First Stop for Christmas Travels: Cologne

Greg's parents came out to Europe for 3 WEEKS over Christmas! We got to spent the last 2 with them. Well, what can I say- it started out the way Jentzsch trips always seem to start. Greg and I borrowed a car from a family in the ward (which saved us a BUNDLE on car rental) so we drive an hour out of town to the ETAP hotel by the airport where they stayed the night before. We get there, call and decide to meet in the lobby. We wait, we wait. Where the heck are they? So we approach the desk and ask what room the Jentzsch's are staying, he said there are no Jentzsch's. So we call again. And we both say we are there, but can't find each other. Well, turns out they're in an ETAP hotel that was only 15 minutes away. Sigh. So we drive an hour BACK to town. 

We took it easy the first day and stayed in Brussels for one night. The next morning we drove to Cologne, Germany.  When we arrived we all dashed into a hotel to pee and found this cute little gingerbread house!

We went into this church that had AMAZING mosiacs all over the floor! It was beautiful! It's just tiny tiny pieces of ceramic all placed together to make pictures. Some were HUGE and none of the little fragments were the same shape. I'd seen mosiacs before but these were definitely the most beautiful. This one was very small.

On to the Christmas market! We went into this hilarious shop that had all these toys and instruments to play with. It was LOUD in there!!! When you blew into the elephant like this it made this really funny noise.

Oh man, this was the best part. Kinderpunsch. Hot punch, in your own little mug! It was good. Everyone would be walking around with them (but theirs had hot wine, instead). We kept our mugs.

 

The two girls in front are Beverly and Laticia. Their father is a client of Randy's and is a bagillionaire or something. But his daughters gave us a little tour around Cologne and were going to give us tours thru some their father's castles, but we got stuck at this sports store and couldn't pull ourselves away!

This sports store was CRAZY!!! We spent WAY too long in it. In fact, we spent all our evening looking thru here instead of touring a castle. But we found all these crazy things to do! They have a giant swimming pool to test out canoes and scuba gear in. It was HUGE!!!! This shows a quarter of it.

This was a room that went below freezing and would blow wind at you and it was to test out their jackets and pants against the weather. It also had a camera that would show your where you were hot on your body. There were ice benches in there.

 

They had a rock climbing wall with tons of shoes to climb in (free).  They also had a glass room with a rain/waterfall and you wear their clothes and get in to make sure they can withstand the water! The water also sprayed from the side (to simulate a windy storm).  As if that were not enough, they had a little pond thing that you could test water purifiers in.  It was like a really cool REI on steroids

And their bathroom! Well, here's the toilet!

And then you look up and there's a film of a moose eating outside your window!  Greg said that the stalls in the men's bathroom were like the inside of a boat and it had a port hole with the ocean (well, a video of it) splashing away outside--it looked so real!

Next we went back to their house for dinner. It was amazing! It was all in courses and was served to us by some of the daughters (they have 15 kids). First the soup, then the salad, then the main course and 2 separate desserts! It was fun.  The house is a 900 year old restored castle- complete with indoor pool and sauna now! CRAZY!!!! It was a fun day.