The city that people like to party

After the Eurotunnel terminal at Coquelles, France,  we traveled along the highways A16, A18 & A10 as we passed through Brussel (Bruxelles), Belgium; and then A3 towards Köln, Germany. I noticed that there's no maximum speed limit while we were driving on the highway in Europe. Literally, cars were flying on the highway...that was pretty scary! We made a couple of stops and beat the traffic through Brussel, we eventually arrived at downtown of Köln after 9 p.

m.

We were staying at Pia and Thomas's apartment in downtown. We chatted with Thomas a bit and then we headed out to have our late dinner in a restaurant. I can't believe that the restaurant was still serving dinner at almost 12 m.n. After dinner, Pia joined us to have a coffee at a "gay" cafe! I'm not kidding...they were living in the gay neigborhood even though they are not gay! Once we got in the cafe, we noticed that a lot of guys were checking us...whoops...I should say people were checking out Thomas and Steve instead of Pia and me! Great! Pia and I don't like unwanted attention at all. We had a great chat for an hour. Then we went back to their apartment to get some rest.

After a good rest in the night, we went shopping first because the shops in Germany will close after 3 p.m. on Saturday till Sunday. I dropped my bags in the the apartment and then we went out to explore the city. We walked through the streets and alleys and at last arrived at Kölner Dom (Cologne Cathedral).

This Roman Catholic church made an important landmark for Köln . Everyone calls it The Dom. The construction was began in 1248, and took with interrupitons, finally finished in 1880- more than six hundred years. During World War II, the cathedral suffered 14 hits by the aerial bombs. It didn't collapse but stood tall. That was amazing! In 1956, the repairs for the cathedral were completed. In the northwest tower's base, an emergency repair carried out with bad-quality brick taken from a nearby war ruin, remained visible until the late 1990s as a reminder of the War. The plane is in the shape of a Latin Cross, as is usual with Gothic cathedrals. It has two aisles on either side, which help to support one of the very highest Gothic vaults in the world. That majestic structure of The Dom really blew me away!

We walked to Roman-Germanic Museum (Römisch-Germanisches Museum), which is next to the Dom.

It has a large collection of Roman artifacts from the Roman settlement on which modern Köln is built. Of particular interest is the large Dionysus Mosaic. Since the location is so close to River Rhein, we walked towards the river and stayed for a while to take couples of pictures. On the way we got back to Pia and Thomas apartment, we saw people in costume and rode on a carriage. It was wonderful that this city is so into carnival....love it! And I noticed that there was some interesting architecture...a glass house on roof.

We rested a little bit and joined Pia and Anja for a bite before we headed to a Salsa class. Wait a minute...Salsa??? I had no clue what "Salsa" was. What the heck? I told myself, just follow the crowd to have some fun!  We took the metro and got off at an industrial district.

..passed some streets. 15-20 minutes later, we finally arrived at a warehouse. I had no idea where I was. The location was a bit discreet!  We had a drink and then the class started...I picked up some basic steps and it was an awesome experience to learn to Salsa dance. At around 2:30 a.m., we had to leave and try to catch the last train back to downtown. The train runs till 3 a.m.

The next morning, Pia, Anja, Steve and I went to have Sunday brunch. Thomas didn't join us because he had to meet his study group very early in the morning. After lunch we said goodbye to Pia and Anja.  We headed to the direction to Paris, France! Whoo hoo, Paris, here I come!