First Week

We just finished our first week in Bonn and Cologne and started on our second in Leipzig. I can't believe how fast our first week flew by! I had an amazing time in both Bonn and Cologne. Bonn is an amazing city, I really like all of the older buildings and walking down by the Rhine river. Our first day there we visited an organic farm in Bonn, which was really interesting because I have never been to an organic farm. I enjoyed learning about how everything worked, they also had sheep and chickens there as well as some horses that they board for other people. I also enjoyed going out to the dairy research center. I though that it was really interesting learning about the research they were doing out there and the area surrounding the farm was really pretty. In addition we did a walking tour of Bonn that I really enjoyed, despite the rain and hail that started about halfway through it. Later in the week we went to Cologne to visit the zoo and do a walking a tour in the afternoon. At the zoo we got a behind the scenes tour of the elephant house, which was really impressive. The house has a huge indoor part with individual pens for the elephants to eat and have the trainer work with them. We were able to watch some of the training and some of the medical treatments, which I enjoyed getting to watch. After that we took a tram back the main station, and got off there. When you walk out of the station the first thing you see is the Cologne cathedral which absolutely amazing. We got to see the inside as well and the inside is even more beautiful than the outside, I took lots of pictures but I don't think they will be able to do it justice. On Friday we left Bonn to visit Paris for the weekend. We saw the eiffel tower Friday night and walked the almost 700 steps to the second level (I learned then that I'm not in nearly as good of shape as I had thought :)). However it was well worth it getting to see the view of Paris from there! The next day we visited the Louvre in the morning, which I really enjoyed and then I went sat in the gardens close to it for a little bit and just enjoyed the weather and the scenery. After that we went to Notre Dame which was amazing! The inside of the church was indescribably beautiful, I'm so glad that we were able to visit. After that we went to the catacombs beneath Notre Dame and were able to see the ruins of the Roman city, which was really interesting to see. We finished off our weekend in Paris with a dinner cruise on the Seine river, we did it at night so we were able to see Paris all lit up, we also got an amazing view of the effiel tower all lit and lots of picutres.