Love Parade in Essen

I know I've been delinquent. Here's an excerpt from my travel journel.

So awhile back, I went to Essen with a bunch of people for the Love Parade, which is a huge outdoor techno party. I’m glad I went, but it’s an event where I can say once was enough. It was nuts. The train station was packed like I’ve never seen before, and that’s saying something. We headed for the bathrooms before we left the train station, where the lines were so long that Brooke and I decided to duck into the guys’ bathroom instead. Once there, we found about a dozen other girls who were already in there with the same idea. It was utter pandemonium, as guys were pushing past trying to get through the urinals while the girls were trying to line up against the stalls. It was a party in the bathroom!

The actual parade started at 2pm on the dot, in true German fashion. Guys were climbing up on the streetlamps and dancing on top of them. How they managed to keep their balance, I do not know. We ended up following the www.tunnel.de float, which had the best techno music. I was dancing next to some guy who burned his cigarette on me not once, but TWICE! The first time it happened, he apologized. The second time it happened, he looked at me and dropped his cigarette on the ground to put it out. I am now sporting a nice blister on my left shoulder. One of his friends popped into a picture with us (the guy next to me).

Our group got separated, and a few of us ended up following a float that had this famous porn star on it. Her name was Tyra Misouk or something like that. She was autographing stuff for guys in between her poses and lifting up her see-through mesh shirt. We eventually headed back for the train. Along the way, we heard several sirens blaring. It was a continuous chorus of sirens during the entire walk back to the Hauptbahnhof. It was quite amusing to notice how there were more sirens sounding towards the end of the day, when people had drank more than their quota of beer.

When we got back to the main train station, the police were starting to block it off. Justus managed to get through, but the rest of us were cut off by the police. So Anisia and I started to talk with the cop because everyone was shouting in German and we had no idea what was going on. Well, Anisia knew what they were saying, but I sure didn’t, so I wasn’t pretending when I told the officer that I had no idea what he was saying. The fact that Justus was already through the barrier enabled us to coax the officer to let us through. We were lucky. We all have our battle wounds. I have the cigarette burn, Brooke cut her food on the glass from all the broken beer bottles that were littering the floor, Megan has bruises on her chest from being shoved up against the train by the crowd. Like I said, once was enough.

Beilstein

This past weekend was fantastic. Probably one of the best trips I’ve taken so far, with the possible exception of Brussels. Ben Holly and David Steinmetz and I took a train down to the Mosel Valley, to the tiny town of Beilstein. It’s so small that the train doesn’t go there; we had to take the train to Cochem and then transfer to a bus. We were the only Americans in town; everyone else was a German tourist. We hiked up the mountain, where we came across some vineyards (of course), a Jewish graveyard, and a truly spectacular view of the valley. We were higher than the castle! Stopped by the bar across the market, and encountered a lot of stares upon our entrance. We lowered the age median by about 20 years when we walked in! Met a friendly couple from Essen, mainly because the husband was drunk and kept wanting to talk with Ben.

On Saturday, we rented bikes for only 6€ for the whole day, and biked 10 kilometers to Cochem. There’s a skytram up the mountain in Cochem, but we decided to hike up the mountain instead! Had a looooong lunch at the top of the mountain, where a bee flew into my beer (twice! They must like Pils-Cola). Then hiked down the mountain, stopping to have a wine-tasting behind the train station on the way back to town. Made it back to town only to decide to hike up another mountain to the castle. It was a small castle, but pretty. Hiked back down, and biked another 10 kilometers back to Beilstein. Can you spell "tiring"? We stopped at a winery after returning our bikes to buy a few bottles of wine. We met the same couple from last night at the winery. Can you believe it, we actually bumped into the same couple yet a third time at the top of another hill where the town church was situated! Three times in less than 24 hours.

We also hiked up the same mountain from last night, this time armed with a bottle of red wine. It was pitch black, but Dave had his trusty camera along that gave off a truly spectacular range of light. It was as good as having an actual flashlight.

