so continuing on with my stressed ride to dusseldorf..they lived about 5 miles outside of the center in a bit of a residential community. there building was very confusing to find, and google couldnt really locate it. they lived in a complex of tall apt buildings with traffic free (and im assuming bike free but oh well!) walkways connecting them all. i called andy and he gave me directions on how to get to the building. i had to carry lance up an initial flight of steps (again with difficulty as the back was so bottom heavy) but then he went in the elevator up to the apt. finally arrived at andy and sophies at 9:30 pm! i had texted them when i left svens to say i was going to be about 3 hours and i was right on the button. so they had eaten without me which i of course dont blame them, but they saved me some food. so they sat down with me while i ate and we had a proper catch up since the parade was too busy and hectic and not to mention noisy, so we really couldnt chat. andy was working for a marketing type company and i forgot what sophie was doing but her german was really good although she was taking a class 1 night a week. after dinner they showed me to my room, which was the computer room, and they set up the futon for me. i hadnt planned my sightseeing for the next day, so they whipped out all these maps of the city center and where showing me how to take the bus to the center and things to see. then i took a shower. when i got out, we chatted some more, i forgot how long they said they were living in dusseldorf, but it wasnt too long. they showed me their photo books they had printed. the one of the US was cool, that was the trip where i met up with them in times square in august 2011. so they printed a pic of a usa map with a route drawn on it. they flew to california and rented a car and drove around the west coast. they spent a lot of time in the west actually. they went to places that ive only dreamed about going, and im the american!! sad how that works..they went to redwood national park, joshua tree and yosemite. they went to vegas and the grand canyon. they had some lovely beach and coast photos! sophie made a joke about how there were lots of hot young guys on the beach, and andy said something about how he didnt notice any other girls on the beach because sophie is the only one for him. i thought that was incredibly sweet! so while we are going through the album i get a call from michael. i didnt check in with him and this was quite a late time for me to be arriving so he was concerned. but i told him i arrived not too long ago and was safe =) when we hung up, a&s were asking about him so i said he was english, works for rspb, met him at leeds etc etc. they said they were very happy for me =) so then we continued through the album, they took a lot of pics of things that i normally dont think to take pics of. like road signs, the meals i have, random things like that. on their own the pics would seem pointless, but together in the album, i think it added a fun element to it. in the nyc section, they had pictures of cop cars, fire trucks, fed ex trucks, one way signs etc. i thought that was quite funny because im so used to it but they said they see those things all the time in so many movies based in ny, but to see it in person was so magical. i didnt really see it that way lol but then again, i felt the same way about the iconic red double decker buses in london (which i still havent ridden but anyway!). so still in the ny section i saw pics of me and when i was with them that night =) i was happy to have made it into the album! so after looking through that it was time for bed, because they had to be up mega early for work in the morning. i went on the computer for a little bit, looking up stuff to do for the following day and skyping with michael. but then i finally went to bed.
tues feb 21: so a&s had already left for work by the time i got up but they left me some cereal and breakfast food. we had made plans the night before to meet for dinner so i didnt bring lance. andy had given me directions to the bus stop through their pedestrian walk ways that led to the street but i got lost. i eventually found the main street and the bus came within 20 min. i was really missing lance because i did not want to wait for that long at like 8:30 am, if i had known the schedule, i would have just slept for 20 min longer. but once it came, the ride wasnt too long, and i got off in the altstadt (old city), like near the market square. it wasnt too busy at this time of morning. i went to the tourist info and got a map and a little free guide book. and saw there was a museum called haus des karnevals (cologne and dusseldorf are rival cities for hosting karneval events..like glasgow and edinburgh for hogmanay! cologne = edinburgh. so i figured since the karneval museum was closed when i was there, i would check out this one. so i went in but it was more like the office for the karneval organizing committee with some costumes and memorabilia upstairs. when i walked in i asked the lady if i could walk around because the ground floor was like a reception. she said yes but didnt seem too friendly. so i went upstairs and saw all the stuff. they had pictures of some of the floats from previous parades. a lot of them were political humor, negative things about george bush. it really gave me an idea of the stuff that i missed when i was at the cologne parade because i couldnt see the floats too well at all, except for the one i saw when nathan lifted me up. the costumes looked really fab too. so as i was looking around, an older man who worked there came upstairs with a family sized group and was chatting away in german, so im assuming he was giving them a tour of the collection. i wish i knew what he was saying =( so when he was done with that and they left, he asked me something in german, probably "can i help you with something?" and i said "i dont speak german" and he said "oh..no english." so there went my tour. but after i saw the small collection i realized i didnt have a souvenir of carnival. i remember when i left a&s at the train station there was a souvenir shop in the station with carrnival stuff but i figured it would be overpriced so i thought i would have other opportunities with cheaper souvenir shops, but i never did get the chance, so i figured it was now or never. but my problem was how do i ask this guy if they sell them!? so i whipped out my trusty google translate and typed in carnival memorabilia. whatever it came back as in german, he had no idea what i was asking. so i tried again with like "carnival type items." and showed it to him, he then reads it and goes, "oh souvenirs!" and im like yeah! then i thought to myself, why didnt i think of that word in the first place!? but i was surprised out of all the english words to know, he knew that one lol. so he brought me downstairs, and into the reception office with the sweet lady in it and he took a something small that was in a packet in a bowl (like a candy dish when you go to the doctors) and he opened the packet and inside was a fake gold pin of a jester and on the bottom said "karneval dusseldorf 2012". and he pinned it to my jacket and smiled. i thought well, i didnt celebrate karneval in dusseldorf per se, but i left the building satisfied. he was a nice old guy anyway so that made me happy. so next i walked around that little market square area, where there is an equestrian statue of Jan Wellem (thanks wikipedia). nearby there was also a unique sculptural memorial to dusseldorfs history and being granted privileges as a town. it was eerie because it had skulls and a peasant, but it was really cool looking. so i walked along the rhine for a bit, there was a nice promenade path there. it was also a sunny day out so i wanted to take advantage of the nice weather, although i hadnt had a bad day weather wise in a while! i walked by a film museum which seems awesome because they ahd a lot of old antique stuff and told had the history of film exhibitions and of course lots of film memorabilia, but decided to skip that and perhaps visit on a return trip when my german would be a bit more better. so i walked around, following my little self guided tour. i passed some nice old churches. i then went to the stadtmuseum, the city museum. this was all very close to the rhine by the way. so i went in for a while and saw the permanent exhibitions (temps in german again) which told the history of dusseldorf. sorry to end on a boring note but i must rest now. really i am not doing the beauty of dusseldorf any justice, perhaps once i figure out how to post some pics i can really spark things up in this blog!!
No comments:
Post a Comment