It seem like just yesterday I was returning from Prague and starting paper 1. It is currently Friday, paper 1 is turned in and so much has happened in the past week. To start, we went on my favorite tour this trip thus far: the Cologne Cathedral. It blew away all expectations I had coming into it. Our tour guide was engaging in a way that reflected her passion of the church into me. As Dr. Wasser said, it truly was spiritually enlightening. Being a man of faith, it was a humbling experience to see that humans have constructed such a majestic church for the greatest God who is worthy of it all and then some. She told us that the church costs about 20.000 euros to maintain everyday and that over 10 billion euros have gone into the construction of it over the course of a few hundred years. Moreover, seeing the tombs of the three wise men was a humbling experience because I grew up all my life learning about them and I was actually able to first-handedly witness them. It had an impact on me that I can't really explain, but I was immediately filled with goosebumps the second I laid eyes on the beautiful tomb. It was almost like it put me back in time and I was living with them in Jesus' time and it was definitely an experience I will cherish for a lifetime. Furthermore, traveling up to the platform and seeing the city at a bird's eye view was astonishing and no pictures could do justice to the sheer beauty of the German surroundings. Furthermore, Dr. Wasser told us about the potential of Jesus' diaper being present in a church elsewhere and the fact that it dated pretty close to His time. That is definitely something I would like to see one day if even possible.
On a different subject, currently sitting in my room writing this post is giving me time to reflect on the deeper things I have acquired this trip. It seems the more I time I spend here and the more I embed myself into the European culture, the more I feel like a part of the society as a whole. Finally being able to utilize some of the German I have learned and the mannerisms that I have observed, I can already tell leaving will be hard, but right now I won't think about that because we still have half the trip left. I feel like we have done so much already and we are only three weeks in. We still have Norderney, Hannover, Brussels, Paris, and Berlin ahead of us and I am almost overwhelmed by the vast knowledge I have already acquired and will continue to acquire. This truly is a life changing journey and we have only just begun. 
Lastly, the Europeans have taught me many things, but one thing sticks out like a sore thumb. We humans are so small and so vast, yet the impact we can have is enormous. It's crazy how one person out of billions can have such a huge change on the world as a whole and even more it's crazy how much one person can have such a huge impact on eternity.
On yet another different subject, my object from the museum is the two head statues with the picture below. The man on the right is named Hadrian and the man on the left was a Cologne politician named Traian. The story behind them is that Traian was the governor of upper Germany at the time waiting on his father to die so that he could take the imperial throne. Eventually, Traian's father passed and on February 98 AD, Hadrian travelled to Cologne to congratulate Traian on ascending up to the imperial throne. This really provides insight on the culture and structure of Germany back in that time period and I found it very interesting that regardless of any qualification or merits, the imperial throne was based on family heritage. It truly was a different time back then and its amazing to be able to visualize the appearance of the different people of a time so long before ours through art and spoken words passed down through ages.
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