Winter Break Trip: Part 1

We had the amazing opportunity to travel through the two week winter break over the holiday season. We visited three countries and nine cities. We were able to visit with family and meet some new people while admiring architecture and eating and drinking our way through each city.

We started in our trip in Frankfurt, Germany. We stayed there from the 22nd until the 26th. Chris and I came to the city for a few days and explored the old town or the Römer, the Main river and other shops in town. It was interesting to see the juxtaposition of the old town architecture next to the modern buildings of business centered Frankfurt. Heather joined us on the 24th, tired but ready for adventure. That night we had the opportunity to check out the ringing of the church bells through out the city. For about a half an hour, all of the church bells rang, which was a surreal experience. During that time we followed the crowd and walked through the downtown area to each new church. The ground shook a little every time we got close to a new church.

The next day, most places were closed due to the holiday. Luckily for us though we had the chance to check out the Historisches Museum Frankfurt. It had recently reopened to the public in October after a much needed remodel. We learned a little bit about the city and how it has been rebuilding and reshaping itself since World War Two. It was a great place to start our trip but we were excited to visit more.

The next place we went to was the city of Cologne or Köln as it's known in German. We arrived via train one the 26th and the first thing we saw as we stepped out of the train station was the Kölner Dom. The massive Gothic style Cathedral held our attention an became a navigation point during our time in the city. We took the opportunity to explore inside and the interior was almost as impressive as the exterior. As our first day was ending, we stumbled upon the Christmas market in the old town where we enjoyed some Glühwine, a mulled warm wine and watched a figure skating performance. It was a great way to start our time in the new place.

On our second day in Cologne we went to the Chocolate Museum, a place dedicated to sharing the history of chocolate along side the manufacturing process. The museum showed the how chocolate was grown, where in the world it is produced. There were plenty of free samples and the museum encouraged visitors to conduct their own quality control. Although the live production was a fascinating part, the museum went on to explain the human obsession with chocolate. Overall it was worth the visit. After the chocolate museum we visited the sport museum which held many artifacts from all Olympic competitions and encouraged visitors to try out the sports too. Although the day was rainy and a little dreary, we enjoyed it.

After three days in Cologne we moved on to Düsseldorf on the 28th of December. We only spent a night there but it was worth the stop. In every town square there was a market where people sold food like pretzels, sausages and fried pastries and there were also places to purchase handmade crafts and paintings. Toward the end of our day there we also explored the film museum where we learned about the history of film techniques and got to see costumes from award winning movies. The city was very beautiful but our favorite part was an apple cake that was smothered in a warm vanilla sauce. Although our visit was short, it was still a blast to explore this creative city.

We decided to visit a new country as we got closer to a new year: The Netherlands. We arrived on the 29th of December and stayed in the city of Haarlem, a smaller city close to Amsterdam. On the 30th we explored Amsterdam. It was awesome to see the canals and the houses lining the canals, each one had it's own character. We did not do much else in Amsterdam, the museums and tours were a little too expensive. We also explored Haarlem a bit that day. The church in the center was very big for a city that size we thought. It was fun though to explore the two cities and compare them. Heather left us for home and the real world on New Years Eve. Chris and I however, continued our journey for another week.