Köln with my roommate

Last weekend I spent a couple of days in Köln (in English known better as Cologne, from Eau de Cologne) with my roommate Jordi and his boyfriend. Jordi lived there last year and Simon still lives there, so we had an easy place to stay! The train tickets weren't expensive either, since we are students and we can travel for free in Holland every workday. Thank god the sun was on our side as well, so it was a pretty relaxed and enjoyable weekend!

We departed on Friday evening, after having taken part in an economical experiment for the university, with which we earned enough money to pay for a meal at Vapiano's. As usual, the train was delayed and eventually didn't come at all, so we had to go with the regular train to Arnhem and take the ICE (international German train) from there. About an hour later we arrived in the gemütliche Köln, where we immediately saw the Dom (the most famous church of Köln, which is typically gothic by the way). Packed with suitcases and on high heels (as for me, of course), we made a little trip to Cologne already and finally arrived at Simon's house.

We started the next day with a run through a huge nature park and some delicious sandwiches from the bakery. Next we went to Bonn, a German city in the neighbourhood. Bonn used to be the capital of West-Germany, in the days of the division. We didn't see a lot of Bonn, we just saw the enormous museum 'Haus der Geschichte', of which I'll show you photos in a later post. This incorporated the entire history from Germany since World War II. As you might know, German's history is quite extensive, especially due to World War II and the Cold War. Of course I already knew a whole lot, since this was drummed into our heads at high school constantly. I find it very interesting though, so that was not a problem at all! There was also an exposition about the influence of America on Germany. Since I'm crazy about America, this was like heaven to me! It had a lot to do with the fifties, sixties and seventies. You could choose old American songs, a lot of which were from my heroes Ray Charles, Bob Dylan and the Supremes. There was also a giant tv screen with the most influential American movies, like Dirty Dancing, Forrest Gump and The seven-year itch. 

On Saturday we also did a little bit of shopping, but I only bought a pair of sandals. Brown and silver ones from Zara. Then we had to decide what to eat, which was quite difficult with one vegetarian and one person with an allergy of gluten. For once, I was the easy one! Eventually, after almost falling down of hunger and tiredness, we made it to a steakhouse, where I had the best chicken wings ever. Accompanied by an Aperol Spritz, my alcoholic refreshment :)

The next day we expected amazing weather, but unfortunately that didn't come until 4 o'clock. We made a trip through the old city center of Köln first and were stopped by a rather funny man, who told us we really had to see the candy store on the corner. Though this may sound really endangering and strange, we couldn't resist. It sounded a bit like 'Charlie and the Chocolate Factory' or 'Alice and Wonderland' and since I'm pro risk taking, we had a look. It was really sweet actually and we were invited for a show a couple of hours later, where we could see how they made the candy in a traditional way. We did and it was a lot of fun :)

Later on, we went to a huge park. The sun was shining and we felt gooooooood. A couple of Jordi and Simon's friends were playing guitar, I was just lying in the sun and trying to get tanned. It was really relaxing and I almost felt like a hippie. That night we stayed in and made ourselves comfortable with tortillas and Friends. It was a great weekend, learned a lot, seen a lot, laughed a lot, didn't party a lot, but that's not always necessary! Depressing to be back in Amsterdam, though I'd never thought I would say that. Let's blame it on university and the lack of sun!