Unfortunately, I woke up very early (4ish) and couldn’t get back to sleep, so by the time we had to get up around 7 I was a little tired already! But we did get ourselves down to the bakery and got rolls for all of us while Kai took his shower and Imke and Andrea chatted and set the breakfast table, and we all managed to have breakfast together. Then Kai, Mark, and I had to say goodbye because we had a bus to catch–this was our day to go to Cologne. The train ride to Cologne, a little more than 2 hours, was not very pleasant–we unfortunately had our first ride with drunk soccer fans in the same train car, and they were very drunk and very noisy. They kept singing drinking songs at the top of their voices, and I am not sure why they hadn’t sung themselves hoarse after all those hours. It was not only annoying (it is a pretty ordinary occurrence in German trains), but also kept me from catching up on sleep–too bad! We were glad when we got out in Cologne, and as on prior occasions, had a very good time, this time with sunshine and some new sights we had not visited before. We started in the Cathedral, which was not quite as crowded as last time, and Mark got to take some neat photos of the interior. Then we went through the pedestrian shopping district in search of the Lego store (one of Kai’s wishes for Cologne) and of a doener for lunch (a sort of Gyros sandwich that has become the most popular German fast food). Once we had had lunch in a very modest little doener shop, we felt ready for more Cologne. We went to the Praetorium, a museum site where a large part of the foundation of a building from Roman times (1st through 4th century AD) was excavated in the 1950s, when a new town hall addition was added, and they decided to simply make the basement level an exhibit space. In the same area of town, they are excavating some medieval homes with Roman foundations, and we got to see those too, as well as some very cool tunnels that were part of the Roman sewer system. Kai, who loves all things Roman, was very impressed. He was also intrigued enough with the enormous cathedral (which, at over 150 meters high, was still the highest building ever built in all of Europe when it was finally completed in 1880 600 years after it was first designed) that he agreed to climb the tower with us. No elevator–over 500 steps up and then back down! It was very cool–neat to see all of Cologne and the Rhine, Germany’s biggest river, but also closer by the other tower of the cathedral. Also, as we were ascending, we got to be on the level of the bells right as they were rung for the 3 o’clock hour. Really neat! After this particular adventure, we went down to the banks of the Rhine to just sit and rest, and then walked across the Rhine on the pedestrian/railroad bridge near the cathedral, admiring the “love locks” that have been put there by couples, who get their names engraved on a lock, put it on the fencing of the banister, and then throw the key in the river. This is a custom that only dates back to 2008, but has become so popular that the banister panels are so thick with locks that there is no more room–we estimated that the bridge holds over 100,000 locks. It’s pretty mindboggling. We then walked back to the train station, bought Kai a pretzel, some chocolate, and his beloved Mountain Dew (which is only available in a very few German shops), and put him on the train back to Osnabrueck–his first train ride on his own! He got back just fine, and Imke picked him up at the station in OS, whereas we went on to Aachen to visit my friends Ingrid and Ralph. We were all excited to catch an earlier train than we thought we would–but then sat on the tracks for an hour waiting for runaway cows to be cleared off the tracks. They even squeezed us into another train to get us to Aachen (probably the later train we were originally going to take), and we finally got in after 8 pm rather than before 7, as planned! But we were in no particular hurry, and were texting back and forth with our friends, so they were not waiting for us. We had a lovely quiche and salad for dinner, and sat and talked for quite a while with Ingrid, Ralph, and their daughter Nora. We even watched a little bit of rather exciting soccer–the World Cup just began, and one of the first games of importance was Spain vs. the Netherlands, with the Netherlands sensationally winning. We will only catch the beginning of Germany’s World Cup fever because this is just the early days of the cup, but I am still glad it is in Brazil and not anywhere near here! I was very tired at the end of a busy day and I think we were both very happy to be in bed by 11!