Kellan and the Chocolate Factory

OK, so it was actually a chocolate museum, but that title was too cute to pass up.

It was very cold in Cologne today; a balmy 23 degrees. But that didn't faze the Jones clan. We ventured out around lunchtime, very layered and very bundled. Goal number one was too get a quick bite before making our way to the chocolate museum. We chose a popular bakery chain here - Merzenich - and had some delicious sandwiches. Mine was turkey on some sort of pumpkin seed baguette with fresh lettuce, tomato, cucumber and some sort of Miracle Whip tasting condiment with fresh herbs. Yum.

Kellan fell asleep while Matt and I ate lunch (K had eaten back at the hotel) and we walked over to the chocolate museum.

The museum is actually on the Rhine, so it was in a beautiful setting. We went in and unbundled, which woke Kellan. We meandered through a section that displayed some in depth info about cocoa and how chocolate is made. This led into a small chocolate factory housed inside of the building that displays the process of how chocolate is made. In this area was the first free chocolate station where a woman was dipping wafers in a huge chocolate fountain and handing them out. These were delicious.

This area had floor to ceiling windows that provided great views of the Rhine, which Kellan enjoyed from every angle.




After taking in the Rhine, we explored the chocolate making process.
Mix cocoa with milk and sugar. Pour into trays. (This machine was vibrating pretty violently so it was hard to get a good shot).  Chocolate hardens and is transported onto a belt.

Trays are flipped so that chocolate falls onto belt. A very intelligent machine picks up chocolate squares and moves them to another belt.

Chocolate pieces are then shuffled into a single file row, wrapped and dropped into a box.

Pretty cool.

After this, Matt explored the rest of the museum and Kellan and I explored the various flights of stairs around the building. Stair practice is a favorite past time of K's these days. We also found a few other free chocolates to sample, too.

We ended our tour in the gift shop where there was every type of chocolate you can imagine.

Chocolate cell phones and lipstick

Many, many delicious truffles

A chocolate cheeseburger

Chocolate beer

And whatever this weird assortment is...(insert raised eyebrow).

This was a great afternoon activity for K, and Matt and I enjoyed ourselves too.

The walk back took us through a really neat area of Cologne that we hadn't seen before with quaint buildings and streets that made us smile.

We ended our day today with some yummy Thai food and a webcam chat with Nana, whom Kellan was very excited to see. Now it's time for some Rotwein and Rosetta Stone. Goodnight!

Kölner Dom (Cologne Cathedral)

Though we have walked by it many times in the last week, we paid a proper visit to the Cologne Cathedral yesterday and I have to say it did not disappoint.  A few points of interest regarding the Kölner Dom:

- it is the largest Gothic church in Northern Europe and has the second tallest spire and largest facade of any church in the world
- it suffered 70 attacks via aerial bomb during World War II and did not collapse - the rest of Cologne was almost completely leveled after World War II.
- it is rumored that American soldiers used the inside of the cathedral as a rifle range in 1945
- an average of 20,000 people visit the cathedral every day
- it took 632 years to build, with construction beginning in August of 1248 and ending in August of 1880

Here are some closer pics of the main entrance, one looking straight ahead

 and up, up, up...

This is looking up from the north side of the cathedral.  Above on the right is scaffolding where workers are performing restoration.  There is pretty much always scaffolding somewhere on the structure as it needs constant repair to keep it safe from weather and pollution.

View from northeast corner or the back of the cathedral.  These pictures just can't capture how massive it is.

 East side of cathedral.

 Looking up on to the south side.

After exploring the outside of this massive building, we ventured indoors, and found it to be equally breathtaking.  Below is a view of the nave looking east.

 I loved the way the light was shining on the organ through the stained glass windows...

 Moving toward the east end of the nave...more beautiful light.

 Yet another organ in the northeast corner.

Matt was remarking on the stone that the cathedral was made of.  Looking at this incredible place it is no surprise that it took six centuries to build.

After visiting the Dom, we stopped off for a pretzel smothered in butter and then got K back to the hotel so he could stretch his legs.  Later on, we went to an Italian restaurant with some new friends we have made here and their two kiddos, ages 4 and 1 1/2.  Bruschetta, fresh salad, cheese pizza, gnocchi and red vino made for a delicious dinner.  We all walked home pleasantly full and called it a night.

To learn more about the Kölner Dom, visit Wikipedia - Cologne Cathedral.

K At Play

Though two adjoining hotel rooms don't offer a lot of space for playing, Kellan is still having a really good time playing with his toys we brought over and anything else that interests him.

Below, he has nail polish.  They fit perfectly in his little hands, they're colorful and he can't open them.  It works. That's Nutella on his face, which he had never had before and loves.  I hadn't had it either and thought that it was just like peanut butter.  Then I tried it and found out it is what peanut butter would taste like if it wasn't peanut butter, but chocolatey, hazelnutty deliciousness that is 547 calories per two tablespoons.  Yikes.

 Not really sure what's happening here.  He's pretty excited, though.

 I told him to say, "Cheese," which he knows how to do now, and this is the adorable smile I was given.

 The sweet happiness the bottle brings...

 Playing with his big rig named "Zig."  Look at those little squeezy thighs!  Love!

 Making cars "Vroom!"

 Surveying the destruction of the hotel room.

I'd say he's settling in quite well!

