cologne

Who knew a simple walk could take you back thousands of years?

Turns out Cologne is an extremely old city with deep history - it was a colony of the Roman Empire in 39BC and there are quite a few Roman walls, buildings, etc here. Absolutely amazing to be able to see something from that time period and think of all the people that have been there, touched that wall, etc. It was also heavily hit with air raids during World War II and there are some areas where you can see the affects. It was rebuilt, and is quite a beautiful city with some of the most amazing churches ever - just wait until I post some of those pictures. We are definitely in awe of this place.

We were able to take a long walk last night and see quite a bit of the city. Another guy I know from Ford had been here for 2 weeks and was showing us around. It was definitely helpful to have some one here that knew where to go. We had a nice dinner near the Rhine river and also stopped for Italian ice cream on the way home. Day 2 in Cologne was definitely less stressful and more fun than day 1.

I am also using the train to get to work (since my driving experience here wasn't all that fun) and that is working out extremely well - takes about 30 minutes and only one exchange. We are definitely looking forward to the weekend for sure - I'm pretty wiped out.

The one downside of being here is that I missed game 6 and 7 of the NBA finals. I actually set my alarm to get up at 5AM to watch the end of the game...but none of the stations we have were playing it anyway. Oh well.

Ok, back to work for me. Germany is playing in the World Cup today so this place is going to be shut down by 1PM when it starts - hoping it's an early day for me.

On a side note, being here during a World Cup year has really got me excited about soccer (yes, it's football over here) now. Their excitement for the game is wonderful and kind of easy to get caught up in since it's literally all around. All of the restaurants, stores, most of the people, are all into the games. It's been fun and I'm doing my best to understand this sport.