The rollercoaster...

This weekend was full of ups and downs. Lili came to town Friday night to hang out for the weekend and get a free guided tour of Köln and Düsseldorf. She had to leave early Sunday so our potential plan of hitting another country was nixed. That and after Saturday night, I don't think I would have made it anyway. If you haven't guessed already, it was quite the late night Saturday, but we'll get to that later. Right now I want to discuss the ups of the weekend.

Friday night was nice as we just chilled in Ehrenfeld and by the hauptbahnhof and dom. I gave the generic tour of the city which was amazing for her as she lives in a tiny town similar to Heiligenhaus. It was nice hanging out and catching up since munich. Saturday we went inside the Dom and I finally got into the treasury. As Aachen was the seat of Charlemagne there was a serious horde as I have posted about previously. The difference? The Dom is one of the largest churches on the planet. It houses the shrine of the 3 kings, which is an opulent and gigantic gold box (not pictured here... although doesn't this remind you of the lost ark), which I've also talked about previously. This is on display in the center of the church, but Aachen's treasury has nothing on that of the Dom. We need a Livonia Brown and the chains of St. Peter, or something like that.
After that it was off to the Roman/Germanic museum which I'd heard so much of from Kai and looked longingly at in many of my travels past the Dom. Inside was pretty nice, but the Louvre has ruined me on other museums, much like the Dom and St. Peters has ruined me on churches. The funny story is that when excavating for an air raid shelter in 1941 ze Germans came across the remains of a large roman villa. Afterwards they built a museum out of/over it, to preserve the archaeological site. The courtyard mosaic is quite impressive considering the age (ca. 220/230 AD) and the fact that it hasn't been moved since it was installed.
Lili loves chocolate, much like myself. So the logical conclusion of our tour of Köln prior to our expedition to Düsseldorf is the Lindt chocolate museum. I've heard (from the larger people at the office) about how cool the chocolate museum is, but had not made the trek to it in my stay here. It's a nice short walk down the Rhein to the museum which is more of a representation of small production lines. I was hoping for song and dance with chocolate waterfalls and fat or nasty kids being taken away by oompa loompas. I had to settle on pictures of ridiculous mascots of the past and not offending the staff by referring to them as chumba wumbas. The chocolate was very good, although we only got 3 free samples. One interesting point to note is that the cacao plant originated from Mexico so Lili was quite overjoyed by the historical section of the museum. That and the original chocolate bar was not something you could pick up at the gas station, but a real pub where rich people would go to drink chocolate.
A short nap after the ensuing sugar crash got us to dinner in the altstadt at my favorite schnitzle house. Where I quote, 'Scott I'll never doubt you again when you say you know a good dish to eat.' After dinner and a nice evening stroll through the altstadt, it was time for some dancing, but again I want to focus on the highlights so we'll skip ahead to Sunday. As all trips begin and end at the Dom when it comes to Köln, this was no different. Other than the weather was quite fine this time around. We made the 509 stair ascent to the top of the south tower. I suppose you can't get much higher in the city than that. As usual the view was excellent and breathtaking. Especially considering the engineering involved in the construction of the tower and installing the worlds largest free swinging bell, St. Petersglocke.

We finished the grand tour passing the one fountain in the city that I actually know the story behind, thanks Kai, with lunch at a mexicanische restaurant. Ze germans don't know what Mexican food is unfortunately, but at least my tacos were edible and slightly spicy. A tearful goodbye ensued with me chasing the train down the tracks shortly thereafter... hehe... not quite... I finished out the day dodging the ticket control on the subway back to my apartment since I didn't buy a ticket and walked the last 2km home where I struggled to stay awake for a few more hours so I didn't wake up at 3am without the ability to fall back asleep.