Another Night by the Real McCoy

The Koelner Dom (Cologne Cathedral) is a sight to behold.  You truly cannot comprehend its splendor and height until you are standing right outside, craning your neck up...up...up.  It stands right outside the train station and as you approach, you catch a glimpse, but you literally cannot see the top until you ascend onto the plaza.  There are plenty of buildings that dwarf the Koelner Dom today, but imagine being the designer, in 1322, of this beauty that took well over 200 years to complete, with a 400 year pause until it was finally completed in 1880.  You never lived to see even a fraction of your masterpiece built.  Imagine that this masterpiece was built completely by hand with none of the safety, machinery, and technology available today.  It is a true testament of Catholicism and intimidation.  When you stand next to it, you feel the power of the church, which was entirely the point.  When I saw the Dom for the first time in the summer of 1993, I fell in love.  When I learned that our junior year class trip was to Koeln, I was thrilled!

There we were, 2 classes of German 16-17 year old students, and me, packed into a train, garnished with streamers.  Think school bus, but the actual Deutsche Bahn (German Railroad), aka public transporation.  We were all surprisingly well behaved and arrived in Koeln together and in one piece.  The field trip was a combination of chaperoned and unchaperoned events such as the theater, the art museum, and a trip to a brewery.  That alone speaks to how different this was from an American field trip, but also the freedom we were given throughout.  A few things stand out in my memory. The first was gathering in the famous Frueh Brauhaus (Brewery).  It was a group of boys from our class.... and me.  There was a toast made and it was sweet and I was happy.  There was also an unspoken contest called "Who will end up with the most Koelschglaeser (Koelsch glasses)".  To clarify, these are glasses we stole.  There are 26 varieties of Koelsch, which is a beer brewed in.... you guessed it, Koeln.  It is served in a 0.2ml glass and each variety has their own logo on the glass. The servings size is so cute and perfect, really a tasting.  They continue to serve you until you put your Bierdeckel (coaster, also branded) on top of your glass, indicating you are done.  I ended up with at least 3 glasses, all now sadly broken.

The other memory and purpose of today's story, is of scaling the Dom with my classmates.  There are 533 steps to the top and they wind up a circular staircase with no windows.  It's intense.  We came up with a song to entertain ourselves to the tune of a big hit of 1993:

Another stair, another step, but always down

It's like a vision of circle that seems to go round

Another stair, another step, but always down

In the Dom I think we'll reach the ground.

....And eventually we did!