Düsseldorf: [noun]- the capital city of the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia and center of the Rhine-Ruhr metropolitan region.

As my German ancestors would say, "guten tag!"  It has already been pointed out to me that Monday, the promised day of the next post in my previous post, has come and gone.  I beg for your forgiveness, or as my German ancestors would say, "sauerkraut."  As you can see, my German vocabulary has really expanded and become very accurate.  This is thanks to my weekend trip to Düsseldorf!  Me and my travelling buddies Andy and Hannah had a whirl wind adventure in the North Rhine this past weekend.

Turns out, there isn't a particularly large amount of stuff to do in Düsseldorf unless you want to drink beer (which, trust me, I did, I just don't have the photographic evidence) or spend a lot of money shopping.  However it was beautiful so we spent all of Saturday walking around the city and window shopping.  That last picture was our lunch and there was a delicious apple something or other that we had for dessert.  I would like to relive that half hour of eating every day of my life.

Because we saw and did everything there was to see and do in Düsseldorf in a very efficient manner on Saturday, we decide that we would take a train trip over to Köln/Cologne on Sunday morning and spend our day there.  So that's me on the train to Köln.  That train's final destination was in Switzerland which is more or less the coolest thing ever.  Actually, now that I think about it that was the first time I have ever been on a train where its final destination was in a different country from its initial destination.

Köln is home to a very impressive Cathedral.  I think there would be more Catholics in North America if someone could toss together a place of worship as impressive as this.  I would go to church just to hang out there.

We also climbed up the bell tower there which involved 97 meters of pure claustrophobia in a skinny, winding staircase with two way traffic.  The result of my hard work was entirely worth it.

German Quasimodo was just running around down below there, workin' the bells.  Swearsies.  He doesn't like his picture being taken though so I refrained mainly because that hunch back on the German version is worse.  And then there was the view.

We also covered a lot of ground in Köln.  We went to the Museum Ludwig, we ate a delicious meal, we saw this amazing instrumental band playing in an arcade with excellent acoustics and we also saw a Nutcracker workshop.

Apparently my Oma opened a restaurant in Köln in 1985 and she sat for the portrait for the sign.  Were you aware of this Dad?!