This past weekend we went to Cologne on Friday and Saturday. The city is full of history, music and culture. We got to see the very impressive cathedral that Cologne is known for, Roman ruins, the ruins from a Jewish bath house, the remains of churches from World War II that have not been touched since, new museums and old ones. We took the dog with us and walked around the city using an audio guided tour that we picked up from the tourist stop, pretty much every town has a tourist information shop area that has maps and information books in many languages and many have an audio tour that you can rent. I highly recommend if touring Europe at all to check out the tourist information stops in any city that you visit. We still do not have internet, so once again I cannot post the pictures yet. I have over 100 pictures to post when we do get internet. We drove up on Friday afternoon, about 2.5 hours from here. We found a little hotel to stay at, we were lucky to find the place that we did, apparently there was a train convention going on in town over the weekend and most hotels did not have any rooms. We walked around the city square a bit and then the park and then had dinner, we did take the dog into the restaurant, most Germans will take their dogs into restaurants, she was so tired that she passed out almost immediately. On Saturday we did the guided walking tour and then had a lunch of traditional dishes of Cologne. The one dish is best descibed as blood sausage, I did not care for it all that much but Nathan liked it, I am still not really sure what the other dish was but it was some kind of meat patte thing. This was the time that the dog had the hardest time as pigeons were literally under the table with her, she really wanted some pigeon for lunch. We had to keep pushing the pigeons away with our shoes. Ellie did bark once in the city square at the birds, pretty much everyone turned to look at us, I was so embarrassed. We then did a little more walking and some shopping before returning Saturday afternoon.
On Sunday we drove about an hour in the other direction up to Bad Durkheim, to the largest wine fest in Germany, possibly the world depending on which site you look at. It was incredible. There were over 50 different tents that could easily hold 500 people each. Each tent is owned by a different vineyard, you can choose from about 4-5 wines at each tent to order. When you order though you get a full glass, about 12 oz (not a typical wine glass), of wine, there is no sampling at the wine fest. On top of all the wine tents there were thousands of other tents selling food, goods, crafts, carnival activities, etc. the place was huge. I bet we didn't even see half of the fest and we walked pretty much all afternoon. We did find the local wine house on our way out and bought some wine.
Nathan had Monday as well as Friday off so Monday we took it easy cleaned around the house, went for a walk and then I made the goulash recipe from my cooking class last week. I also made a German dessert called quark with fruit in it, I cannot really explain what it is, its a creamy substance that is kind of a mix of yogart and cream cheese. Nathan really enjoyed my cooking and cannot wait for me to go to more German cooking classes. Today I made a cake for my birthday, nothing special just a carrot cake but it was what sounded good! My task for the next couple of days to start planning our trips over Nathan's block leave for Christmas.
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