Hallo!
(Make sure to pronounce that “W” like a “V” so you sound like a true German)!
We have all traveled a very long way from our campus home in Colorado Springs, and have now (mostly) arrived in Cologne (Köln) Germany! Over the weekend students, Herr Doktor Professors and Herr Doktor Professors’ sons took to the skies (with appropriate carbon offsets of course) to make their way to Germany. Most of the class traveled in small groups taking planes, trains and perhaps automobiles to get where they needed to go. Some groups made detours to places such as Brussels, Belgium and Reykjavík, Iceland, but we will all end up at the UNFCCC COP-23 in Bonn, Germany! I personally was traveling with three other students in the class. We flew from Denver to Detroit, Michigan and caught our connecting flight to Frankfurt, luckily without any issues! Our plane landed early in the Frankfurt Flughafen (airport), so we had some time to wander around the bahnhof (station) before our train departed for Cologne. As you can see, my German speaking skills are coming along nicely. In fact, one of our classmates taught me how to count to five earlier today!
The train was about an hour or so, and as we walked out of Köln Hauptbahnhof (Cologne’s main train station) we were greeted by a gorgeous view of the famous Cologne Cathedral! By this time it was about 9:30 am, and our crew walked a mile or so, bags in tow, to our hostel. We were the first of our class to arrive and could not check in until 3 PM, so we dropped our bags off and wandered around the city. While a little chillier and perhaps a little less sunny than Colorado, Cologne is such a beautiful place! We walked around for a couple of hours, and headed back to the hostel for a quick nap in their lounge, which is where our Herr Doktor Professor and his son found us.
While fairly exhausting, I am so incredibly excited to be in Germany and for the upcoming COP. I cannot wait to learn, and meet new people who are passionate about our earth!
Auf wiedersehen!
Emily ’19
