Cologne, Germany

My one friend and I planned a last minute trip to Germany:) We decided to go to Cologne, a smaller town in the west for multiple reasons, but the main one being that it was the cheapest.... #collegekid But it turned out to be a really amazing place.

Our first day we got there around 11 am, checked into our hostel and made our way back into the center of town to explore. We of course went in the main cathedral there, which was by far the most beautiful and absolutely ginormous one I have seen since being in Europe. It was stunning inside, with ceilings reaching up to outstanding heights. 

After our awe finally died down, we left and found our way to the Museum Ludwig and explored in there for a bit, looking at Picasso and Polke works. After the museum we went to the chocolate museum which overlooked the Rhine river. We walked by the sample lady so many times, ands kept giving us samples of the freshly made chocolate with a wafer:) There was a lot of history to read about there, but we skimmed over that part and then went to the main floor where they made the chocolate and stayed there for a while exploring all the machines and watching the whole process, which was really awesome! 

After that, it was later in the day, and we were pretty tired so we went back to the hostel. We started talking to some of the girls in our room and decided to make a German dinner together, and it turned out amazing. We made a pasta dish with zucchini and sun dried tomatoes with some oil. I ate so much of it, we hung out with the girls we met that night, drinking wine ( a lot of wine) and learning German games from some of the other girls staying there. It was the first time we really met people inner hostels because normally I travel in larger groups, so it was really cool to have that.

Day 2, my friend and I went to the Triangle which is a 30 floor building, that we took to the roof and got to view all of Cologne from above. It was such a nice day, so we got to see everything. After that, we had lunch in Rhine Park and hard core people watched for a while. 

We then made our way to Claudias Therme, a spa in Cologne. We paid to go in for 2 hours and got to swim in the thermal pools and sit in the sauna after. Everything about it was super relaxing and fun, until we went into the sauna.....no clothes allowed apparently. My friend and I tightly wrapped ourselves in our towels and made our way to the female sauna to see that not every women felt the same way we did about nudity in public. We had multiple women just drop their towels in front of us...interesting place to say the least. But the thermal pools themselves were very fun! 

After that, we got dinner on the Rhine of potato and goulash soup and bratwurst along with a nice cold Kolsch to end our second day here.

Our last day in Germany consisted of a lot of relaxing. The town is small, so we had seen most of it already. We decided to sleep in a bit and make our way into the center of town to go through the shopping district. We stopped in the center of Gross Martin and got pretzels and some more Kolsch's. After that, we spent the rest of the day walking down by the river, eating "spaghetti ice cream" and taking in all the beautiful buildings there.

Germany was an amazing place, and I would love to be able to see more of it one day:)

Getting lost in London

Just kidding, that is actually pretty hard to do right now because once you live in the city for 4 months, it actually becomes very easy to travel within. The tube map looks daunting, and the bus stops are even worse, but coming from a directionally challenged person, it is possible to get around London without help. I even had a British person ask me directions, and the kicker is that I knew how to get there! I felt pretty good after, not gonna lie. These past few days I have been trying to see the parts of London I have been missing lately, but it has been hard with trying to study for my last final and recently traveling to Germany (in the next blog post). I have been doing things every day and trying to sit down and study is near impossible. I keep forgetting I am here for school to, which I am being quickly reminded of while trying to study and looking out window on this beautiful sunny day (rare). But, I feel so lucky to be where I am, having the opportunity to study in such and amazing city, getting to travel all around Europe, and experience some pretty awesome things. So all in all, I feel like I have been able to blend with the people here, I do not feel like an outsider,  I really feel like London has become a home away from home for me, and that is something really special to finally realize. 

To Paris and beyond...

This statement could not be truer....

My sister and I just went on a 10 day trip to Lyon, Geneva, and Paris. We started the adventure by her coming to London first! We clearly did EVERYTHING in just 2 short days. I got her from the airport one morning and we went to my flat so we could put her stuff there, and from then until late the next evening, we did nothing but explore. We went on the Eye, got to Borough Market, walked over Tower Bridge, saw the gardens and the palaces and ate at the Only Running Footman (my personal favorite restaurant here). I was really happy to be able to show her around the city which is now my home. She really liked it also and we had an amazing time! Our feet were dying, but this was just the beginning....

From London, we took an early morning train to Lyon, which is around the middle-ish/east part of France. When we changed trains on the way it was freezing outside and we only packed for warm weather so we were worried, but it ended up being beautiful weather the whole time! We got to Lyon and decided right away to just walk into the city and explore. We went down by the 2 rivers that run through it, got lots of food (fries, crepes, chocolate) and walked through the city center. Lyon i small, but very beautiful. Oh, and no one speaks english, and my sister and I do not speak french, so there was some fun translation going on in between.

On our second day in Lyon we started by going to the local market and we saw some fruits and veggies we have never seen before, along with cute clothes and jewelry as well. We then walked up the mountain side, literally about 700 steps later (and 2 breaks because of me) we made it to the top, where the Basilica is and got an amazing view of the entire city. The view alone was worth the walk. After making our way down the mountain we saw the ruins of a roman amphitheater and walked through the Renaissance quarter. After that, we were pretty spent so we sat out on the river side and got a nice big bottle of wine and hung out there, just like the locals do (I actually tried to order to glasses of wine, but somehow walked away with a whole bottle, my french clearly needs help). 

