Day 20

Today was the first time that I slept in. I am still fighting a cold or something and yesterday I think it got the best of me. But today is a lot better. Once again today was a pretty lazy day. After lunch I attempted to catch up on sorting pictures and my blog. Anne read and visited with Patra . Then, around three, we had tea. But that was not the best part… We played Rummikub this afternoon. It is good to be back. Our tour was awesome, but it is good to be back and staying in one place for a little while. This evening, we were picked up by a friend of the family (Maria & Rudi Verhaag). We went to their house and had tea and supper with them, after going for a walk. All in all, it was a good day!

Day 19

This morning we are going to go to a corn maze. But when we get there, we find out that the corn maze is not there any more, But the rest of the park is open. They did have two bamboo mazes though. We wandered around the park for a while, playing on various things such as peddle powered racing cars and trikes, Georg, tried the speed slide and “wet” himself. We spent a good long time there. Oh yah, we also played on these big inflatable hill type things. After that, we went and saw a whole bunch of bomb shelters that have been converted into holiday homes, storage or horse stables. They were awesome. We toured the Weeze airport, then headed to the farm for lunch (at around 2pm). After lunch, we went to Georg's apartment and exchanged pictures from the day. Then we had a little nap and decided to go bowling. And after that it was time to pack up and catch a train back to Anne's grandparents place in Kessel.

Day 18

This morning we took our time packing up our bags and headed out around noon. Georg picked us up from the train station and brought us to his parents farm where we stayed for the night. When we got there, we dropped our bags in the house and went for a walk to hartfeild. We got caught in the rain for a few minutes, but found refuge under the awning of a near by building until the rain let up (only about 10 min.). After the rain stopped, we walked to the cemetery and visited the grave site of Anne's Oma & Opa Janssen. Cemetery's are so beautiful out here. We even stopped and looked around the farm that Anne's Oma & Opa Janssen owned once. Then we walked back to the house and eventually decided to go to Ikea again. This time the main goal was to have supper there. So we went, looked around, then had supper. Later that evening, the three of us played a card game for a while and then headed to bed.

Day 17

Today was still not very nice out, but we decided to get out anyways. We started the day off with a short train ride to Koln. When we got there we headed strait to the Lindt Museum and spent a few hours there, drooling most of the time. The chocolate fountain was the most tempting. Afterwards, we went and checked out a museum of modern art... I still don't understand most modern art. A lot of it was nice. Last of all, we went to see the Dome... but did not brave the 509 stairs. It was beautiful. I was slightly scolded (I think) because I forgot to take my hat off in the Dome. It was not as bad as it sounds. Well those three things took up most of our day.
Tonight is our last night in Leverkusen.

Day 16

Well, it had to happen sooner or later. Today, it rained. So... we went to Ikea for a while. As a result, I found my new future kitchen. Other than that, we rested for the afternoon. It is also supposed to rain tomorrow but we are still planning on going out and seeing a few things. Until then.

Day 15

This morning, we thought that we were doing great, we got up early and even made it to the train with time to spare. We caught the early train (8am) because we only had to change trains once. But when we boarded the train, we discovered that the time change happened this morning and we were actually on the 9am train. So we deplaned our route. In Munchen, we got off one station early and had to run to the connecting train to get where we wanted to go. In the end, we made it safe and sound to Leverkusen. When we arrived, we were meet at the train station by Anke (a friend of the family). We will be staying with her and her family for a few days.

Day 14

Well, it was suppose to rain today. So we walked to Austria... We thought we would get in as much walking as we could before it started to rain. We set out at 9am and decided to explore a new route. So we headed into the more residential area and started walking. We discovered a few hidden gems, a cute little cafe, a discount sports store and a bakery. Then headed back into town and had lunch. After lunch, we walked around town for a while just killing time. With not so much as a cloud or drop of rain, we resumed our explorations. We found a well walked path along a river and followed it until we got to a bridge by a dam. We started to head back when we decided to walk across the Austrian boarder. The hike was beautiful. We ended up walking about ten minutes on the other side of the boarder. The scenery and the fact that we did it together is officially the highlight of our tour to the south. We ended up turning back because it was about 4:30ish. So we headed back the way we came but found a different way back into town. By now we were hungry, so we went back to the pizza place and enjoyed another pizza. When we got back to the youth hostel, we figured out that we had walked some where around 17-20km. We were both sleeping by 9pm. We had an amazing day.