On Sunday morning, we took a boat ride from Beilstein to Cochem, where we then took the train to Moselkern. Got off the train at Moselkern and had to hike 70 minutes to Burg Eltz. After Burg Eltz, we decided to try to catch the hourly train to Koblenz, and cut the hike back down to only 40 minutes! We still missed the train by about 3 minutes; had to watch it go right past us. Talk about frustration.

Bacharach

is a beautiful place. It's a town situated on the Rhine river, a couple of hours south of Cologne. We went there and had some great wine. Several castles in Germany have been transformed into youth hostels, with ours being no exception. See the picture to the left, taken from the main street in town. It was quite a hike to get up to the castle.

Next follows a picture taken with the famous Rhine valley vineyards in the background. Gotta love the Rieslings.




Next up for this coming weekend: Brussels!!!

First week in Germany

and I am barely surviving. I have no idea what I was thinking when I decided to move to a new country without any working knowledge of the language! It's been entertaining thus far. We climbed to the top of the Dom yesterday, which reminded me of the climb to the top of La Sagrada Familia. As in, very tall but not as treacherous. There was the heavyset American woman who was climbing up as we were going down. She was saying that she was too scared to keep climbing because the stairs were getting narrower and narrower (it was a spiral staircase). Apparently, she was so scared that she had to stand on the wider end of the stairs, and force us to walk down on the narrow parts of the stairs. Nice. Really nice.

After the Dom, a few of us went to a soccer game. We thought it was going to be an outdoor event with a huge screen to show the game. It's logical to think that a game involving two Turkish teams would be played in Turkey, right? But NO, it was a LIVE game in Germany instead! Score! We bought tickets right away and raced into the stadium after all the other people who were running towards it. Alas, the team that we were rooting for (meaning, the team who's section we were sitting in, because it would have been dangerous to root for the opposing team!), lost. The Super Kupas. Their team name sounds like something out of the Super Mario Brothers.

Food here has been sporadic. Nothing is that appetizing, especially when you have to cook it yourself! Dad, you have no idea how much I appreciate your home-cooked meals right now!

Night of Fire

is an event that's hosted once a year on the Brooklyn Bridge and makes its way on to the train and out to Coney Island. An "impromptu" unofficial gathering of those looking for some fun and to create some havoc on the trains. The others bailed on me and left to go get pizza, but it ended up being just as fun, since I got to meet this guy from Australia who's a pilot, has lived abroad in China, and will be moving to India soon. How awesome is that?!

Below is the beginning scene from the Brooklyn Bridge.




We ended up marching across the bridge to the tune of bells and drums and horns (should have brought that bagpipe horn Scott got for me in Scotland. It would've been entirely appropriate for this event), and ended up carousing through City Hall, where some people decided to take a dip in the fountain to cool off.




We later trooped down into the train station, where a group of very talented people gave us an impromptu concert as we waited for the R. It was a pretty long ride out to Coney Island, so we decided to while the time away by engaging in crowd surfing and a game of Limbo.







We eventually ended up at Coney Island, where we were treated to a display by very courageous (and hopefully asbestos coated) performers.

Ocean Isle Beach

was highly relaxing. It was just what I needed after quitting that law firm. Scott and his family go to Ocean Isle Beach in North Carolina every summer. They were all hilarious people. Grand total of sixteen people in one house for one week. And no one was killed in the process.

Below is a photo taken in November 2005, during our ski trip in Switzerland (you can see the town of Les Diablerets in the background). Scott's head seems to make a nice armrest for me.




And now, almost two years later, it looks as though the tables have flipped. My head is making a nice armrest for him instead. That's Humphrey the Turtle with us. He looks mighty happy to be on the beach, I must say.

I'm moving to Cologne!!!!!!!!!

Enough said.

Couldn't resist. Had to add a picture like the one Becky has on her blog. Can't wait to see this in real life!