Today I got lost in Cologne, which is exactly what I wanted to do. It's about a 15 minute walk from the house to the S-Bahn station in Koenigsdorf. It took me a little longer to get there, though, because I took a little detour. We pass by this gorgeous tree everyday on the way to pick up Gustav, and I've been wanting to get a picture of it since I got here. It doesn't look as amazing in the picture as it does in real life, but it is so vibrant that you can see it through all the other trees from halfway down the road. So with the detour it took me probably 25 minutes to get to the train station, and then I had to wait another half hour for the next train into Cologne.

When I got to Cologne, I took the U-Bahn another 2 stops from the central station to get to Neumarkt, which is the main shopping center in the city. There are so many places to shop there! It's weird because you go into a department store there, and instead of being like Macy's or someplace where they have a little bit of a lot of different things, it's more like having an entire Best Buy, shoe store, jewelry store, candy shop, men's clothing store, women's clothing store, perfume shop, restaurant, etc. etc. all in one. So basically one store is like it's own mini mall. Anyway, I was primarily in this area because I needed to find a microphone for my computer, so once I did that I started to wander out of this area.

All over the city there were people covered in fake blood and makeup to make them look like zombies. There must have been at least a couple hundred of them, wandering around in groups. I don't know exactly what was going on, but I know there was one guy wearing a shirt that said "Cologne Chainsaw Masacre" on it, so I'm thinking that it's a Haunted House kind of thing. They've only been celebrating Halloween over here for about 20 years or so, and every year it gets bigger and bigger.

As I wandered out of the central area, I took as many narrow side streets as I could, because there was something fascinating on every one. A walkway that looks like nothing more than an alley might open up to a little Biergarten or plaza like this one. And when I say "walkway" it really means tiny little roads like the one in European Vacation. Speaking of which, I passed a group of men in Lederhosen and I think that I just missed seeing them do the slap dance :-)

I took a ton of pictures of the Dom and even found my way over the the Rhein. This is the first time I've seen it since I was in Germany 8 years ago. The Dom is huge, too. It's way bigger than the one in Venice, I think. There's also a current archaeological excavation going on in the middle of the city. I stumbled upon it while trying to walk around what I thought was a construction site (it was fenced off with chainlink fencing and just looked like a whole in the ground) and it turns out it's actually an excavation. I haven't had the chance yet, but I'm going to do a little research because I have no idea what it is that they're excavating. My German teacher from high school told me right before I left that there's a lot going on archaeologically in Cologne right now because the city archives collapsed into a tunnel that they were digging under the building (or something to that effect) and now they have to recover that. It would be cool to ba able to get in on that in some way, but I don't know how likely that is.

By the end of the day, I was exhausted. I did a lot of walking, and my feet were killing me because I got huge blisters from wearing Esther's rainboots to take Amelie for a walk yesterday. After I got back to Koenigsdorf, I actually took my shoes off to walk barefoot the last 5 minutes. Probably not the greatest idea in the world because it was freezing cold, but it felt so good to not have my shoes on anymore.

I got home about half way through dinner, so I sat down and ate with the family before they put the kids in bed. As soon as I opened the door at home, Pauline and Gustav both yelled my name. Actually, what they really said was "Hallo, Anna!" I don't know if it's because she can't say my name or if she really thinks that's what my name is, but Pauline started calling me Anja a few days ago, and now she and sometimes Gustav call me Anna. They're so freaking cute. Amelie was also very excited to see me.

After dinner I sat on the sofa watching football (aka soccer) with Olaf. Amelie sat with her face in my lap, trying to lick my face and hands the whole time. She seems to have particulaly taken a liking to me, which is good. She's not exactly a replacement for my crazy ass cat, but it's nice that she loves me and follows me around and wants to be with me all the time. It makes me happy.

I think todays was the first time that it really occured to me that I'm in a foreign country because this is the first time since I got here that I've done something touristy, but I still don't feel out of place. I think that even though I don't understand probably about 70% of what's being said to me and around me, it's more like I moved into a new house than to another country. I felt really comfortable on the train and finding my way through the train stations, even though I was by myself and using public transportation isn't exactly something I'm used to. It's almost like I just belong here, and everything else will just work itself out. It's a really comforting feeling, actually.