Day 38 of 364 - Sat 9/10: Trip #3 - Cologne, Germany

Word of the day:     nippertje    (close call)

Today, we headed to Germany... the land of Wurst, Potatoes and Beer! ... Bring It!!   It can be a tiny bit confusing when heading out on these trips bc often the spellings are slightly different than the English version (what we see in all the books and have heard of over the years). So one must sometimes do a bit of research before driving or heading to somewhere to make sure it is the right place :)   We were heading to Cologne, or Köln as it is spelled by the Germans, just like Germany is Deutschland. (I wasn't sure why there were so many different names for the same place, but this may help... Names of Germany.)

Once there, the first stop was the Cathedral, only another 500+ steps to the top for a view of the city! (my calves hurt today!!) Then it was time for lunch... Lots of wurst!! Followed by a gelato stop, and then on to the Museum Ludwig, which houses modern art collections. We finished out the day with a walk around the area, and then dinner at Lommerzheim. Here we all chose the kotellets - HUGE pork chops, I mean HUGE! (sorry didn't get a picture) They were delicious and we all left with completely stuffed bellies! (but Kim and I had room for one more gelato cone :) )

                   

                     us in front of the cathedral

view from cathedral over the locks of love bridge

                   

                       at Lommerzheim on the patio

night view

This is where the night took turn for the worse (it was about 9pm)... Back at the parking garage we were SHOCKED to find that it was closed! Gates were down, lights were off, and our car was inside. You should have seen all of our faces....wtf?!?! Now what?!?

          

                sign we saw when we pulled in over where you pay
notice closed gates!

closer look at the sign.
 um... this is how we write prices in the states!
and I think is what may have caused the confusion 

We all looked at the same sign we saw when we arrived and realized that what we thought was the price of parking, actually was the time that the garage closed! 14,45. (See pic below.) It was not written as time, and it did not have an open time, so that is why we assumed it was the price! Who in the heck closes a machine operated garage at 2:45p on a saturday?!?

We finally spotted a phone #, but no luck. We tried lifting the gates, no luck. (Oh and I should mention once we re-read the signs, we realized the garage wasn't going to open again

until Monday!.. Double Sh%t!!) so we weighed out our options...

1. Get a hotel for the night. ... That wouldn't really help bc garage was still closed Sunday, and the guys are going to MN Monday for training)

2. Take a train home, and the girls come back to get car Monday. ... That wouldn't work either bc the keys to our apt and our car were in the locked garage. And we would have to take 3 different trains to get home at 3am.

3. Try finding someone to help us.

Option #3 is what we went with.... I walked up to 3 police officers and explained our situation, showing them the name of the garage and ph#. They called and were able to get thru!   The garage owner would be there in 30mins, and it would cost us €50 to get our car out. We said, "WE WILL TAKE IT!!"   **I mean €50 was steal in our eyes! Think about it... back in the states it would easily cost at least $200 or more! I also think at that point we were willing to pay in excess of €200.  So it was a bargain!

Crisis averted! And within an hour we were on our way home! Whew... Close one!   Ok so maybe not a crisis, but it was not an ideal situation. (Sorry to worry anyone that stumbled on my fb post yesterday and thought the worst. I may have been a little dramatic.)    And lesson learned... Learn all foreign languages.. Ha ha. J/k. But really read all signs a bit closer when posted in another language!

other sign we did not see until later.
notice this one tells you the open time

Till next time...

Sarah