Valentine's Day

I have never been a fan of Valentine's Day. This year was different though. I had a great day. My day began with me catching the train into Cologne to meet up with Leigh, the student from WashU who is doing an internship there. We met at the train station and went outside into the beautiful weather. I took some more pictures of the Dom, because a picture of the Dom with the blue sky overhead is a rare thing to come across.

We then headed to the Lindt Chocolate Museum on the Rhine River. It was a pretty nigty museum, but the best part was by far the samples that you could get. Unfortunately, I tried a ginger truffle which was not very tasty.

After the chocolate museum we went to get some lunch. We were in a pedestrian zone when we heard some music an decided to start following it. We came upon a group of people decked out to the nines. We inquired about the reason for such festivities and were told that it is all a part of Karneval. Karneval actually isn't for another week.

After hing our lunch we headed out to the stadium for the soccer game. On the way there we got some pretty sassy Cologne scarves. The game was a riot with people hooting and hollering, singing, dancing and jumping the entire time. It was definitely an experience.

This morning I woke up and went to Mass at the Koelner Dom. It was incredible. I still had a bit hard time knowing where we were but it was easier this week than last week. I believe that is in part to sitting right by a speaker this week so I could hear a little better.

After Mass I climbed the stairs to the bell tower. There were 474 steps and it was a terrible windy staircase. My legs didn't stop shaking until about and hour after I was back on the ground. The Dom is really an incredible building though and I am glad that I had the chance to explore it a little more.