Koln

This weekend being a normal weekend, I spent Saturday in Koln (if you speak German) or Cologne (if you speak English or French), which is about 2 and half hours from Paderborn. Via train, of course.

Walking out of the train station, if you can't find the cathedral, you are either blind or stupid, because it's right there. And it's huge. According to the brochure, it's the third largest cathedral in the world. I tried to figure out online which were the first two, but apparently it depends a great deal. First you have to be looking at only 'Cathedrals' and not 'Basilicas', and you have to decide whether height, area, or total volume is most important to you, and then you have to decide whether or not to count the one in NYC that is still unfinished. No matter which way you look at it, it's a really really really really big church.

Kolner Dom or Cologne Cathedral

And very pretty. It's what I've come to consider as remarkably damage-free, although it's clear not all of the stained glass windows have survived the marches of time. Most of the non-original windows have been replaced with traditional tile patters, but not all:

Historic stained glass

Not-so-historic stained glass

Super awesome floors too.

After the cathedral I went over by the river and walked up to the bridge to see if I could get a nice view. I did not get a nice view (it was rather a rainy day) but I did see these.

Thousands of love locks

Along the whole length of the bridge there were thousands of these "love locks". The basic principle is you and your beloved write your names on your padlock of choice, hook it to the fence, and throw the key into the river, thus sealing your love forever. It's apparently quite popular, considering this bridge is only about 5 years old. I momentarily felt sorry for the fishies getting bonked on the head with undesired lock keys, but one look at the river told me that any fish living in that river had worse things to worry about than discard bits of metal.

If you follow said river, you will eventually come to the Chocolate Museum. It was much, much larger than the one I visited in Brussels (although funnily enough they were the same price) although it did not come with as many free samples. I learned all sorts of useless information about the growing of cocoa beans, the transportation of said beans, the process of making chocolate, the evolution of chocolate, etc, etc. Highlights: a "rainforest" room with a live cocoa tree, and a small-scale chocolate factory. The rainforest room was so hot and humid most of the Germans walked through at as quickly as possible, but I remained for a few minutes enjoying the home-like conditions. Frankly, Georgia is definitely humid enough for cocoa trees, but I think they'd find it too hot.

A real live cocoa tree with fruit!

Eat your heart out: 

Yummy. After this I found some lunch and then considered what to do with my afternoon. Decision? The zoo. The Tourist Info place seemed to think it was great, so I decided what the heck. Why not go to the zoo. Upon reflection, I'm pretty sure it has been at least 5 years since I have been to a zoo and possibly even more than that. I think when I get home I will see if I can drag anyone to ZooAtlanta with me. It was definitely nap time when I was there because a lot of the animals were asleep or not home at the moment. My favorites though were conveniently visible.

Yay for the Tiger!

It was a nice zoo overall, and I was definitely glad of the rainy weather. All the parents and their wailing two year olds had stayed home. I only got rained on a bit once, and I successfully waited it out by ducking inside the reptile house. Finally, back in town, I walked down the main shopping street until I came across the Cologne Fragrance Museum. Apparently, this is the original. I actually believe their claim, because the town hall has a statue of the guy who started his perfume shop here. It was very interesting, but I left with a headache. Too much fragrance in the air. On the plus side, I got a free sample and some free headphones leftover from the audio tour. Those headphones were much needed by the way. My poor old apple earbuds are falling apart and only one earbud currently works. So now I have new ones of fairly equivalent value. Yay!

The Farina Haus, original makers of Eau de Cologne