February 26: KOLN

Jill, Gerry, Nasha, and I got up early and headed to KOLN!  We explored the city and had so much fun!  We walked up the 533 stairs at the Cathedral and took pictures from the very top!  It was so tiring…and was very dizzy coming back down.  We went and bought some souvenirs and checked out the original cologne that the city is named after or maybe it’s the other way around…we don’t know which came first!  We went to the brewery for lunch.  The food was great, but the service was terrible.  We tried the beer that KOLN was known for…but I didn’t like it and couldn’t even finish my tiny glass!  I got an iced tea instead!  After, we walked through the old prison and saw where a lot of people were held prisoners during the time of Hitler.  Unfortunately all the descriptions were in German, but we did find a few stories of people that were in English as well.  It was so sad reading them.  We got the most delicious gelato at a little shop and it was only 1 Euro per scoop!  We took pictures throughout the area, including the bridge with the locks.  People would lock their love on the bridge on then throw the key into the river!  It was crazy seeing all those locks and all that love!  There was a guy on the bridge that handed each of us roses and I thought it was so sweet and then he wanted 2 Euro each from us.  I only had 1 Euro and a few cents in my pocket so I tried to give him the rose back, but he wouldn’t take it.  I felt bad…but he took the 1 Euro and left me with the rose.  Oh well.  Then we went to the Panorama and rode the lift to the top of the tower!  We could see the whole city from up there!  It was beautiful.  When we were leaving the tower to head back to the train station home, we saw a guy leading a girl to the bridge with a blindfold on…we thought for sure he was going to propose!  We were so excited that Nasha and I stood there to watch while the others went to grab a pretzel for the ride home.  We watched forever and finally he took the blindfold off….and then they kissed!  But we never saw a ring!  We were very disappointed!  How cool would it have been to see someone get proposed to on that beautiful bridge?!  Oh well…we are hoping maybe we will witness a proposal in Paris!