Cologne

Hey guys,

this time I'll tell you more about my city. But first you must understand, that I absolutely love my city. For obvious reasons Germans can't really be proud of their country, but in Cologne, there's something called local patriotism. If you're from Cologne, you're in love with it. And there is soo much to love about it.

It is a beautiful city with a bit more than one million inhabitants, famous for its Cathedral. What else is there to visit? There's the river Rhine, many parks, forests and recreation areas, a very interesting Roman history, many Romanesque churches and the chocolate museum.

Nearby we have the low mountain regions "Bergisches Land" and "Eifel" which are really nice for nature excursions.

Cologne has 86 districts, which are further divided into "Veedel". Us people from Cologne, often identify with those like you usually do in small villages. I am from Sürth, which remained its atmosphere of a village in the countryside, although part of this big city.

Here you can see Cologne's coat of arms.

We are also famous for our beer. I know, the first thing most people think of when they hear Germany is beer. But it's not just beer. You have different kinds of beer in Bavaria, northern Germany and so on. And ours, Kölsch, is brewed in maaaany many different breweries. The biggest just 5 minutes from my house. Cologne has its own dialect, called Kölsch as well,  which is used especially during Karneval (carnival). It's what we call the 5th season of the year. We celebrate it, we love it, we live it. Unlike in most parts of the world, we don't just celebrate it the week before Ash Wednesday, but already start on November 11th, at 11:11 o'clock. We celebrate, sing, drink Kölsch and everybody dresses up. There are the typical costumes in red and white representing Cologne, clowns and any other costume you can imagine. So here are some pictures of my costumes:

Flower girl Karneval 2013

  In a traditional Bavarian dress "Dirndl" Karneval 2014

 Ladybird Karneval 2015

 

Okay, I hope you enjoyed my little summary of Cologne and can't wait to visit and celebrate ;)

Now, as promised my favourite books:

Standalones

1. Nineteen Minutes by Jodi Picoult
2. Sister by Rosamund Lupton
3. House Rules by Jodi Picoult 
4. The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett
5. Before I Fall by Lauren Oliver

Series

1.  Jette Thriller by Monika Feth (German series)
2. Grant County series by Karin Slaughter
3. Detective D.D. Warren series by Lisa Gardner

At the moment I am reading The Tenth Circle by Jodi Picoult and really enjoying it. I love how she always covers very difficult topics. In general there's two types of books I enjoy reading. (Psycho) Thrillers and novels about really serious, maybe even depressing topics, like those of Jodi Picoult or Morton Rhue. I also already picked out my next read. It's going to be The Art of War by SunTzu. I'm really curious how that's going to be. If you'd like me to go into detail for any of those or give you my opinion about a book you really enjoy, please tell me. What's your favourite book?
But now excuse me, I have to get back to bed and finish my book.

See you next time!!

Jen

P.S. Starting on January 1^st I will write down every single book I have read. So at the end of next year I can tell you exactly what I read. I think this will be really interesting, even for myself. I mean, I don't have a clue what I read at the beginning of this year.

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15.12.2015