Still in Utrecht, guys. I love it here, and not only because it’s so wonderful to be with people I know so well instead of strangers 24/7. The locals are so nice, everyone bikes, and no matter where you are in the city you are always right next to the water. BUT BACK TO A COUPLE DAYS AGO, when my sister and I went to Cologne, Germany.
It’s always a little disappointing when you have no actual proof you were in another country because they don’t feel the need to stamp you passport – or even check it- because you are traveling within the EU. But Cologne was so nice. Honestly, it felt a lot like Utrecht and Amsterdam, just with less water. There are cobbled streets, everyone walks, and it was set up very similarly.
Also, slight tangent about the public transportation in Europe: it’s SO GOOD and we should be much more conscious of it in the States. Like, we don’t even have trains to get to and from a lot of cities, so you have to bus, which takes forever, or fly which is expensive. Which is why most people drive and waste so much fuel. I mean sure, there’s Amtrak, but let’s face it, Amtrak is an inefficient suckfest. The trains in Europe are quick, efficient, and easy to understand (even when they aren’t in English!) The idea of going to a different city for the weekend or just for a day trip in the States is basically insane if you don’t have a car; in Europe, it’s just what people DO. Going to new places and seeing new things makes you a more educated human, and I think that if it were easier for US citizens to travel around the country, there would be a lot fewer terrible people there.
We arrived at about 9am, and our first stop was the giant cathedral with a name that I can’t remember at the moment, but is literally right outside the train station. It’s just there, standing there all Gothic and foreboding-like. Gargoyles and creepy statues of dead people adorn the outside, and it’s one of those cathedrals that are so insanely big you have no idea how people possibly could have built it. We have cranes now, but what about hundreds of years ago?
Thankfully, entry to the cathedral was free. I didn’t appreciate how tall the ceilings were until actually going inside, and yeah. Pretty damn tall. Stained glass windows, fancy shmancy candles, dark AF, yadda yadda yadda. Basically everything you’d expect from an old-ass cathedral. But you know, still pretty cool to see.
After wandering about for an hour or so, we decided to stop into the Ludwig Museum. It is a contemporary art museum, which is something I both love and despise. I honestly don’t get the point of a blue canvas with a yellow splotch on it, or a picture of a square. But I guess some people find that moving; my thing is, I have to have some sort of story to really appreciate a work of art. My favourite (I’m typing on a European computer and it autocorrected this to the British spelling so I’ll leave it) paintings generally have people in them, or objects that I can sense have a history behind them, the reason they are there. It’s hard for me to grasp art in which I can’t even find the humanity. But the only really “weird” stuff was on the first floor. The rest of the museum was more to my personal liking, and I could have stayed there all day. There was also a pretty decent Picasso collection which I loved.
We spent the rest of the afternoon and evening going to Christmas markets, because Germany. Five, to be exact. We bought nothing except a pretzel apiece and mulled wine (which I ordered in German one time!) at a few of the markets because we are alcoholics and that’s fine. We wandered around until the sky started pissing down on us, and found some food at an Asian restaurant that played the same song over and over again.
After all this, we still had to take a two-hour train ride back and then walk another half-hour to our AirBnB, and didn’t get home until almost midnight. But the trip was worth it, if only to see all the Christmas markets! If you’ve never been to one, GET ON THAT.
Yesterday, we picked up some groceries on our way to our friends’ place to make a delicious breakfast. We learned that the Netherlands doesn’t really have bacon, which maybe has something to do with why they are so tall and skinny? It was also snowing beautifully, something I haven’t seen yet this entire trip. And then we started The Adventure of Snowman Making.
My friend had to do a baking thing for her work; my sister and I are pretty incompetent when it comes to anything in the kitchen, so we decided to do no-bake snowman-shaped cake pops. After a bit of trouble finding all of our supplies (why are long wooden sticks so hard to find?!) we began.
Maybe it had something to do with us not following the recipe exactly, or us not knowing exactly how big to make our snowmen, or our general lack of baking talent, but our snowmen would not stay on the sticks. Many of them became decapitated or deformed when coated with white chocolate; the stick went through the top of the head of the rest. We eventually figured out a technique to kiiiiind of make them work, and slowly plodded our way through them, killing about half of them in the process. The recipe said 20 minutes prep time, 10 minutes to decorate. It took three of us about four hours to make ten of them. It was way too much fun, and way too exhausting. I slept through the night very well.
Today, the weather has been absolute shit. We had plans to go to a museum, which turned out to be closed, which also may have been a good thing because I’m sleepy. I fell asleep on the boat tour we did earlier around Utrecht (oops), and ate a too large breakfast and lunch (double oops). Perhaps I will take a nap before we go out to our Ethiopian dinner! And maybe I’ll figure out what country I’m going to next?