Köln

Saturday was the Big Day! And big it was!

It all started with champagne at 11:00 at Uli and Wolfgang’s house. We walked the 3.8k (2.3 miles) along the Rhine. The house is spectacular. They largely rebuilt it on an existing site and both the inside and the outside are beautiful.

After everyone had a glass of champagne, Edward and Lena spoke to the family and friends from the neighbor’s roof. Not sure what they said since it was in German, but it was well received by the crowd and Edward sounded very fluent.

After a lavish lunch, the musical members of Lena’s family (which is pretty much all of them) sang, accompanied by Lena’s uncle, Christoff, on the flute. (He and Lena’s aunt, Heimi, are professional musicians who play for the Munich opera.) the song was an adaptation of a very popular song in the kölsch dislect the about Cologne, adapted by Uli (I think) to refer to Edward and Lena. (I’m working on getting a translation to post). Lena’s cousins, Billig and Jacob, dressed up as Lena and Edward. It was a great performance!

Everyone then gathered for group photos.

All this time lots of beverages were available; so many that Uli and Wolfgang brought in a refrigerator trailer to keep everything cold. Jacob tapped the keg of Kölsch.

The party continued until the next event, cake at 4:00. Two huge cakes. We made short work of them.

And the party continued until the final food event, reinekuchen, brought to the house by a food truck. Reinekuchen are potato pancakes similar to latkes. The guests ate them as fast as the truck could fry them up and they definitely filled up any empty spaces in our stomachs!

By 9:30 or so we were all partied out and had to call it a day, although the party went on until the wee hours. Patsy and Steve walked back to our hotel with us. Since it looked like a thunder storm was brewing, we tried what was supposed to be a shortcut through the fields and woods but a wrong turn slowed us down. We hurried through the fields as the lightening and thunder began. The rain burst down just as we got in.

We never thought that, on a trip which included crossing the alps, our most exciting walk would be in Cologne!Læs mere