Miniatures in the making: Trip to Cologne

Two weeks ago I went to Cologne, a city in Germany to see the lovely Christmas markets with my fellow classmates. I wasn't able to post anything straight after the trip since there was lots of end of term assessments and I was being a good girl and revised every night : ) So we went for 3 days but only spent 1 whole day looking around Cologne. We stayed in a youth hostel that was a 20 minute walk away from the market, it may not seem that long but when you're walking against a blizzard and several degrees under 0, it feels like ages! On the first day I had to get up at 5am to get ready at the school at quarter past 6. Suprisingly I did manage to get up on time mainly because I couldn't sleep a wink during the night. For some reason, whenever I feel excited about the next day to come, for example when I was really young and waited for every hour to pass for Christmas day or when it's my birthday the next day, I can never sleep well whereas on normal schooldays I sleep like a baby. Anyway we went by coach all the way to Germany by the Euro Tunnel and passing through France on the way - it took about 10 hours to get there. UGHH! What a journey that was! I had a splitting headache because we watched 2 films (Men in Black 2 and Iron Man) one after the other and was on the volume was on full blast. I mean they are great films but after 5 hours of long-winded driving, some people just want to have a good snooze! Jeesh...Also it was baking hot even though it was -5 outside, the driver put the heating on the highest. When we finally got to the hostel it was raining and everyone had to lug the suitcases in and all the way up the long, winding, twisty-twiney stairs......okay.......it was two straight flights of stairs but you have no idea how knackered I was! Rooms weren't that bad, something I'd expect at a youth hostel. Me and my friend Louise were on the double bed, don't worry they two separate singles joint together! And my two other Korean friends were on the bunk beds.

After we unpacked, it was dinner and to be honest, I didn't get a very good first impression of the food there. Pasta was dry and bland and veggie was er.....how vegetables taste.....well that was about all they served there, oh and there was water...Soon after that we went to the first christmas market or shall I say Weihnachts Markt. Everywhere was all lit up and was very busy in all the little alleys round the stalls. I just browsed rather than buying anything but I did buy a little snow globe for 2 Euros. On our way back we took several photos of a gothic cathedral which was 516 feet high, it is one of the largest gothic cathedrals in northern Europe, it was extremely beautiful especially during the night. Day 2 we went back to the cathedral and this time we climbed it, not all the way to the top of course but up to the second highest towers, the stairway was less than a metre wide and made me really dizzy. Now these were the long, winding, twisty-twiney stairs. They took about 10-15 minutes to climb and my legs were killing me. After that we went to a Lindtt chocolate museum, and it was like heaven in there, despite the fact it was boiling inside. We saw how the chocolate was made and packed, it was really amazing. Then we walked all the way to two other christmas markets and I think I bought most of the christmas presents from there. We went back a little earlier because the teachers had arranged a disco which they forced everyone to go to. My friends and I aren't really the partying types but assumed there was going to be lots of food so we were reluctant to go. When we saw it, boy were we disappointed! Not only was there not a single crumb of food, all the cheeky people just hid in their rooms, including all the teachers!! The rest of the night we spent playing tetris on our DSs till midnight. On the last day, none of us could be bothered to drag ourselves down to breakfast, we were half an hour behind schedule and the queue to the cafeteria was ridiculous ( I didn't know the food was that popular...). The last market we went to was definately the best. We drove down to another town called Aachen and looked at another cathedral. The stain-glass was the main attraction of it but was also very nice like all cathedrals. In the market there were lots of bakeries and cake stalls, we got a creamy eclair and a vanilla crepe that we shared between us. For lunch we had a very common german food called Reibekuchen which is a deep fried potato cake, so tasty but was swimming in oil. I didn't manage to get a picture of it, but I'm sure if you google it you'll get a clear picture of what it is. After a little roam about the food section, we found a wonderful miniature stall but incredibly expensive. I tried to find the cheapest item and I found a tiny basket for 1 Euro and then my eyes came across an the most cutest tiny toolbox I've always been longing for! My friend obviously noticed I fell in love with it but was too expensive for me - 6.50! But she actually bought it for me, I immediately got her the fluffy frog handwarmer which she'd been eyeing for a while and was a little less than the toolbox. By then I didn't have much money left but at least I didn't feel bad about not giving her anything back. It was a long journey home and had the ultimate game on Mario Kart DS, which I regret since I had yet another splitting headache.

Well, congratulations if you managed to stay awake through that very long post!

Christmas had come so quickly this year, hasn't it? Or is it just me???

Picture feature isn't working so I'll put them up some other time. They're up!!!