Kate and Bron's Diary for 2002-08-19

Stayed the night in Cologne

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From: "Bron Gondwana" <brong@brong.net>
Date: Mon, 26 Aug 2002 10:47:50 +1000 (EST)
And having sent us to bed so early, they then got us up early for
breakfast from 7:30am to 8:30am. Torture! We headed back into the city
as quickly as possible.

There's only one big tourist attraction in Ulm, but it certainly is big.
Well, tall anyway. The Muenster, tallest church spire in the world. They
had an organ concert on 15 minutes after we arrived, so we listened to
that. Amazing sound in such a tall building.

I climbed the spire - distracted by a couple of english speaking people
who chatted with me the whole way up - helped pass the time. One of them
lived there, so I even had a handy guide to point things out! Got a good
view of the Denube, which wasn't quite so flooded here as it supposedly
was in Vienna at the time.

Walked down by the river, saw the amazing Rathaus, then off to see the
Einstein fountain and monument (it's a single stone in the wall, with an
inscription reading "Ein stein" - literally one stone)

We'd decided to go to Cologne after all, especially since it's right
near Bonn, and cheaper. We wanted to go to Bonn anyway. The train was
very sweaty because they didn't seem to believe in ventilation - 4 tiny
windows in the entire carriage, all open as far as they would go.

When we arrived in Cologne it was raining heavily - we'd booked two
nights in the hostel a long way from the station because the close one
was full, but it just looked so bad that we decided to try the close one
again. They were free for the second night, and we decided to get a
hotel room for a night instead of suffering the rain. Wound up with an
ensuite and all - not cheap, but nice for a change.

Kate had the first shower. It was only as I reached for my towel after
mine that I realised they had provided us with one big towel and two
small towels. Kate claimed that she'd just grabbed one, assuming there
were two. More on this later...

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