Seeing the sights

I woke up at 2:30am today thinking it was 8am and then woke up at 12:30pm thinking it was 9am! Suffice to say, my jetlag is now kicked. My oversleepiness officially thwarted my plan to take a boat ride far down the Rhine. I settled for Plan B.

I headed across the river from my hotel to walk around and have a late breakfast. It looked like so….

Followed by….

I enjoyed a second espresso while watching the world go by. I had a great vantage point, from a small cafe outside the Dom Cathedral. It is amazing how many couples are wandering around in Cologne. It must be the newlywed capital of the world! Everybody is holding hands, and literally making out in the streets…ok not everyone…but way more than I have ever seen in The States. Everybody also seems to be incredibly attractive. Maybe it’s the espresso?

Lucky me, the weather decided to cooperate, for most of the day. The weather here seems to be more unpredictable than Seattle. It rained three times today, but for no more than 20 seconds each time! The rest of the time, the sun was shining. Pretty odd, but I’ll take it over a downpour any day.

I headed over to the river to catch a 2 hour cruise on the Rhine around Cologne. It wasn’t terribly exciting, but it was relaxing. I also got some more pics of the city from a different vantage point. On the boat, I met a few girls from Boston who were interning in Brussels (lucky!). They recommended I climb the staircase to the Bower in the Dom. Sounded like a good idea to me. After disembarking, I checked it out. For 1 Euro, you get to climb the 509 narrow and steep steps (past men holding their crying kids and kids holding their crying parents alike).

The view from the top was worth it. You also get to check out the intricate carvings on the top of the spires of the cathedral in more detail. The Dom took over 6 centuries to build. That’s right. I don’t know how long the pyramids took to build, but I would guess this thing took a lot longer. I don’t think modern society has the patience to build anything that would take even 1/100th of that time. Seeing this thing up close is worth the trip to Cologne alone.

After my stair-stepper workout, I put on my running shoes for a jog along the Rhine, heading northward, through a big park to this place where they have there to cable cars running across the river. I really don’t understand the cable cars, since they run right above a bridge (which provides easier and cheaper means for cross the river), but who am I to question the logic of the highly logical German cable car builders?

Finally, I headed back over to the city for a late dinner. Tomorrow, however, I am committed to make it an early day, and head up to Dusselldorf via train. It should be a 30 minute ride. On the flight over, the Northwest in-flight magazine had a 3 page spread on Dusselldorf. It sold me. I gotta go.

Oh yeah, I ran into Wladimir Klitschko’s posse today. Apparently they are staying in my hotel. I saw them all hanging out in the lobby wearing matching sweats (with “Klitschko” emblazoned on the back in 1000 point font). I didn’t know who that was, but they sure did look important. I ran into one of the guys in the “posse” later and he seemed nice enough. They are on my floor it turns out!  Vladimir (Wladmir for your German’s) is in town fighting Lemon Brewster. Remind me not to pick a fight with this guy.

I’ll leave you with another parting shot from right outside my hotel.