Week 2: Bonn, Cologne and Dublin

Classes:
We started class with Dr. Fajt this week. I really enjoyed her class structure. The combination of activities, lecture, and discussion, made the class much more interesting than if she just lectured. This gave us the opportunity to find information on our own and talk about it as a class.

Cologne Excursion:
The most striking part of Cologne was walking out of the train station and immediately seeing the Cologne cathedral.

 The first thing we did in Cologne was a tour of the city, starting at the cathedral. We got to see the ancient Roman ruins in a parking garage under the city. We got to see many parts of the city, including this love lock bridge.

 After touring the city we went to lunch, where I had a delicious schnitzel and saw one of my favorite English translation. "Potatoes boiled in their jackets"

We had a break between lunch and touring the cathedral so we went to the chocolate museum!

 An example of blood letting from the chocolate museum:

 After the chocolate museum we went back to the cathedral early to look inside before the tour.

 Shrine of the Three Kings in the Cologne cathedral:

We had a very unique experience getting to tour the cathedral from different levels, ending about half way up the towers.

Dublin:

On the way to the airport our train got stopped in Cologne for 30 minutes, because the ticket checkers from another train that was late need to switch to our train. We missed are connecting train to the airport, but luckily we were able to get on another. After getting through security and running to the terminal with no time to spare, we found out that are plane was delayed. While normally this would be a frustrating experience, it worked out for the best because it gave us time to eat dinner. When we finally arrived in Dublin, it was pretty late, so Carol and I decided to call it a night.

Saturday morning we decided to visit Howth. We got breakfast/lunch at a seafood restaurant in town before hiking out to the cliffs. 

Some seals that were being fed by a fisherman:

 We stopped here for a few minutes to listen to a musician playing the bagpipes:

 I don't know if I've ever seen something more beautiful.

After hiking we went to a pub called the Ginger Man where we met an and incredibly nice bartender who gave us some ideas of what else to see in the city. On Sunday we went to a service at St. Patrick's Cathedral and had the opportunity to hear their world famous choir. After the service we toured the Guinness factory and sampled several beers, including one released two week prior for the summer. 

We then stopped at a pub for dinner where we had some amazing Shepard's pie.

We went to The Temple Bar after and got to hear some amazing performers there. We got up at 4 am Monday morning to go to the airport. After a short flight and train ride we were back home in Bonn.