Trier, Germany

Part 2 of 4: Trier, Germany

A couple random tidbits about this blog:
1) If you click on the pictures, they will get bigger and you can view them as a slideshow.  Yes, I think you're smart enough to figure this out on your own, but I just want to make sure everyone is in the loop.
2) If When I use the term "we" when talking about doing, well, anything (especially travel-related things), assume I'm talking about whatever random group of exchange students I happen to be with unless otherwise specified.
3) I apologize that these posts are so dry sometimes, but it's hard to even scrape the surface of the things I'm seeing without listing the events of my trips in chronological order.

Anyhoo, back to the good stuff.  Friday morning we took a train to Trier.  Thursday (Bonn) and Friday were the first times I've seen a completely sunny sky in about two months, so my day was immediately off to a good start.

We started by visiting Porta Nigra, the largest Roman city gate north of the Alps. It was built somewhere between 160 and 200 AD, and it was incredible. 

Next came the Cathedral of Trier (Oh look! Katie's talking about another church.).  There isn't much that I can say about it other than the fact that it's the oldest cathedral in Germany and the pictures can't possibly do it justice.

We next passed a World War II bunker and toured a museum in the house in which Karl Marx was born.  Both were somewhat interesting, but I won't bore you with details.  See FB for pictures.

Our final two stops of the trip were the Imperial Roman Baths and a Roman amphitheater.  Second to my love of old churches is my love of ruins.  So. Cool.  The baths were constructed around the fourth century AD and are considered to be the largest Roman baths outside of Rome.

The amphitheater was completed around 100 AD and seated 18,000 people.

Underneath the amphitheater

After another long day of sight seeing, we were heading back to the train and decided that coffee was in order.  For those of you saying to yourselves, "Wait-- Katie hates coffee," you're correct.  In my case, tea was in order.  Anyway, we remembered seeing what looked like a cafe near the train station when we had arrived and went to scout it out.  We found the sign for the cafe and walked in the door, or so we thought.  As we entered, ambient lighting set in the ceiling was gently changing colors.  Red flag number one.  I even commented that I felt like I was walking into a nightclub instead of a cafe.  Upon opening the next door at the end of the hallway, we found ourselves at the bottom of a dimly lit staircase.  At the top of the stairs, a scantily clad young woman sat arguing with someone we couldn't see.  Her voice quickly fell as she stared at us and we stared at her.  In that moment of uncomfortable silence and eye contact, it hit me. We were in a brothel.  I quickly yelled "This isn't the cafe!" and threw in an awkward chuckle for good measure while turning around and shoving everyone behind me out the door.  As our eyes adjusted to daylight once more, we looked up and realized that we had entered the door immediately next to the cafe: the one under a small sign with the silhouettes of two naked women over the words "Haus Michele".  Suspicions confirmed.  And so ended our Trier adventure.

Bonn, Germany

Hello, all!

As per usual, I'm backed up on posts, so this will be part 1 of 4 for this weekend.

I didn't have any travel plans at the beginning of last week, so naturally I booked trips to go to four different cities in five days a couple of days in advance. Yay for Europe and easy travel.  I was recently informed about a lovely little thing called the regional train ticket, which pretty much means you can travel as much as you want in the region for one day for about 8 Euros if you have a small group.  It's hard to stay put when there's so much to do out there for so little money.

My first city of the weekend was Bonn, former capital of Germany.  A nice thing about semi-spontaneous travel is learning as you go, which in my case often means pulling up Trip Advisor's list of top attractions on my phone while on the train.  Through the tourism cyber-mecca, I learned that Bonn was the birthplace of Beethoven, so his childhood home was the first stop.  Taking pictures in the house/museum wasn't allowed (as I was told rather forcefully by a woman who pulled my arm down and then proceeded to stalk me for the rest of my visit), but I prevailed and managed to take a couple anyway.  I'm getting good at this.  

The console of the organ Beethoven played in a Bonn church from age 10.

We went to a beautiful church after that, but I'm going to try really hard to not post every church I enter on here.  This is going to be difficult as churches and cathedrals are my favorite things to visit when traveling, but I suppose that's what my Facebook pictures are for (check em out!). 

Our next major stop was the National Museum of Contemporary German History, which covered from the end of World War II until now.  It was also free, which is one word guaranteed to brighten my day lately.  We were lucky enough to catch the last weekend of an extremely interesting exhibit called "The American Way." It was all about the US's relationship with and influence on Germany from World War I to present day.  It included propaganda posters, German approval ratings of the US, WWII memorabilia, a section about Elvis and blue jeans, pieces of the Twin Towers, Lady Gaga, and Snowden.  It was interesting to gain an outside perspective of our country and an inside perspective of Germany.

Reagan: "Is This Man Dangerous?"

Picture sent to US from German schoolchild after 9/11

"Alone Against America, Edward Snowden: Hero and Traitor"

The final stops of the trip were a giant Haribo store (gummies...gummies everywhere) and the Bonn Minster, a Roman Catholic church (welp, that didn't take long).  It is one of the oldest churches in Germany and was built sometime between the 11th and 13th centuries.

After a long day, I returned back to Vallendar to sleep and prepare to do it all over again the next day.  And the next... and the next...