I have done a lot since the last entry. I went to Cologne (or Koln or Colon, depending on what language you speak) one weekend and toured the giant Dom (cathedral) there. It was amazing. When you step out of the train station, the dom looms over you. It is so close and so big - a truly astounding site, particularly if you are not expecting it when you come out of the station. It was very beautiful on the inside, also, with many stained glass windows and statues. Everything was very detailed and ornate. I climbed up the bell tower to see the city, also. It was a difficult climb. The stairs were very steep and narrow, and it was very hot in the stairway. THere were almost no windows all the way up and there were a lot of people. It was worth it, though. You could see the whole city and the river from there. I posted some pictures that I took from the bell tower. After the dom, I walked around the city with Asuka, another exchange student here from Japan. The weather was very nice that day, so there were many people walking by the river, having picnics, or sleeping on the grass.

The next week after I went to Cologne, Phillip arrived here in the Netherlands! That weekend, we went to Arnhem to the zoo. I am sure you all know how much I love zoos, so I was very excited about the trip. It was a good zoo, I thought. Not very big, but they had a lot of self-contained habitats, like desert, mangrove, bush, savanna, etc. The animals had a lot of space to roam in most cases. There were also a group of orangutans that were very funny. They kept burying themselves in straw. After we had been watching them for about five minutes, suddenly a pile of straw moved and there was another one hidden in it! We hadn't even seen him. They were very good at hiding and it was funny to watch.

Last weekend, Phillip and I went to Germany for the whole weekend. We stayed in a small town on the Rhine river, Bacharach. I had actually been here before, and it was one of my favorite places that I visited in Europe, so I wanted to take Phillip there. We stayed at a small bed and breakfast, Pension Lettie, that I would highly recommend to anyone who comes to Bacharach. Lettie cooks breakfast for you every morning and it is great - waffles, sausage, eggs, plus all the juice, coffee, cereal, and yogurt you want. I guess I am just desparate for some decent breakfast food. Restaurants here in the Netherlands do not usually serve breakfast, and the Dutch people mostly just drink coffee, so I miss breakfast a lot! While in Bacharach, we rode a boat down the Rhine to another small town, St. Goar. We passed many old "robber baron" castles, including one built right in the middle of the river. In St. Goar, we hiked up to Rhinefels castle, which overlooks the town. It is a very large castle and you can explore the whole thing, even underground tunnels. We bought candles and matches at the castle and walked (crawled) around in the dark tunnels. It was a lot of fun, and made me feel like I was really in a medieval castle. Then we had lunch in a building that was built in the 1100's. The age of things in Europe is still amazing to me! In the US, we think if a building is 100 years old it is a national landmark, but here, you can eat lunch in buildings that are 1000 years old and no one thinks anything about it.

Tomorrow we will go to Amsterdam for the day. I will try to post pictures from this trip a little sooner! I also bought tickets today to go to Dublin at the end of November. That will probably be our next big trip.