Laundry and Curry

We had to do our laundry at a laundromat on Saturday at the Eco Express Waschsalon. Seems pretty simple, right? Just bring some coins and some detergent and you're all set. Wrong.  First of all, the walk to the laundromat was about 3/4 of a mile, so we opened up our largest rolling suitcase, piled in our clothes and started our walk.  A very kind fellow FedEx pilot who has been here since December helped us navigate our way there since it is hard to find.  He walked us through the process of getting soap and selecting a machine and then headed back to the hotel.

Unlike American laundromats., where each individual washer and dryer have a place to give your money and select your wash cycle, German laundromats have a large control panel where you enter your money and select your machine.  It looks something like this:

You also get your detergent (a different type for colors and whites) and fabric softener at this control panel.  Note that it is all in German - labels for buttons, directions, etc.,.  Once you have tackled the control panel, you walk over to your machine, load your clothes in and then put in the soap.  But even this is a wee bit confusing if you aren't speaking much German yet.  There are three different places to put soap, fabric softener and prewash, once again all labeled in German as you might expect.  So Google translator on my new IPhone was my best friend.  We finally figured it out and got four washing machines going while Kellan had tons of fun running around and attempting to push the buttons on every single machine.  I had to be very careful to keep him from actually pushing one of those buttons, as he could have disrupted someone's wash or dry cycle and caused me to have some angry Germans on my hands.  While most people seem to be pretty nice, some seemed to be impatient with us Americans and I'm never sure which type I'm going to get...

Right across the street was an Indian food restaurant that we decided to give a try while our clothes washed.  We were a little nervous as our last two dinners out with Kellan hadn't ended so well.  One night we had to throw our food into to-go boxes right as it arrive and leave because he had a full-blown tantrum.  At the enxt dinner, we rushed through very, very quickly to prevent what was quickly moving towards a full-blown tantrum.  Poor guy.  I was also nervous about whether or not I would like the food, because my tummy has been a little sensitive since we got here.  Some foods - meats, dairy products and water - taste just a little bit different and I just haven't adjusted to that yet.  Of course, all of the foods that are particularly bad for you - croissants and other delicious breads and candy - taste delicious.

We were seated quickly in the Indian restaurants and had very friendly, English speaking waiters.  K was in very good spirits after his romp at the laundromat, so things were looking up.

K loved both the crispy and the soft Na'an bread, as well as the rice.

 Matt and I had chicken masala and curry and both were delicious!

K was very good the whole time and it turned out to be one of our best meals yet.

We returned to the laundromat after to dry our clothes, then after folding we loaded everything back up into our suitcase and went back to the hotel.  I am looking forward to having a washer and dryer of our own at our apartment, but I think I could get used to weekly laundry and curry if I had to.

Good News and Bad News

We chose the Lindenthal home listed on the last blog post!
We move in February 6th.  That means only about two weeks of hotel living.  The place is fully furnished, but we will be able to add some of our furniture to the home (a sleeper sofa and a crib).  This will save us SO MUCH money as we won't really have to buy any furniture or anything for the kitchen (no dishes, silverware) - everything comes with the home.  And it is very reasonably priced and in a very sought after area.  We are about a half a mile from great shopping areas and there is a huge park with a lake and lots of jogging trails across the street.  Only a short metro ride puts us in the heart of Cologne.  I can't wait to move in.

Tonight there was a happy hour at the hotel where we are staying with all of the FedEx pilots and their families.  We were able to meet a bunch of the great people who are living here.  Kellan started getting really sleepy around 8pm, so he and I went upstairs and went to bed while Matt socialized.  I snuggled under my cozy down comforter with a glass of wine and prepared to watch the two most recent episodes of "Parenthood."  I clicked on the link, the video started to load and....the following message appeared, "This video is not available in your country."  I was not deterred.  I went to Hulu and started to try to watch videos there.  Click, click...same message.  WHY??!?!?!!?  Looks like we will be investing in a Slingbox.

Guess I will be drinking my wine while learning German from Rosetta Stone instead...

House Hunt

We are currently living in the Pullman Hotel here in Cologne while we look for a permanent place to live.  The two adjoining rooms we are living in are quite nice and the hotel is being very understanding of our situation as many of the pilots and their families transferring over here are staying at this hotel.

Matt and I sleep in one room and Kellan sleeps in the other.  Matt and I have each taken a bathroom and closet of our own from each room, which is great.  We still have some stacks of clothes to hang up, but we don't have enough hangers.  The only place we have been able to find hangers the cost was about one euro per hanger ($1.30=1 euro, btw)!  A little pricey...so we are going to wait until we visit IKEA to make this purchase.

 Kellan has settled right into his room and has resumed his normal activities, such as pulling all of his "First Words" cards out of their  box.

 My bathroom.  Very nice to have my own space!

The hotel has offered to remove one of the beds from Kellan's room, so we may end up doing that to create more space in there.  For a free, temporary home, these are pretty good digs.

We looked at six apartments on Wednesday and got a better feel for the area.  We had a real estate agent drive us to each place - each one in a different part of Cologne.  There were two places we liked, one was in Lindenthal (circled in red), about ten minutes west from downtown (the inner circle colored pink on the map) and the other in Rath (circled in red), which is twenty minutes east of downtown and across the Rhine.  The one near the city is much smaller, but offers shopping and daily needs within walking distance.  The one in Rath is bigger with beautiful views, but is much further from the city and would require a car.  We just aren't sure which we prefer...or if our indecision is due to the fact that we aren't really crazy about either place.

We will be looking at another apartment in Lindenthal and an apartment downtown with a view of the Rhine River on Friday. We are pretty excited about the home in Lindenthal because it is next to huge park, is fully furnished and close to downtown Cologne.  Hopefully it will be as great in person as it seems online...  I will let you know how it goes!