After Shane called and I got in the car, I got a little nervous. I actually wasn't nervous about getting lost (I had GPS in the car). I wasn't nervous about driving fast on the autobahn (there are some spots with no speed limit, but others have it and it really is just a freeway). I was nervous about getting out of the parking garage. The parking garages are much smaller and tighter than in the U.S. and I had this nice rental car and I could just see myself hitting the all upon exiting the parking garage and ruining the car before even hitting the street. I am happy to report I survived the parking garage and made it to Shane in another city, all by myself (and the nice lady speaking for the GPS). I was able to get Shane at 1 p.m., so his work day was a tough one! It was wonderful that we were able to spend so much time together!
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| Streets of the city |
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| An old church, the first of many we saw in this city. |
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| Cute town sitings. |
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| How cute is this!? |
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| Another church that we sat by to eat a snack and take a picture. |
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| The snack we ate. It was actually our lunch as well. One is spinach and cheese. The other is apple. YUM! |
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| Had to take a picture because the Stop sign says, "STOP EATING ANIMALS" |
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| We found Shane's first apartment from his mission |
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| This is the shopping square Shane went to almost daily to make contacts. If you look at his smile he is like a kid in a candy store. He was so happy to be there. He said it hadn't changed a bit and he was so happy! |
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| Two church next to the shopping center where Shane would go. |
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| The LDS church building in Monchengladbach. |
After visiting Monchengladbach we headed back to Cologne to facetime our kids. After that we went to the Cathedral to make the hike to the top. There are 509 steps to the top and they are old stone steps that are spiral. After awhile of climbing in a circle one leg gets more of the exercise than the other. It was intense, but we made it! We took lots of pictures and then made the trek back down. I think we definitely got to eat treats after that calorie burn.
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| Bells in the cathedral. We got there just as they were ringing. |
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| The hallway around the bell tower. Very thin. Also, the sad thing is that with most of these sites, people think they need to leave their mark in history by writing on the walls. DON'T DO THAT! It takes away the beauty! |
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| View up from the bell tower, with more to go. |
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| View down from the bell tower. |
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| View from the top |
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| Me at the top with a gargoyle |
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| Shane with our friend |
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| By a door |
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| Looking down the spiral stairs |
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| Ruins under the cathedral from the Romans |
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| Sign for the Party Life! We just took the picture because the kids had to appreciate how it is a Fartin' Party! |
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| We went for a walk to try to go to the Chocolate Museum after, but barely missed it, so we just bought tons of chocolate instead. |
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| Us with the Rhine River behind |
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| Signs for the sites. The second to the top on the left was the Chocolate Museum, the next down is an Olympic museum. The Dom is on the top right with the Museum Ludwig on the bottom right. |
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| After the failed visit to the museum we took our lock of love to the wall of the bridge. We put it on the bridge and threw the key into the river. It symbolizes that our love is forever and can't be undone. |
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| The rail system connected the two parts of Cologne over the river |
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| The Museum Ludwig has a concert hall under where I am standing. When they built it they didn't realize there isn't enough insulation between the courtyard above and the concert hall. People walking on top can be heard below during a concert. The architects didn't want to change the insulation later for fear of ruining the amazing acoustics inside. So, during a concert, men are posted outside to keep people off the courtyard. We witnessed this our first night there. There wasn't a concert this evening, so we pretended we were disobeying the rules and sneaking across during a concert. |
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| One on every corner, right? I am happy to say we did not eat at McDonald's at all, although I did get a hot chocolate from a Burger King once. |
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| We had Greek for dinner that night. You can see the meat on the tall rotisseries in the back. They just cut off the meat when you order. Fun and so good!!! |
After dinner we headed back to the hotel to crash from our fun, busy day!
