This past weekend I went to Cologne, Germany with my friend, Marion! We had been told by another friend that Cologne had a carnival this weekend, so we wanted to check it out and experience it for ourselves.
Well Cologne was...interesting. It's a pretty city. There was lots of pretty buildings everywhere with lots of colors and patterns. And the cathedral there was beautiful. And with carnival, it was a great people watching place. Everyone was all dressed up (as if it were Halloween) - anything from mickey mouse to the tooth fairy to traditional German outfits to the teenage mutant ninja turtles to dominos.
But if a city has going to the central station as their top 10 things to do...that probably means there isn't a whole lot to do in the city. Just super randomly putting it out there for everyone.
Despite this, we made the most of our trip and found some things to do. We went and visited the cathedral and walked across the famous bridge there. The bridge was packed with lover locks everywhere; you couldn't even see the fence under them all. We saw the old town and walked along the river. We found some really good places to eat at (shoutout to Marion for always finding really good breakfast spots). We went to the zoo, and had fun watching the elephants and cheetahs (I've never seen them not sleeping!) and finding all the reptiles in their tanks. We did a bit of shopping and exploring the "Shopping center" street. We saw lots of parties going on and would watch or even join in. Sometimes it was people on a stage performing like a concert; sometimes it was people just carrying a huge speaker on their back blasting music for the whole street to hear; or sometimes it was a flashmob of people performing in the street.
The costumes were my favorite part though. It was like Halloween 2.0 with everyone dressed up - little kids, teenagers, adults. Some of the costumes were kinda trashy, similar to what you'd find in Times Square in NYC, while some people went all out and put together a really nice costume. Marion and I went as gold and silver stars with glittery shirts and masks.
Although I'm not really planning on returning to Cologne anytime soon (or ever), I still had a good time exploring a new city!!
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