AAAAAaaachen

Today was a half-day excursion to Aachen, home of Karl der Grosse (or Charlemagne), and a city that was completely destroyed in the war. 

(Mom wants more photos with people to show that I have friends, above the girl in black in my roommate from Portugal, the other girls are from Hungary, Poland, Lithuania, Portugal, and Poland respectively from left to right minus me) We are in from of the center Dom, which was completely destroyed in air raids by the British

Karl was said to have gone here to Aachen for the hot springs. The whole town smelled like sulfur to me, and there was a fountain from which if you drink you will have good fortune (of course I had a sip just in case!) But this was also the home of centuries worth of German kings. Also this was a town that people would go through on sojourns throughout Europe, so some of the many churches in the city were from other cultures, most notably Hungary was represented.

This water fountain is supposed to represent German culture. The masks at the bottom of from Karneval and there is also men and women and horses and a rooster. All aspects of this fountain are mean to be tangible, so many of the creatures can move.

There are always little playgrounds for children in these German cities, but I thought this was one of the more precious ones. There is some green space in the middle of Aachen and our tour guide said that the city of Aachen makes it very hard to get a new building approved by the city, over a half a year in most cases, so instead it all remains free space for gathering (like the german punksters, of which I saw more in Aachen than any other city so far)

 Aachen is also known for their "Printen" which is basically a gingerbread with various toppings on top. During our tour, a bakery actually brought out some Printen for us to try. It was pretty good when it was covered in chocolate, but when I tried it with orange flavor it did not have the same effect.

 This is the city hall, but formally Charlemagne's house. Most interesting to me is that it too was also completely destroyed in the war! Also there are many German kings depicted on the side, which either lived in Aachen or were brought there after death to be buried.

Here is the crest of Charlemagne and it was on the sidewalks all over the city. Apparently when he signed his letters, he used this crest.Once again, Dan Brown would like this figure I suspect. I am sure this sis some sort of famous thing like the eye of god or something but I just recognized it from the back of the dollar and thought it was worth a picture.

Here is inside the central Dom and I was thoroughly impressed with the ornate style of this church, which had to be rebuilt after WWII because it was destroyed! I keep emphasizing this because even after a couple of hours thinking about it, it is hard to imagine. There is supposedly a bunch of rubble as a memorial to the destruction of the city somewhere in the church, but I could not find it.

 I took this picture for mom (maybe it will appear on a certain twitter account?)

 There is a special right now to go to Tunisia, I can't imagine why...

 I took a picture of this in case Uncle Vince gets any more ideas, there is a biking guide of the Roman Rheinland


















There was also chocolate stores all over Aachen, which I believe is the home of Lindt chocolate, and this was a finny little thing I saw, which was a spoon that has chocolate on the end. You can put it in warm milk and mix it to make hot chocolate. This was the ever popular Tomato Basil flavored Hot Chocolate

On the way there I saw an atomic energy plant, which I feel like is very rare, and wont exist for much longer. As I previously said, the Germans are set to get rid of all nuclear energy by 2020