Koln – Hotel and General sights
December 10, 2008
These are the views out our hotel window. We were right next the train station, as you can see. It was very convenient, since we didn’t have to deal with taxis, buses or trams to get to and from the hotel. We slept with the window open. Since I had lived as a child next to a train track, the thump, thump, thump of the trains was familiar and kind of soothing.
In the hotel, there is a vine that begins on the sixth floor and travels down the stairwell all the way to the bottom.
Beautiful houses down along the river. Below is a statue of some heroic fellow, I know not who.
Below is proof of high culture in Germany.
Below is the other side of the train station, rather pretty architecture.
Below, just a general picture of the river (Rhine) and Germans out for a walk on the weekend.
We arrived in Koln late Friday night. Unfortunately, I was already feeling sick. Saturday, we went out for a little while, but I was clearly not well, so went back to the hotel and Paul went out on his own for that afternoon. After throwing up and getting a nap, I felt better and was able to get on with sight seeing. Sunday night the same ailment hit Paul hard. We were to spend all day Monday in travel back to Dubai — which meant a train ride to Frankfurt and a plane ride after that. It was a very hard day for Paul and I was worried we wouldn’t make it, but we did. He is still sick, poor thing. We attempted to upgrade our flight to business class, but were not able to do that. Luckily, there were empty seats next to us, so Paul could lay down and get a little sleep. We are too old and decrepit for travelling economy class anymore. We have vowed to travel business class in the future, but that may cut back on how much travel we can afford.
Despite our illness, we did still manage to do a few things, so more pictures will follow. It is a challenge to organize and post pictures because my camera stores them in completely random order. I usually take two of everything because the first picture tends to be too blurry to use. Even the two identical pictures are separated, so it takes a while to figure out what I have and what order they should go in.
Living the Travel Channel 
I am sorry you both got sick, but glad you got to ‘enjoy things’ anyway. Germany looks like fun..I am seriously thinking I need a passport so I can go and visit Tony while he is stationed there.