So it came to me on the way to Köln that the city has the same title as the stuff guys spray on themselves in an attempt to cover up BO, or something (I can’t remember the last time I used the stuff, to be honest). This left me kind of curious as to the historical aspect of this similarity, or rather, wtf?
This was also the first real outing for the international students of Uni-Osnabrück, on the first weekend after our arrival. We showed up at a bus stop near Neumarkt (the city center) at around 7:30. I believe I had gone to a movie the night before and had missed out on my beauty sleep, so I wasted no time catching up on it during the entire 3-hour bus ride there. So at around 11 three busses worth of international kids in their late teens/early twenties invaded Köln.
The first stop was the Schokoladenmuseum across the street, or as the pamphlet claimed, the MMMuseum (nice work guys). This was rather enjoyable, they even had a tour in English which I defiantly denied (and later regretted). We basically toured the automated section of the factory and got so
me history of the cocoa bean and the factory and some other nonsense. The high point was the fountain of chocolate (oooo baby) at the edge of the museum in which a worker dipped wafers in to dispense to tourists. It was gooey and delicious. The rest of the tour was kind of dry, well I guess I can’t complain since I couldn’t understand what the hell our guide was saying anyway. I did make sure to buy a healthy selection of truffles from the gift shop before leaving.
I had been hoping to see a gigantic vat of liquidy chocolate where perhaps I could bribe a worker to let me dive and swim in, thus checking that off my list. Unfortunately the mysterious vat never appeared.
Later we wandered about for an hour or so before meeting up again near the cathedral. I had been looking forward to going there since arriving in Köln since it dominates the sky for miles. That, and it’s probably the most badass-looking structure I’d ever seen. Very imposing.
So we split up again into a few tour groups. Having learned my lesson from the last tour, I took the English one. We went to both the new and old part of town and were treated to a fantastic history of the city. Along the way we stopped at the world headquarters for this type of cologne (eau de frufru maybe?), which apparently must’ve been good enough to spawn an industry. There was also a fountain of cologne in the corner of the store which I just had to identify as an actual fountain of cologne (yeah it was, and I smelled kinda fruity the rest of the day).
Eventually we made our way back to the cathedral and entered it. Having been in a few cathedrals before, the layout and general feel of the inside was unsurprising, albeit still incredibly immense. I do believe the inside was better decorated from its richer history (a King for each stained-glass window).
The cathedral culminated the tour. Somehow we (Katya and I) got separated from the group after that, but ran into one of her friends later and found our way back together.
Hopefully this was the first of many weekend trips…
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