Where to begin... Cologne!

Yesterday, I got back from my Christmas vacation. With all my visa mishaps plus my actual vacation time, I have not worked in three weeks; needless to say, I was glad to be home. I really missed my kids! Not to mention access to showers and laundry whenever I please. But, it was amazing and now where to start in summarizing my holiday break...

The night before I left to meet up with my friends in Amsterdam, those of us who were still in Montpellier went to the weekly quiz night at one of the English pubs. We were not the strongest of the usual group when it comes to this quiz, so we were expecting maybe an 8th out of 12. After they announced the 12 through 2, we figured they must have left us out, because honestly, we did not do very well. But no, "The Team Formally Known as Maltese Magic" won the pub quiz! It goes with out saying, but we were shocked, and thrilled! However, the prize is a bottle of whiskey... not so thrilling. After the quiz, I trekked back to Lisa's and finally got in touch with my friends I was meeting up with. Three hours of sleep later, I was off to the train station to go to Marseille, then a bus to the airport, a plane to Eindhoven, Holland and a bus to Amsterdam (where I met the most beautiful Dutch boy that exists... I digress).

I wandered the city for a while as I had three hours to kill before my friends would arrive. I got back to the train station at the time we had agreed on to find no friends. Two hours later, many frantic texts to friends in France and one angry voicemail to Justin, the four boys arrived. We found a hostel, really an appartment, and headed out to walk around the city. Let me pause here. This trip was organized by these boys who live in England and it was difficult to find out what exactly we were doing, so if these next few posts seem scattered and like we were all over the place, it's because we were.

The next morning, we were off to the train station again. Destination: anywhere in Germany. We decided to get into Germany first before we decided which city we wanted to go to. After looking through a five pound book, we decided on Cologne for Christmas Eve and Day. Cologne has a huge Cathedral and one of Europe's biggest Christmas markets; also apparently the Gay capital of Europe, great for the boys (joking), though we didn't find this out till after we left. We went to Christmas mass at a beautiful church down the street from our hostel. Mass was, obviously, in German, thus impossible to understand, but it was really cool to be there. They sang the same songs we sing in America, slightly modified, but we were able to participate anyway. After, we had the traditional Christmas Eve dinner of Chinese food. Exhausted from our travels, we decided on a quick nap for heading out for the night. 14 hours later, it was Christmas and our nap turned into the whole night.

The next morning was Christmas and we ventured off into the city for our unofficial walking tour, led by our mapman, John. We were led all around the city, through churches and the huge commercial center. I got Dunkin Donuts real coffee and a bagel, Merry Christmas to me! Cologne is Germany's fourth biggest city, but it was pretty desserted due to the holiday. We decided to venture down towards the Rhine where we found part of the Christmas market open! We got hot wine and some German food and celebrated. We attempted ice skating, though Ricky was the only person who could do it successfully, my ankles kept turning in, I swear.

We had pizza for dinner, were directed to a shady bar by the pizza lady and eventually found ourselves at a karaoke bar. Merry Christmas!! Cologne was an awesome city, but it was time to move on. A little city called Dusseldorf was calling our names and we were off the next day for another adventure...