Dusseldorf

I mentioned dichotomies before, but lest I made the impression that one way of life was better than the other, I must assert that I got just as much of a kick out of hanging out with Julia and her family as I did with Katy and Ryan - both fantastic, but in different ways. Variety is, after all, the spice of life. :)

Poor Katy was up with me at about 4:45AM, heading out the door to the S-bahn to get me to the airport. Sadly, the train which would've taken me straight there wasn't working, so Katy had to trundle me across Berlin to catch a different train. Having caught this one, I arrived at the airport and went through the true "joy" of RyanAir flights. Going through a pre-screening of the luggage, waiting in line to check-in, checking in, only to be told I had to go check-in elsewhere to pay a fee, going out of security to pay said fee, going back through pre-security, back in line, checking in, *then* getting in the normal security line. RyanAir, for those who haven't had the honor of dealing with these people... hmm... how can I best explain RyanAir. Well, they recently changed their policies, and now charge you for using the toilets on the planes. Yep. That's RyanAir. Anywho, they give the required dimensions of your carry-on, except that they enforce it by forcing you to jam your bag into a small box which is (they claim) the size of these dimensions. (Too bad I'm about 99.9% certain it's actually quite a bit smaller) If you can't fit your bag into this box, you have to go back to the desk and pay an "oversized bag" fee - generally about £40 (about as much as the overall price of my ticket!) Fortunately, I was stuck in line behind a girl who was *determined* to get her bag to fit - despite the fact that it was as stuck as Pooh in the rabbit hole. She was loudly arguing with the woman overseeing the process, insisting that her bag was *not* over the size limits - as my bag was not over the bag limits but was obviously not going to fit into the box, I tended to agree with her, but was perfectly happy to walk right past the two of them and continue on through security. I placed my bag, coat, bag of liquids, etc through the conveyor - as I walked through the metal detector, the very cute security guard overseeing the process asked me, in heavily accented English, "What part of the US are you from?" I smiled back, confused - what gave me away? My smile? My outfit? My straight teeth? "Am I that obvious?" I asked. He smiled. "I saw your passport", he admitted sheepishly, then wished me a pleasant journey. Not withstanding the early hour and RyanAir frustrations, I did have an easy trip over to Dusseldorf, where I was picked up by Julia and Tristan, who bundled me into the car and headed off to an old industrial iron smelting factory which had been turned into a giant park. So cool.

The park was amazing - we wandered the old gardens, which had been turned into giant playgrounds. (Including little secret gardens, an amphitheater, and a slide made out of old metal tubing which went through a brick wall and got you going at an absolutely ridiculously quick speed :) On one of the waits at the top of the slide, Julia and I were chatting as a young, blonde girl walked up to wait as well. She turned to me, and asked (obviously, in German), "What language are you speaking?" Cutest kid ever. :) The actual iron smelting buildings were available to wander through - and you can go *quite* a ways up. We got lunch and a beer at the little stand, as well as ice cream later on. We enjoyed the sunshine and the heat, watched Tristan climb just about everything, and got a whole load of pictures. We finally got back in the car and drove back to Julia's house, a gorgeous three-storey old house filled to the brim to character (you walk into the giant, airy living room full of windows, bookshelves covered in books, and gummi bears on the table) - we were all exhausted and went to take a nap. I woke up around 9PM and wandered downstairs, where I met Julia's sister Stephanie and her dad, an American actor who reminded me just how much I love hanging out in the theatre. :) We stayed up late eating bolognese, red wine, and finally went to bed quite late. I felt bad waking up the next morning around 10:30, but went downstairs to read "Moby Dick" in the sunlight through the windows with freshly squeezed orange juice - until Julia and Tristan finally woke up a little after noon. :)

We eventually got into the car and drove off to the city of Köln (known to the English speaking world as Cologne) - best known (according to Rick Steves - woot!) for its Cathedral - and it was quite gorgeous. A massively large, beautiful cathedral, and - after paying our 1 euro - we began our 553 steps to the top of the tower. On the way, we passed by the largest church bell in the world, discovered Tristan's fear of heights and my claustrophobia, and realized just how horrifically out of shape we all are. :) Eventually we reached the top, however, and it really was quite gloriously gorgeous. Another 553 down, and we went to get lunch at a local restaurant, with the greatest roasted chicken I have *ever* eaten (the exercise, warm weather, and local tap beer make any meal better, especially when eaten with friends in the shadow of a fountain that tells the story of how women ruin everything :) ), and mmmmm... struedel... We did a stroll through the lovely city, but the fine weather was sadly on its way out. Our plan for a boat tour had to be scrapped, as it began to rain slightly. Another drive home, another lovely afternoon nap , another lovely dinner, and this time we stayed up after dinner to watch "The Ring" for Julia's essay - poor Julia, however, had to watch it with Stephanie, Tristan, and I inserting our own commentary (Never been funnier) and finished up with Eddie Izzard (as all good evenings should end) - however, this put our evening as ending at nearly 3AM. (whoops!)

Next morning... well, "morning... we bundled up and headed out the door to see the main city of Dusseldorf - Julia as tour guide works so much better when she knows the city (grin). This was a day of wandering, talking, looking, shopping, eating "fast food" (well, German fast food), and just generally being easy-going tourists. Delightful. This time we weren't as exhausted upon returning home, so we sat in the living room, enjoying the crackling of the fireplace, listening to the rain pitter-patter on the windows, reading "Time", listening to her dad make dinner - we eventually congregated in the kitchen, listening to the Chieftans (and improvising our own Irish step-dancing, despite Ciaran trying to teach us the real steps one night ages ago... didn't really catch on, as our version included lots of hopping about and not a little bit of the Funky Chicken)

This time I had to go to bed early as, again, the ride to the airport + pre-flight buffer time + early flight = very, very rising. (bleh) Poor Julia had originally planned to drop me at the train station, only to get confused about *which* station - so she ended up driving me there. We got breakfast, then bid farewell as I wandered through security, got on my plane (And oooh... Lufthansa is a *nice* airline... highly recommended, especially after dealing with RyanAir), and arrived in Heathrow at 9:30AM. I switched my euro over to pounds, and began my trek back to Bournemouth (I think I took just about the most round-about way via trains back to good ol' B-town). Once home, I unpacked, remarked on how empty the halls were, bought groceries, then willed myself to stay up until bedtime... even though I spent the day in only semi-consciousness, watching Dr. Who on iPlayer and QI on youtube.

And yeah... :) The Halls are full again, I'm back to work, and holiday is over. (Though, only a month and a half to Hawaii! Woot!)