Exploring Düsseldorf.

Our Saturday morning began with breakfast (my usual of bananas and coffee for me) and getting ready before we decided to head out to explore Düsseldorf. Johannes was our tour guide, and he also happened to be the worst tour guide ever, because for all the months he has lived there, he knew very little about the city.

So he decided we should head to the riverfront, so we began walking downtown, when we happened upon a motorcade of my team members, who had decided to throw an impromptu parade of sorts to welcome me into town.

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Continuing on, we made our way to the Rheinturm Düsseldorf, which is not only a tall tower with an observation deck and radio/TV signals attached to it, but also a clock/timepiece. We figured what the hell, so we paid the few Euros to go to the top and check out the views, which were pretty cool, considering it is Düsseldorf.

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As you can see, Düsseldorf is a relatively generic and somewhat boring town. It's not so bad though, but it's just not particularly interesting either.

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Next, we headed on to the old part of the city, which struck us as slightly more interesting, particularly because there was a farmer's market of sorts, with many of Johannes' roommates in attendance. Unfortunately, as we were strolling through the booths, we ended up getting caught in a downpour, so we sought refuge in the town square (at which point I totally ended up stumbling into and through a homeless man's bowl full of Euros and got yelled at in German - go me).

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We decided it would be a good time to eat, at which point we stopped in at a cute little Italian place just off the main square. We all ordered food, and I got tortellini, along with caprese salad I split with Elia. My food arrived and I took a bite, and then another, and then Elia commented that it looked a lot like meat filling. Confused, I looked, and although it didn't taste like meat, it certainly looked like it. Johannes asked what the filling was, and our answer was pork. Consider that a lesson learned - ordering pasta in Germany is not quite the same as ordering pasta in the United States.

After the minimal food fail (I ended up eating some of Elia's mushroom pasta and the salad) we continued on our way, next stopping in to go shopping. We ended up in a quirky fun shop, Kauf Dich Glücklich, where Elia purchased a dress and Johannes was a total champ, trying on men's clothing for Elia to see if it would fit for Rich. The end results were quite hilarious.

After we were done, we wandered a bit, and when we came to the realization that there wasn't much more to see, we headed back to the apartment, but not without first snapping a photo of Johannes under the sign for the hangout of his team.

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Reunited with J...

...and it feels so good.

Friday night, we flew into Germany, arriving in Düsseldorf just before 11 p.m. Once through the gate, I called Johannes, who was waiting for us close by, and as soon as the words "Wo bist du?" were out of my mouth, he responded in a stream of (mostly) incomprehensible German. Yes I can speak German. No I can't speak German super well. But once he switched back to English, we quickly located one another from across the terminal and made our way toward one another.

It was fantastic to see him; Johannes is one of those people who feels like home, even considering the fact that he lives 5000 miles away from me. We made our way to the train station and bought a ticket for Elia (but not one for me, because Johannes gets to ride the train for free with himself and someone else sometimes - consider it a plus one of the DB system). We waited for maybe 10 minutes and our train pulled up, so we got on with all our luggage and settled in.

Not much later, an employee looking like (what Elia described as) an American Gladiator, came through and when Johannes presented his ticket, she immediately began arguing with him in German. We couldn't understand the specifics of the conversation, but the meaning around the words were pretty clear. Apparently, he wasn't allowed to use his card at that certain time and at that certain stop for (insert bullshit reason here). So when offered to buy a ticket on the spot, she declined, and kicked us off.

Yes, that's right, we had to get off at the next station. So we did, and bought a new ticket, and proceeded to wait for far too long in the freezing cold until the next train arrived. Brilliant, right? Elia was cranky and cold, and I just thought it was kind of amusing, that of course as soon as we arrive in Germany after overcoming so much just to get there, we were faced with that kind of annoyance.

Finally our train came, and in no time at all, we were in Düsseldorf at Johannes' apartment. Elia was exhausted so she went to bed, and Johannes and I camped out in the kitchen with candles, antipasti, Beck's and my laptop, while we went over the pictures of our trip up to that point and basically caught up on life. We ended up staying awake until nearly 4 a.m., when we both decided sleep would be best. But not before he demonstrated his skill at opening beer bottles with a lighter (a skill which is far superior and much more perfected than mine).

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