the two chicks to go truckin up to the top. About 300 stairs up there is a break and you can go in and see the bells. Here is the main bell right in the center. So as we walked around to see the rest the walk ways were not big at all. If you know my sister she is still about the same height and size. Well check this out! She is so little and yet she was half the size of the way. And then of course we had to take one with me in the walkway hehe!

So then we get around to the side where you can see the bell the best, and man, it is HUGE! You can put like a Euro in a machine and the bells will gong and some little punk kids decided to do this like 5 times as Steph and I were up there. OUCH! I came out with a headache. Not really, but man, they were loud!

So after walking around this area Steph and I continued to trudge up the stairs. At what you thought was the top there were more stairs, but we finally made it. If you were to look up as we did, you could see the inside of the speyer and that it went on for a bit. We were definately a good 50 feet from the tippy top, but it was still a ways up there!

So here are some pictures of other speyers around the cathedral. And the first one is of a cool cross of some sort, but I like the starburst on the top.

Then my sister was messing around with the camera and came up with a really cool almost abstract picture of a speyer in the background of a cut out in the walls.

Now that I really look at this next picture I see that it is probably one of my favorites. I took it just goofing off to see if we could get some more good pictures of how much taller the cathedral is than of where we were, but I ended up liking it.

And then of course we had to get one more picture of the sister. She surely is cute and def will continue to be cute, but in the background is just another speyer and if the sky had been clear you could see the Rhein better, but you can somewhat see it. Just another good picture of the cloudy skies and the city.

After we were done looking around we began our descent down, Stephani and I decided to count the number of stairs. Ha! The Cathedral says there are 509 but coming down we only counted some 470 something! But as we were coming down the spiralling staircase had occasional windows so I snapped some pictures, but again, the favorite is one with Stephani in it. She actually got down and in the window that for some reason was down on the stairs.

More pictures of the speyers and some really cool ones. So without explaining them I will just post them.

So now I get to the fun part. Cologne is famous for CHOCOLATE! YUM! So here in Cologne is a museum of the chocolate. Oh it was fun to try and find. Nobody with us knew where it was, we had no idea, and so I had to use what Eric likes to call my "feminine whiles" and persuade a guy to tell us where it is. So I did, and we began walking, it took us a bit to find it but we found it.

Ever wonder how they make the hollowed out chocolate? Well, they hook it up on these cool little twisty turny things and they spin the small ammount of chocolate that is put in there and so the chocolate rolls around the molds and forms the yummy chocolate. Don't believe me, well you should come and see it!

So then we continued to walk around and it was like Willy Wonka's factory. They even had a Chocolate tree with a pond of chocolate at the bottom, though this picture was taken from the top the people who work there take waffers and dip them in the chocolate and give them to anyone who takes them. It was soooooooo goood, Steph and I got like 3!

The machines to make the chocolate was ever so cool, but I did not get pictures of all of them. too many! But that was definately a cool thing to go and see. They have HUGE Chocolate Coins, in Europe the 1 Euro and 2 Euro are coins. So they had Euros made of chocolate. The Germans have outdone us on this one! But ah oh well!

Once again my tale has turned into a novel, but no worries, it is finished! But I do know that I will have another one for you soon, Heidelberg is on the list for Monday! Truly hoping to get to this one! It's been on the list for quite some time now! Where in the World is Sara D. Ray? Now you know!