Monday, December 22, 2008

Weekend Adventure

Saturday morning Lisha, Jon and I loaded up for Cologne, Germany. This is a city I've been wanting to visit since we moved here. With the beautiful architecture and the amazing cathedral, I was really looking forward to this mini vaca. We headed out around 11:00, grabbed one of Jon's co-workers Damon, and were on our way. We arrived there a little after 1:00, checked into our hotel and made a b-line straight to the Cathedral. When we arrived it was sprinkling, but it started to pick up as we made it to the Cathedral, so my pictures from the first day were terrible. I took about 50 photos and they pretty much all look like this:

There were little rain drops all over the lense
Jon and Damon being goofs in front of the Cathedral.



The doors to the Cathedral were open and I was so surprised they actually allowed pictures to be taken. I took several but these two were my favorite.





I ended up with a lot of heads in my pictures because people would walk right in front of the camera. This picture freaks me out, you can totally see through her head. OOOOOOOO



Even though the weather was terrible, we just put our hats on and sucked it up. There are several Christmas festivals in Cologne and while we walked through downtown we happened upon one, so of course we had to eat a brat and drink some gluwein.




Jon and I

Lisha and I with our awesome matching hats




After walking through the festival and eating our yummy festival food, we were soaked to the bone and it was in our best interests to head back and warm up. There was a cute little bar in the hotel so we thought we'd try a beer made in Cologne before we went in search for a Mexican restaurant.



I am happy to say we found a Mexican restaurant and it was the best Mexican food I've had since we left Oklahoma. Mexican food is my all time favorite food, I can literally eat my weight in chips and salsa. (and I did) This made my entire night. After eating dinner we went to an Irish pub downtown and had some Kilkenny.





Sunday morning we grabbed McDonald's for breakfast and walked back to the Cathedral. I really wanted to take more pictures while it wasn't raining.






We walked across the Hohenzollern Bridge to see a better view of the cathedral and downtown Cologne.



Along the bridge, locks are attached to the fencing that surrounds the bridge. Some of the locks are written on and some are engraved with dates and names. They are locks for love.





The view from the other side of the bridge.








The Cologne cathedral was the most beautiful building. I could have literally stared at it for hours, the detail was unbelievable. It was a short trip to Cologne and we definitely didn't get to see everything we wanted to see, but we all had a great time. Before we left, we ate lunch at Si' Claro again, I just couldn't get my fill only having it one night! When we got home that evening we hit the couches and didn't move. We've been so busy the last week making sure Lisha gets her fill of Germany, we are all completely worn out. Today we are taking it easy, making guacamole for lunch and making Christmas cookies to put us in the Christmas mood. Hope everyone had a wonderful weekend.

3 comments:

Bella@That damn expat said...

It sounds like you had a great time and your pictures are beautiful! I've never been to Koln but it's on my list.

Allison said...

stinks that it was raining!!! but I agree with you about the cathedral :) I think it's one of my all-time favorites!

The Dutchess of Kickball said...

Wow, that cathedral is amazing!