A weekend at home

This weekend stayed at home, and Karl came to visit! It was nice that I didn't have to ride any trains or worry about getting anywhere . . . We saw Cologne on Saturday and Aachen on Sunday

Cologne is a typical big german city. They have the biggest or the tallest (or something like that) cathedral in the world--or so I was told. And we climbed to the top of it. Something like 500 steps. They were spiral steps, too. I should have taken a picture. It was quite dizzying. Anyway, the cathedral in Köln is huge. It's ridiculous to stand under it and look up.
http://web.mit.edu/kmwerts/www/album/Germany/K%F6ln/slides/K%F6ln%20024.html
we climbed to the top and took some pictures of Cologne
http://web.mit.edu/kmwerts/www/album/Germany/K%F6ln/slides/K%F6ln%20003.html
here's the inside
http://web.mit.edu/kmwerts/www/album/Germany/K%F6ln/slides/K%F6ln%20006.html
and we saw the bells, too! Sadly, they don't change ring with the pull ropes anymore. In fact, the bells don't even swing anymore. The best Karl and I could figure was that there was either something hitting the bell on the outside, or a mechanism that just moved the clapper inside. They still ring, though! One went off while we were up there. It was just a small one, but it was still loud
http://web.mit.edu/kmwerts/www/album/Germany/K%F6ln/slides/K%F6ln%20008.html
We also went to the chocolate museum in. yummy.

On Sunday, we stayed in Aachen. I was a little embarassed that I actually hadn't been to most of the tourist sites in Aachen. So I saw them all with Karl. We went to the Rathaus and the Dom. That's German for town hall and cathedral, but it's doesn't really mean the same thing in English (well, I suppose catherdral dose, but . . . you know), so we usually call them by their German names. The Rathaus is pretty impressive for a Rathaus, because Charlemagne built it in Aachen along with the Dom as the center of the Holy Roman Empire, because he apparently had arthritis, and there's hot springs in Aachen that are good for that sort of thing. It is also where the Karl's Prize is awarded each year. The Karl's Prize is given to leaders who are seen as having helped unify (I think it's specifically unify Europe, but I'm not really sure). President Clinton won the award a few years ago. Here's Karl and Clinton!
http://web.mit.edu/kmwerts/www/album/Germany/Aachen/slides/Aachen%20011.html
After that we saw the treasury of Aachen (more like the treasury of the Cathedral. They have a lot of crazy stuff . . . the most of which was, I think, the thigh bone of Charlemagne. He was apparently a saint and had some sort of cult following, and back in those days, people collected relics (which were things the saint owned or I spose parts of his body) from saints and then put them in these elaborate encasements (I think there's a word for those, too, but I don't know what it is). Ew, so I saw Charlemagne's thigh bone. They also had his radius and ulna in a large golden hand. There was a little rock crystal window you could see them through. crazy medival europeans. gross.

Then we hiked up to the triple point (Where Germany, the Netherlands, and Blegium meet), and we walked around in a bush labyrinth for about an hour. We were two quite frustrated MIT students. We couldn't seem to figure the way out. We finally got it, though, but we had to sit down and take a good look at the almost map they gave us (it was a very small picture from a long way up in the air). We finally figured it out, and got out alive. hah. Also, most of the festivities around the triple point ar in the Netherlands, so everything was in Dutch. We had a good laugh listening to the people speaking Dutch ;-)

I'm back to work now, I've got a lot to do.

Kendall

Music: Goo Goo Dolls, Train, The Pixies, Third Eye Blind.