Finding One's Inner Buddha

Where does one begin. First, I wrote a bit in my travel journal and for those of you who know me you'll know what an achievement that is. It was quite poetic actually and would have very much liked to share alas my journal resides with my bags under my hostel bed hopefully safe and sound. Max and I are now in Cologne after staying in the Kloster Malgarten. Max said that it is one of those travel secrets that people come across every now and then and I agree whole heartedly. What a wonderful place. We'll give more info when we have it in front of us.

Oh, wait, I remember my bit that I considered poetic. It describes the feeling I got while staying in the monastery. A while back, during the school term, a friend of mine and I were having one of those deep (at least deep for me) conversations and he said to me that I would make a terrible buddhist because I cannot just ''be.'' Well he of course was right but staying at the Kloster made me think that if one could not simple ''be'' there then one could not ''be'' anywhere such was the welcomed quiet and tranquility of the standing monument to history and peacefulness. I found that aside from the somewhat frustrating, albiet cardiovascularly-worthy 3 hour walk to and from town, my time spent there was relaxing and allowed me to think about absolutely nothing in particular. One of the most wonderful feelings one can have, I feel.

Cologne seems uber-interesting and our plans for tomorrow will be filled with a treck up 509 steps in the Dom and a trip to the chocolate museum. Of course, anything that has to do with Chocolate is high priority on my list. I believe that as we gather our notes, thoughts, and journal entries we'll be able to fill in some gaps with more detail so please excuse the lack of sequence that may arise during our posts.

To sum up: Train travel is not that bad, hostels aren't too bad (well, most of them anyway), Cologne has a huge Dom, and Amsterdam is on the horizen.

Oh, and I prefer the Alt bier to the Kölsh but let's just keep that between us while I'm here in Cologne. Otherwise, I might start a war.

Cheers!