From Lyon, we left for Geneva, a city right on the border of Switzerland and France. Actually, where we stayed was in France, but we took a 20 minute bus to the city center in Switzerland each morning. Geneva is ranked as one of the top 10 most expensive cities in the world....but Dev and I did the city dirty and got away without spending too much. On our first day we went to Lake Geneva and saw the Jet D'Eau water shoot, got ice cream along the water front, and then saw the flower clock in the park nearby. It was such a warm day out, that we wore shorts, but apparently that is weird there because every single person was staring at us, but we did not mind one bit. We also shopped around and of course got some swiss chocolate:) I wanted to get a swiss army knife, but going through customs would not have been pretty, so I refrained from that. 

On our second day we decided to go up Mt. Saleve, which we took a cable car up to see. Again, it gave us an amazing view of the entire city. The cable car was sketchy, but we are still currently alive. Once at the top, we attempted to walk up even further for more views, but gave up about 10 minutes into that because it did not look like there was an end for some time. We then just sat back and had lunch up there, enjoying our view, before heading back down to see more of the city. On our way down, we went to see the Broken Chair sculpture which sits right outside the UN center, the second largest in the world behind New York City. Also, right down the block from there was the Red Cross Museum, so Devon and I decided to go see it. We are both not big museum people, but this one was way more interactive then we expected and actually pretty cool. Once back in Geneva city center, we went to see the main cathedral there (they are everywhere in Europe...) St. Pierre I believe was the name. From there we walked around the town, exploring new streets for the rest of the day. Later on, we wanted to find a good fondue place to eat, because that is what the Swiss are known for. So we stopped at an outside place, right on the water, and got a fondue and drinks, which turns out, swiss fondue is my new favorite thing i the world! It was amazing, and we only ordered it for 1 person, because it was pretty pricey, but it still filled both of us up!

 Our last stop on this amazing trip is what we like to call saving the best for last....PARIS! We were so excited to get there finally. We stayed at an air b&b which was pretty close to the Eiffel Tower, so as soon as we checked in, we headed straight for there. We sat under the Eiffel Tower with sandwiches (mostly bread) and just sat back and enjoyed the sunny day. Devon and I then decided to climb it, which was way more steps then we expected, but we got to see all of Paris from above. Once we finally got ourselves to go back down and walk around, we explored the little part of Paris that we were staying in. It had a bunch of outdoor cafes and cute little shops. Later that night, we got a bottle of wine and went back to the Eiffel Tower when it was dark to see the light show, which happens every hour for about 5 minutes. It was so beautiful to watch it light up!

On our second day in Paris, we decided to tear apart the city. We started at the Arc De Triomphe, and on our way there we discovered a bakery that sold sugar loaf bread (in a more circular form) with chocolate chips in it, so obviously we got that on our way to the Arc. After seeing that we made our way to the Louvre, stopping midway to lock our love on the Ponte des Artes (love lock bridge). We stumbled upon that by accident but were more then happy to discover it. After finding the Louvre (and obviously taking out pictures putting our hand on it) we wanted to go in to see the Mona Lisa, but it cost way too much so we decided to skip that part. Tired from all of our walking, we went to a cafe which has the best hot chocolate around, Angelina's. It felt like we were drinking liquid chocolate, like super rich but you couldn't stop yourself from having another sip. We then saw the Grande Palace and the Pantheon, which lead us to the Luxembourg Gardens. Our last stop of the day was finally at the Notre Dame, which was seriously so beautiful and absolutely huge, but if I was there during his time, I would have definitely seen Quasi up there staring down at us. After our final stop, we went to a nice dinner at an outdoor cafe and finally got an actual meal consisting of meat and veggies and it was oh so yummy. 

Our last day in Paris:( We were not too happy about this, but we definitely were not going to wallow about it, so we decided to go to Palace of Versailles! We walked through the Palace, seeing the Kings bedroom chambers, Marie Antoinette's bedroom chambers, the hall of mirrors, sitting rooms, drawing rooms, meeting rooms, it was the first palace where I could see almost every room in there! Each one more exquisite then the next. I would be in sensory overload if I ever lived there, but I think I'd be able to manage:) After walking through the palace, we found a cafe and a Lauder, where I made Devon try her first macaroon and we ate them in the gardens of Versailles. We explored them for a while, but did not cover much of it at all, as they are absolutely huge! It was a beautiful day and out and we had the best time walking around the gardens. After deciding we have seen enough greenery to last us a lifetime, we headed back into the city. As it being our last day there, we wanted to end it just like we started it, by sitting under the Eiffel tower, of course with another piece of sugar loaf bread with chocolate chips. We just enjoyed the amazing structure for a long while, until we had to go back to our place and pack up and head back to London.

With it being Devon's last day, I took her to Portobello Markets and made her try a Hummingbird Cafe cupcake (at 9 in the morning) before I took her to the airport. It was not fun having to say goodbye, but having all of these memories that we both get to share together is pretty amazing to me. I am so thankful that she could come all the way to London and especially that I was able to take this absolutely perfect trip with her!