16-Aprile-2006

When we first bought our tickets, 5 days didn’t seem like much time and it was the cheapest way to go. We did the whole airfare thing for under 50 euro a person.. but when you are sort of confined to certain location, because of the airport you have to fly out of, you kind of limit what you can do. Casey and Jeff weren’t too keen on staying until Tuesday so they decided to reschedule their flight and leave on Sunday. (today) I was content to do the same until I realized that Ryanair was going to make us buy new tickets and not even give us a discount or a credit on the amount we had already paid. So I decided to stay til the end.

Today was another rainy day so we had our last awesome breakfast and I inquired about a single room at that hotel and it was 50 euro, a little out of my price range. I put Casey and Jeff on the bus early since it was raining and not a lot was going on. I didn’t know what I was going to do but I walked into the train station and decided to catch a train to dusseldorf and play my luck a little bit more.

It was a short 45-minute train ride and as I got off the platform I found my favorite “tourist information” sign and headed in that direction. As I was walking towards it I suddenly remembered that it was Easter and got nervous, but low and behold, it was open! I was really impressed with the tourist information places in Germany. Italy has them too, but they aren’t usually geared towards tourists. Tourists can go to them, it just seems like a big inconvenience to them and they can be snooty sometimes, at least in my experience. Anyways, the lady was very nice when I inquired about an inexpensive place to stay for the evening and she gave me a pamphlet for the backpackers hostel. I’ve been wanting to try a hostel out and figured now was as good a time as any.

I found my way there and checked in. The guy wasn’t overly friendly, but for 20 euro a night, I guess he didn’t have to be. I was led upstairs to a room with six beds and two girls who apparently had just gotten there also. I introduced myself and learned that Megan and Sara were from Australia but on a work visa in the UK. We got to talking and they asked if I had eaten yet and I hadn’t, so we made our way out to explore dusseldorf. On Easter there isn’t a lot going on Germany so we found a restaurant called “ham-ham,” yes Germans like their meat, and had some lunch.

After some eats we walked down by the Rein River and saw it from this town. There was a herd of sheep on the other side of the river, a huge heard, just grazing in front of the color apartment buildings. It was cool. Since we didn’t have a whole lot else to do we tried the local beer and then decided to find a few happy hours. So we had a few happy hours and passed the time by talking and taking in the German scene. It appeared to us that this town had a few more people that looked like Italians. It was kind of weird, there were some crazy outfits too, but we had a good time. Megan and Sara were taking off early the next morning. They had been touring Germany for the past two weeks and were due back at work for a while. We exchanged email addresses and hit the hay. I didn’t see them when they left in the morning, but they definitely improved the condition of my Easter.