Racheal: Day 11

Today I woke up in Cologne and the group started the day off with a tour of the city. Our tour guide explained that the Romans created a colony where Cologne stands today and there is a museum dedicated to Roman artifacts. The museum is built around an excavated tile floor that depicts the Roman God Dionysos and dancing disciples that was discovered during World War II. The Cologne Dom, which is a Cathedral, began construction in the 13th century and wasn't completed for 600 years. The architecture of the Dom is Gothic and built 157 meters high to reach the heavens. The staircase I climbed to get to the top was 533 steps, spiraled, and two way traffic! You could see the whole city of Cologne from the top of the Dom and would have taken my breath away, but the 533 stairs already did.

The tour guide then took us down the Rhein and showed us historic Cologne. There were colorful buildings built in the 1600's. The buildings had five stories, the bottom was used for the business, the next were living space, and the top floors were used a storage. On the top of the buildings were wooden pillars used as a part of pulley system to hull junk through windows for storage. On top of one of the buildings was a little person who symbolized a saying in Cologne, it translated to rain, gutter, shitter. This represented the poor folk of the Medieval times who lived on the top floors and didn't have access to toilets, so they released their wastes in the gutter of the building and the rain would flush it out.

The little figure on top of the buildings is mooning city hall across the street, and the city hall building has a face built under the clock that sticks its tongue out mocking the mooning boy. When we stopped by the city hall, there were like 5 brides getting married! In Germany, a wedding is only legal if you get married in front of the city hall. One of the traditions after getting married is for the bride and groom to work together, cutting a heart out of a sheet, then the groom carrying the bride through the heart. We got to witness all of this during our hour long tour.

During our free time to explore the city, we ran into a "baseball" team. The teams were lined up across from each other with a beer in front of each of them and a beer can in the center of the playing field. A player then would through the baseball and try to knock of the center beer can. If the beer can knocked over, the other team had to grab the can and place it right side up again before the guy who knocked it over finished their beet. When the can replaced, the player stops drinking. The team who finished all their beer first wins. It was a very interesting take on baseball and fun to watch the enthusiasm the players displayed.

I learned a lot today from our tour guide and from the streets of Cologne and enjoyed every moment.

Fun Fact: Cologne gave the same name to their beer and language, called Koelsch and is the only language you can drink.