Cologne and Half Marathon #3

Earlier in the spring of 2013 Warren and Andrea decided to do a half marathon in Cologne in October.  So...after months of training we traveled to Cologne the weekend of October 12th - 14th to see the sites the city had to offer as well as run Andrea's third and Warren's first half marathon.
We got there on Friday afternoon and went to the expo to pick up our registration packets for the race on Saturday.

We walked around Cologne after that and took some photos of the sites around the city.  We visited the famous Cologne Cathedral as well.  This cathedral is the most visited site in Germany and averages 20,000 visitors a day.  Construction on this cathedral started in 1248 and wasn't completed until 1880.  This is the largest gothic church in northern Europe.  It was pretty awesome!  

To carb load for the next day we had dinner at an awesome Italian restaurant and called it a night.  The next morning we headed to the center of downtown for the race!

While Warren and Andrea were running, Toni and Brandon took some more pictures from around the city. 

Andrea finished with her best time to date and is going to do a full marathon next summer!

At the end of the race we went back to the hotel, got cleaned up and went on a Kolsch beer pub crawl.  Kolsch beer is a special type of beer that is brewed in the city limits of Cologne (Koln).  

Yummy German food!

Even though the Kolsch beer was good, we ended the night in our true fashion...we found an Irish pub!

The next day we left Cologne and headed for Bonn, Germany on the way home.  Bonn is where Beethoven was born.  We walked around the market in the city center and went to Beethoven's birth house which has been turned into a museum.  They had an amazing collection of artifacts from his life that included glasses, ear horns, pianos, original manuscripts and even his death mask.  

We then drove a little outside of the city to take an old cog train up to some wonderful views of the Rhine River.

On our way down the hill we stopped at Schloss Drachenburg.  This palace was a private residence built in the late 19th century.  The palace is now owned by the state foundation and is open for tours.  

We had a great weekend in Cologne/Bonn and are excited to show my parents some of the sites around Bonn when they come in a few weeks!  

Stay posted...more blogs to come!

OKTOBERFEST!

We have been MAJOR slackers with our blog lately and people have been giving us a hard time, so this week it is our goal to get caught up. 

First on the list…OKTOBERFEST!

We attended a few of the fall beer festivals in September / October and had a blast.  The first festival we attended was in Stuttgart on Saturday, October 28^th.  Many people like this festival better than the actual Oktoberfest and I think I would have to agree.  We had an awesome time in the Sonja Merz tent.  The band was really fun, the food was good, the beer was great and we had an absolute blast.  We took the train down that morning, spent the day in the tent, walked around the festival a bit, drove some go-carts, ate good food and came home that night.  We added more beer mugs to our collection as well!

the festival grounds

the first beer

eating McDonalds on the way (we needed to get some food in our stomach :) )

We were excited to finally wear our outfits!

singing - "because we're the three best friends (and one drinking buddy ;) ) that anyone could have"

inside the tent

the crew

Next on our list of beer festivals is the real Oktoberfest in Munich on Saturday, October 2nd.  We had bought our train tickets months in advance for this trip and unfortunately as a result of the government budget situation and sequestration, Brandon was unable to come along.  We still had a great time, but it wasn't quite as fun as Stuttgart.  However, a big part of that could just be because our group wasn't whole :).  

Andrea, Toni, Warren, Cody Ben Beaudry and a few other work friends of Toni and Brandon came along on this adventure.  We took an early morning train 4 hours to Munich and quickly found a place to sit in the famous Hacker Pschorr tent.  We were lucky we got there right when the tent opened because seats went very quickly.  The afternoon sessions are first come, first served and the evening sessions are by reservation only.  You have to get really lucky as a tourist to get a reservation in one of the big tents in the evening on a weekend.  We spent our afternoon in the tent which was a blast, but spent the rest of the early evening / evening tracking down our group that had gotten separated (and lost) after we left the tent (not so much fun).  We hopped back on the train and rode the 4 hours home.  Overall, it was still a great time (but a VERY long day).  

Prost!

Toni, Andrea, Ben, Odette, Cody, Warren

It was a long day!

That is all for now! Be on the look out for many more blog posts this week!