Blogging from Bonn.

Well,  the traffic and car parking is just as bad as I remembered from the last few times we’ve been here.  It got to the point that if Travelling Companion had to come to this office when we lived in Delden (The Netherlands,  just in case there’s a memory lapse there) I would drive her down in the morning,  and pick her up later that day.  It’s only about a two hour drive,  so no big deal. 






From Vienna it’s a slightly different story.  We left yesterday morning and were on the road by about 6:15,  and got to our hotel here at around four something.  We did stop a couple times,  with one stop being for lunch.  I must say,  even though the food at the Travel Plazas (for lack of a better term)  is quite good,  it is a tad pricey.  But that’s the price of convenience I suppose.  I’m always tempted to make some sort of lunch to take along,  since I’m pretty damned cheap,  but that can be a royal pain some times.  Once in a while a tightwad just needs to suck it up and pay.
In spite of spending the entire day at the wheel,  after a brief rest we continued on up the country a ways to once again take a look at the Dom in Cologne. 
I actually had this thought that I should try and sort through all the church or cathedral photos and have some sort of contest to see if anyone can figure out which are which.  I must say,  I do have a fair number of pictures of churches.

Would you be able to figure where this was,  just from this photo?  I probably couldn’t.
According to Travelling Companion,  they’ve done a fair amount of work on the Dom since the last time we were there.  Whenever that was.  I hadn’t noticed.  Something about some of the Apostles being missing,  and now half of them are back.  The structure is so massive that the upkeep is pretty much ongoing.  I mostly only remember from our last visit that it was kinda flippin’ cold,  both outside and inside the church.  Really sucked that I had to take my cap off my balding head too.  I mean,  I perfectly fine being all respectful and all,  but maybe they could hand out some ear muffs at the door?

It’s also very hard to try and capture enormity of the structure in a photo. 


Anyway,  we had a very pleasant meal in one of the market squares here in Bonn last night, after I had managed to find a place to stick the car.  It doesn’t seem to ever be an easy task,  since we couldn’t find the parking garage that the hotel recommended,  but the good news was that the underground parking garage at the market only charged one measly Euro to keep the car over night!  Dry and secure I might add.  I was actually a little shocked when I saw that,  since I had taken along plenty of dough this morning,  figuring it would be at least an arm, if not a leg.

 
It would seem there was no “red sky at night” last night,  which perhaps explains why today it’s raining like crazy, and doesn’t look like it’s going to let up soon.   I met up briefly with Nephew Boy as he was heading out for the day with an umbrella we had lent him,  as well as a waterproof jacket that is swimmingly big on me, but seems to fit him quite nicely.  He mentioned that he had once again not brought along long trousers for this trip.  *sigh*  I would have thought that the fact that we had a slight problem finding a place to eat when we were in Bled (Slovenia) due to a dress code thing would have been enough of a hint that the whole walking around in shorts all the time looking like a tourist is neither a fashion statement, nor really appropriate for activities that one may wish to pursue in the cool of the evening,  such as eating in a half decent restaurant.    Remains to be seen where we’ll be having his “birthday dinner”.  I’m afraid the “golden arches” isn’t going to cut it.  We’ll see how it goes.
Tomorrow is going to be a travel day.  Fun, wow.
Keep those sticks on the ice.


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