On my final
day, I decided that I just couldn’t leave without heading into the cathedral, especially since it was
free. So, I joined the tourist mob, and
the guided groups, and ambled through this massive construction. There were some pretty impressive
stained-glass windows, I must say.
Was going
to go up the towers, but I was in cheapskate mode and decided that I could do
without that. I think I read that they
are about 100m high, though. Amazing!
Sat in the cathedral square for a while, to soak
up the atmosphere. People are constantly
meeting and greeting here: school groups, friends, families, tour groups,
couples… Plus the ‘human statues,’ white-faced
Navy officers and Charlie Chaplin lookalikes are all vying for photos, and
therefore the tourist dollar.
Next
mission: lunch. I did another huge
wander, in which I went past an ancient city gate from, I believe, Roman times,
and a huuuge square. Eventually, I
settled on what turned out to be a very tasty sandwich from one of those Merzenich bakeries which seem to be everywhere, at least in Cologne. Mozzarella,
tomato and basil. J Yum! Quite Italian, really, now that I think
about it.
By this stage,
I somehow couldn’t be bothered doing anything more than sitting and watching the world go by. So I sat in town for a bit. Then, I changed my location to the
Rhine. Then I sat and stared at a
computer screen in my internet café for a bit.
My stomach
told me it was dinner time, so I went for a falafel kebab. I took it back to the Rhine. Some young girl with pretty good English
befriended me. She told me she was a bit
drunk, and asked about New Zealand.
I collected
my suitcase from the hostel, lugged it to the main station, and chilled there
for a bit, before heading up to the platform to meet Nadja, and head for Siegburg station. She only had about 6 minutes between 2 trains, so I was crossing my fingers that it'd work out...
