A Relaxing Sunday

Sunday, March 27th

Today began with what I thought to be an early start. It’s a good thing that Elizabeth came down to breakfast to meet me before mass. That’s when she informed me of being behind the times. Apparently there was a time change here this morning, so all clocks were set forward one hour! SO… there is now a ¼ day discrepancy between my posts and your viewing (if you live in Ohio). That’s six hours for you mathematicians!

*Pic from web*

Mass began at the cathedral (Dom) at 10:00am. It was not a high mass, so the bishop did not preside; HOWEVER, it was no less “traditional” than I would expect in such a place. If I thought St. Peter in Chains was traditional, this would have made me think twice. The procession consisted of four priests and 12 or so altar boys. I thought I was doing well at translating the German during the readings and homily, but when they broke out in the Latin for the Eucharistic prayer, I was done. Haha! It was a beautiful mass though, and the choir was incredible. The oddity came at the end of mass when we turned to leave the cathedral. At the entrance of the aisle were two clergymen guarding a throng of people armed with cameras and phones anxious to tour the building. As soon as mass had ended and most people had left their pews, they unleashed the crowd and the nave and wings soon filled with tourists. Personally, I think the church should only be open for tourists, at the least, 30 minutes after the last mass of the morning. Luckily, nearly everyone in the church was respectful and mindful of those in prayer.

I took the opportunity after mass to look at the Cathedral’s interior more closely along with the crowd. Again, I’ll state here that the masterwork of stone carvers, sculptors, and painters from the time periods of the churches construction was incredible. Every pillar within the church had at its head a full size statue of a pope or saint. Unfortunately, it was hard to make out the names for identification, but they mostly had characteristic features which set them apart.

Around lunchtime I was able to purchase my Bahncard50. This gives me 50% off all DB regional and distance train travel for a fixed price of 118 Euros! …that’s the student rate… which is half price! Oh yeah! Micah and I then purchased our tickets to Munich for Friday morning. Work begins at BMW at 9:30am Monday morning, so we’ll move into the BMW apartment house that morning as well. Through the weekend, we’ll make a reservation at another youth hostel.

The afternoon was a museum adventure with Elizabeth. We visited the Römisch-Germanisches Museum (Romano-Germanic Museum). This was a building FULL of artifacts from Roman times within Cologne (and even other places in Europe). Jewelry, dishes, clothing, statues, and tombs filled the halls of the very sophisticated collection hall. The most incredible piece was probably the mosaic dining room floor on the museum’s base level. It was the floor of a private dining room from a Roman building in Cologne. The floor was discovered right where it currently rests. Apparently Bill Clinton dined on this floor during a G8 summit in 1999. I’m not so sure about how comfortable I would be with dining on a 2000 year old floor!

I’ll skip boring details of the day’s remainder, but a small group of us did walk across the Hohezollern bridge (where the trains run) to walk to the other side of Cologne. We walked through the blooming Rheinpark and ended up walking across another bridge farther down near our hostel. The evening was a comfortable 55 degrees and the sun was out again. A great ending to a relaxing day.