Invention, my dear friends, is 93% perspiration, 6% electricity, 4% evaporation, and 2% butterscotch ripple.

25.02.10

Yesterday I attended German class with Gabe again. The class has a really good atmosphere and I enjoy going. Today was nicer I could catch a few words every now and again that the teacher was saying and could follow some of the text in the notebooks.

Unfortunately we only stayed for half the class because Gabe has some other obligations to attend to. We split our separate was and I headed back to my hostel. There were a few music stores that I had passed during the past few days and never got a chance to go in, today was the day.

I made it a couple of blocks away from the hostel when I found the Music Pro Shop. It was three separate stores owned by the same company and it was huge! The first shop I stepped into was full of hundreds of acoustic guitar, amps, and brass instruments. I spent a fair amount of time looking around the store and then I was off to the next.

The drum and mixing equipment was a few stores over and I was not disappointing. Five piece-12 piece drums set up everywhere. Every kind of symbol and size had to be in that store. It was endless rows and displays.

The next store was the piano and keyboard section and it was twice as big as the previous store. Again i found my looking around everywhere. Now I wanted to find what I came there for, electric bass. To access this section of the store you had to walk around the corner, get in an elevator, and go to the third floor. As soon as I stepped out of the elevator i was in love.

There was hundreds and hundreds of electrical guitars hung from the ceiling, wall throughout the store; they were everywhere. The amps were stacked two deep to the ceiling lining the whole shop. There were guitars ranging from two hundred euros to seven thousand euros.

Behind the guitars through a narrow doorway was the bass's. Again hundreds of them, four, five, and six strings. First I looked around at all the different kinds, makes and colors and found an absolutely beautiful oak body bass. I wanted to play it so bad but it was over eight thousand euros so I decided for my safety I will just admire it and go play a different one.

I found a nice five string and a chair and sat down, catching up on some old times(well its only been 7 days but that seems like forever) and started playing around. I must have been trapped in a time warp because before to long I had been there for almost two hours and I needed to head back to the hostel and connect with Gabe.

Back at the hostel I chatted via facebook about this evenings agenda. We had the option of going to a chocolate factory/museum or go to the oldest church in Cologne on a vip(it really wasnt we just felt like it)tour with a priest named Hermano. Hermano is an older gentleman from Brussels, Belgium in his mid-late fifty's. We chose the smart option to visit the church and listen to his knowledge on the church.

We met Hermano and off to the church we went. This church is old Roman church 2000 years old. This church was absolutely magnificent. The tiles in the floor looked like new as if they were only a few years old. Then they was the huge hand carved wood doors that were on display in the church, these doors were over 1000 years old and stood some twenty feet high. The carvings told the story of Jesus and were done with such fine detail. On our way out we noticed the echo effect in the church, luckily no one else was in there so Gabe and I(especially Gabe) had some fun.

Hermano then had to go give a service so we set a time to meet and get some dinner afterwords. Gabe and I set off walking in the city. We encountered a Lego store and were drawn in by the clear holding buckets of every kind and color of Lego; it looked exactly like a M&M store.

We started talking about our fascination with Lego's as kids. We looked around the store for a while and then saw there was a bin to make your own Lego characters. We spent some time and made some good ones, we didnt want to pay for them so we decided it would be a much better idea to hide them in different places around the store and see how long they would last.

Quite hungry we found a nice place to sit for a while and have an excellent ice cream cone. I dont remember if I have mentioned this before but the ice cream here is so rich and full of flavor. I had raspberry and you could taste the sourness from the raspberry.

Then we were off to dinner with Hermano and we went and had some drinks and pizza at an italian restaurant. Little did I know Hermano spoke not only German, and English but also Frenck, Italian, Arabic, Hebrew and a little bit Spanish(probably latin as well i just forgot to ask). We chit chatted away for some time before calling it a night.
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In the morning I woke up early and met Gabe for dinner before German class. We had a nice breakfast along the Rhine river. It was a nice meal and then Gabe went off to class and I returned to the hostel to look at a map.

I found today's journey the Lidnt(Lindor) chocolate factory/museum. It was a nice half hour walk from my hostel along the Rhine to the factory. I went in and made myself promise that I would try and learn some new things and look at some things before rushing off to the factory.

I stayed strong for the first room reading everything and going into the tropical room, embracing the heat and humidity. As soon as I came out my nose picked up the rich smell of milk chocolate. I kept it together for sometime, however my concentration and my ability to retain content was slipping away.

Soon I rushed off to the factory and found myself surrounded by chocolate making machines and fresh milk chocolate. I probably looked more entertained then the group of kids there on a field trip. I watched every station of the chocolate process. At the end of this process there was silver tree with golden cocoa been. It was a milk chocolate fountain and they were giving out freshly dipped wafers.

I enjoyed my couple samples and headed up stairs. There was even more fun up there. I watched and learned about the making of hollow chocolate snacks. Then I headed to the opposite side of the room where I stood in a daze as I watched all the truffles being made. My mouth was salivating the whole time and I may have drooled a couple of times.

I finished the factory and the museum and headed down the gift soft were I enjoyed free samples of chocolate and I enjoyed some for everyone especially Kaya cause i know how much she likes the chocolates so I had a few extra for her.

I was just looking around not intending to buy anything when a stand of chocolate liquor and chocolate beer caught my eye. I decided to go with some beer, i will be letting you know how it was cause im sharing them with Gabe tonight during dinner.