Much and Koln, Germany

here we are in Much - a really quite lovely village about 30 minutes from Cologne ...

my grandma was from Germany and my grandpa also descended from Germans and I now wish we could have come here as a family ... grandma lived in Brasil for over 30 years and never lost her accent and never lost her germanness. It would have been fun to see her expressing herself in her own language and not having the heavy german accent in portuguese.

it felt great to take my first step on "her" land

Germans are serious about drinking. and i mean serous. the number of beers in the supermarket is astronomical

there are cigarrette machines everywhere on every street - so a kid cn buy a pack ???? and the daughter of the woman of the house we are in smokes while her baby is in the same room. she is also pregnant. everyone, it seems, smokes. where are the smoking is bad for you commercials ???? no anti smoking campaigns in schools....well, both my kids smoke but they are an anomaly. I know few smokers besides them. and they used to throw away my ciggs and nag me to death when i smoked... is there irony there somewhere ?

Impressions: i expected more flowers....there IS lace in the windows like in Poland....people are very friendly...Much is cute cute cute...Cologne was huge and not so pretty. The Rhine River moves fast and is near the cathedral and the old part of town. The cathdral is exotic and black and gothic and overwhelming in size and the 500 steps up the tower (which I can not believe we paid to go up !!!) almost put Les and I out of commisson permanently. Huffing and puffing ???? Ohhhhhhhhhhhhh myyyyyyyyyyyyyyy gosh .... we were wheezing so much we couldn't even check to make sure the other was breathing !!!! My thighs are aching even now, 24 hours later. The stairs are extremely narrow. I feel a bit better about the whole ordeal because we saw 12-13-14-15 year olds sweating the climb too.. I was quite surprised to see them having a hard time climbing, some of them did not want to get out of our way on the right and wider side as we were descending - obviously they did not expect Blanca to simply say, get up and move NOW. And my tone of voice was universal and they quickly skedadled. HMMMMMMMMMMF !! Where did respect for elders go ???????

Thank Goodness it was My Bright Idea or I might be hating someone right now. Wellllllllllllllll, everyone loved it except Krystyna who is afraid of heights and did not even attempt the climb. Worth the view. So worth the view. If you ever get there, climb it. So worth the view.

Today no one wants to go anywhere, which is a shame cause we are close to Bonn (no idea if it is pretty) and Dusseldorf (have heard it is quite pretty). There is NO internet at home, so our laptop is useless. There is NO internet cafe in town nor a library with access. So, the nice woman in the tourist shop called this FIT hotel where I am at and asked if I could use this computer. Free. Anything free is better. Les was NOT about to walk anywhere, went to the house. The rest of the gang went to the supermarket for the umpteeth time. and I climbed a mountain to get here. I really do deserve to be called the Internet Queen ... I find it so entertaining and more fun than sitting at home watching German programs ... do I understand any of it ????? Nicht and not and nein and nie and no and non

TOMORROW WE GO TO PARISSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS Mon Dieu, merci beaucoup !!!!

au revoir a tous, photos later !!