So the trip started off potentially rough. I thought the bus to get from Edinburgh to London was at 5:35am and the buses only run 2 times a day. The bus from London to Cologne was that evening at 9:30 pm. Given that the bus from Edinburgh to London is a 9 hour bus ride, this was the only bus we could go on. I set an alarm for 4:30 on my iPhone and put in my headphones so that the alarm would wake me up without disturbing our fellow hostel attendees. Both Sara and I had a rough night sleeping and woke up several times. But when it came time to get up, my alarm did not go off. Fortunately, Sara woke up shortly after 5 and immediately got me up. We raced out of the room and got ready and then ran across Edinburgh to the coach station. We arrived at 5:25 am...Breathing heavily we sit down outside of the station only to realize that the bus didn't leave until 5:45 am. Yay. So we made it and were on a long day of travelling.
It turns out a day bus is much harder than a night bus. In a night bus, you are expected to sleep. During a day bus, you just get a little boring. We got into London at 3:30pm and met up with our friend Heather. Unfortunately, given our rush to get to the station, we only had the snacks in my bag to sustain us until 3:30 pm. And again I am reminded of a thing I miss from America, Protein bars. I struggled to find anything which could serve as a meal replacement while I was in England. They didn't even have jerky except in the American aisle and that at crazy prices. So, we ate apricots and bourbon crème biscuits until we got to London. Safe to say we were starving and quickly had a late lunch at Starbucks with coffee and sandwiches.
It wasn't too terribly long after that we started the next leg of our journey, a bus ride to Cologne. During the down time I did practice archery with some Stretchy bands and I have been trying to practice when I get the chance on our down time. We got on the bus and unfortunately, Sara and I could not sit together because groups of single individuals decided to selfishly take a bunch of empty two person rows. So we hoped to sit next to each other after the bus got on the ferry and everyone was supposed to take their things. I actually managed to fall asleep at this point and was only awoken when we passed through boarder control around midnight when the bus entered the port. The bus rolled onto a ferry and we all had to get off. Not following rules, no one took their things except Sara and I.
The ferry reminded me of a low budget cruise, with plenty of couches and seating on deck with a bar for food and drink. Sara and I were both hungry, so we got a snack. Unfortunately Sara had never been on a boat before and she soon started feeling ill when the rocking of the boat started. The ride was about 2 hours long and we went back on the bus and unsuccessfully got seats together. The bus stopped in Brussels however and at that point all but perhaps 5 of us remained on the bus. So, Sara and I moved to two rows close together and we crashed pretty hard.
We were dumped off the bus in Cologne and that is when a little panic set in. The station was not near city centre or really much of anything. There was a train station but we didn't quite recognize it as that, and also plenty of sporting arenas. We tried to stay put and desperately tried to call our host Toni who would be picking us up. Unfortunately once again, my phone's roaming, which I had set up money before hand for, wasn't working. Toni did come and pick us up and led us to her flat not too terribly far away. She lived about 20 minutes from city centre in a nice two bedroom flat. Her room was large and she already had a nice big air mattress ready for Sara and I to use. She was so kind and accommodating and made us coffee to start off our day. We chatted for a bit, getting to know each other and then Sara and I set off to get Euros (of which we had none), a train pass, and see the sights while getting groceries.
We walked towards the city centre using the two spires of the Cologne Cathedral as our reference point. We were immediately struck by the industrial feel of the city. All the buildings were tidy stacks of rooms and other than the occasional churches, rather monotone. But the life of Cologne is really its churches. They are gorgeous and beautiful and Sara and I couldn't help but take pictures.
Another part of cologne which was beautiful and we saw on the first day was the Christmas markets. There are many Christmas markets with the largest ones being around the city centre. They are full of stalls which sell food and other crafty items such as candles and ornaments. We merely took note of the market and headed towards the more important (arguably) destination, the cathedral. The Cathedral was breath taking and we more than happily paid for the privilege to climb up the 300+ steps to get a view of the city from the top. Safe to say, by the time we got down, we were exhausted. We got a train pass and immediately headed towards a mall area with a grocery by Toni's flat and got ourselves groceries for the next 3 days.
What this day revealed to us, was how difficult it was going to be to navigate the mainly German city. We could get by on our own, but any human interaction was a brick wall of difficulty. Sara thankfully knew enough German to provide us with some navigation through the city. When vitally important, we could usually find someone who spoke English, but we felt bad about it. We didn't want to seem so ignorant, because we respect the people of Germany and their language and if we were better equipped, we would try to speak German.
Safe to say that after so much travelling, Sara and I crashed. We slept really well, although Sara stole the blankets.
We had a late start, with a goal of checking out the Christmas markets. Toni also invited us to make Christmas cookies with her. So we started off our day, making the dough and icing and cutting out a variety of cookies in the shape of flowers, cathedrals (because it is Cologne), mushrooms, lilly-pads, and rocking horses. We chatted and shared a bit of culture. The decorating was particularly fun, because we had all different colours and plenty of toppings.
During our travels the day before, we saw that the Christmas market had an ice skating rink. Toni remarked how she had always meant to go, but failed to each year. We invited her out and went exploring. There are many odd trinkets and lights at the Christmas market. There is plenty of food and Sara and I first got Bratwurst as a late lunch. I got a special Christmas bratwurst that had onions and apple flavourings. We walked the stalls and fairly quickly night fell. The Christmas markets come alive with the coming darkness, as all the lights come on. We didn't find anything particular to buy, but we did come to the ice skating rink and met up with Toni. She helped us buy tickets and get skates (in EU sizes) and we went skating. Overall it was a really fun experience and we ended it with hot apple cider and mulled wine. We went back early and had a calm evening that ended in a skype date with the whole chapter of ADPi for Senior Wills.
The last day in Cologne was spent checking out a local museum. Toni had remarked that there was a chocolate museum and Sara and I jumped at the opportunity. The chocolate museum in Cologne is sponsored by Lindt and once again a Christmas market was outside. We wandered over to the museum and started the tour. The museum had the history of chocolate and spent a lot of time informing the audience about production and the industry as well as an extensive section on sustainability and worker treatment. Fortunately all of the exhibits had both English and German text. The museum even had a rainforest green house that was carefully controlled so that they could show off the tropical cocoa tree as well as many other tropical plants. The coolest part was that it was a live chocolate factory as well. You could watch the chocolate being made at multiple stations. Additionally, you could pay to have them make a personalized chocolate bar with any mix-in you wanted. I got cranberries, caramel crunch, and crunch pieces. I have named it the Kayla Cranberry Caramel Crunch...patent pending. The museum was a lot of fun and we took the time to wander back through the Christmas markets to end our day.
So to conclude this rather long expose on our time in Cologne, it was a lot of fun and Toni was a wonderful host. We got to see both the beautiful historical sites and the cultural Christmas market. By staying with Toni we got to know a wonderful new friend and also partake in some Christmas traditions. (PS there are plenty more pictures than this, but I just can't bog you down with all of them. Please check out Sara and My Facebook pages for more!)
Tonight we are heading to Berlin. This will be the first night train. Hopefully, everything goes well. Expect to hear from me soon!
Adventures Await!
~KH
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