While most Jews tend to go FROM Germany TO Israel, we decided to do it in reverse. Why Germany? No good reason. We had an extra week before we needed to be in London and it seemed as good a place as any. Granted, we bought the plane ticket before realizing it’s absolutely freezing this time of year. Our first destination was Cologne. Near the French border, Cologne is a little more laid back than your typical German city. Very charming and picturesque, and not very crowded at the moment which is a welcome change from Jerusalem.

The main thing to do while in Cologne is visit The Dom, an enormous and imposing gothic cathedral in the center of the city. It truly is impressive, and we’ve seen our share of cathedrals by now. We decided to be troopers and climb the 510 stairs to the top of the spire. As usual, I huffed and puffed my way up and couldn’t stop telling myself how awesome I was for making it all the way, only to see a bunch of old ladies at the top. This is a common theme of our trip and we still don’t understand it.

The rest of our time in Cologne was spent wandering around the old streets and shops. We took the cable car from the Zoo across the Rhine, walked through all of the parks with their many colored leaves changing for fall, had Italian, Mexican, and Indian food but no German food, and went to the Media Center, a lifelong dream of mine. Well, not really, but it looked cool on the map and I was determined to get there. We probably would have stayed a day longer, but as usual our hotel had an awful internet connection so we decided to hop a train to Hamburg.

The four hour train ride was relatively uneventful, and upon arriving at our hotel we were met with yet another bad internet connection. So bad that we had no choice but to switch hotels, which really puts us in a bad mood. But we made the switch, just in time for me to start in on the work day, and then before I knew it dinner time was upon us. Obviously while in Hamburg one must have a hamburger. In reality, hamburgers have nothing to do with this place, but I’ll cling to any excuse to eat one. Now it is morning, another dark grey sky with constant threat of rain, but we have been so amazingly lucky this trip with weather that there is no room to complain. We shall wander around as Wandering Walkers do, knowing that this is one of the final cities we will wander this trip.