Eau de Cologne

Schönen Tag!

Sorry I have not written in almost a week! I though maybe one of my fellow students was going to type something up for you, but I guess not. Anway, the time has flown by and we are looking at our last week here in our home away from home in Marburg. But I suppose I should catch you all up on what has happened this past week, starting with last Wednesday.

We woke up early to catch our 7:00 bus to Cologne (Köln in German). This was just for us Wartburgers so our bus was not that full with only the ten of us and Frau Losch. We got there sooner than expected and thus had a little more free time than was previously planned. We walked around the Fussgänger area at all the shops and what not and marvelled at how large the Kölner Dom (cathedral) while we waited until it was time to meet with our guide through the cathedral as well as the city. We met our guide, Stephan, and did a quick run-through of the Dom as they were going to have to close part of it off fairly soon for a noon service that day. The inside was huge! It had several separate little chapels off to the sides and several different religious leaders of bygone days are also buried there. One interesting thing that I found out on our trip was that supposedly the three wisemen from the story of Jesus´ birth are buried there! We saw this large coffin that looked like it was made of solid gold, but actually only had gold covering on the outside. Our guide never got around to telling us how authentic he believes these remains to be, but he seemed pretty skeptical...Needless to say, the Dom was very impressive and probably one of my favorite churches we have visited so far.

Next we wandered through the old portion of the city while Stephan pointed important buildings and monuments out for us. One that I thought was very different was a church that had been destroyed during the bombings after World War II in 1945. It was left in ruins, but the people built walls around the rubble, so they could still visit the church, without rebuilding it. I thought that this was a very different approach compared to all the restored or unrestored building we had seen so far this trip, especially in Berlin. It was more of a compromise of sorts. Very intriguing.

Unfortunately, I do not remember everything we saw anymore, because we moved pretty fast and everything went so quickly that day that it is starting to become a blur. What I do remember, of course, was the touristy side trip we took to the 4711 Cologne store, where the original cologne had its roots. Several centuries ago, several men from Cologne started bottling a good-smelling liquid that people used to cleanse themselves with since they only bathed every month or two. After this liquid became very popular, people wanted to know the recipe for it, but its inventors would not release its contents. Later, the process through which they made the liquid became known and thus other kinds were called eau de cologne, because it was made in the same fashion as the kind in Cologne! That is why many different perfumes and other ointments have the words eau de cologne on them. So there´s your history lesson for the day!

We also had a little free time after our tour to pursue other interests we had. Some went to the Roman and German Museum (because Köln was founded by the Romans around A.D. 50, I think?), some sat by the Rhine River and enjoyed the beautiful day, while some did a little shopping (for eau de cologne among other things). I did a little shopping actually. I bought some of the original cologne (which is a unisex scent) and visited a music store with Margie, because our guide had pointed the store out as being a good one and we had both been wanting to visit one. I then headed back to the cathedral to take a view more pictures before we had to get going to our next stop at. . .

. . .the chocolate museum!!! We were all very excited for this excursion, needless the say. We had a guided tour through the Lindt chocolate museum which showed us exactly how chocolate is made from the coco bean beginning from its harvestation in the rainforests all the way to where it is made into bars and other shapes. We also looked at the history of chocolate, when it became popular, how much it was originally worth, and what they added to the coco bean to make it taste good before they used sugar. Can you guess what they used? If you said chili, you would be right! I am nor quite sure if I would want to try chili chocolate, but you never know. . . after our tour we all went to the museum shop (they had all sorts of chocolates) to stock up on the goodies that were not too expensive and got ready for the ride back to Marburg.

All in all it was a great day in another great city, though it went by fast.

This past weekend was our free weekend where we could choose where we wanted to go. . .but I´ll write that post in a couple hours. Right now I should go try and get some homework done! I´ll write again soon!

Bis später!