Ok, so, I guess you could say that I was more tired than I thought the other day when i wrote, I didn't even know the name of the city i was in. We are currently in Düsseldorf. I guess since I hadnt heard of either of these places before we came to this country, I automatically made them into one. The city sits on the Rhein river and is pretty close to the Netherlands.
Yeah, so the rainy weather of Germany continues, and it is pretty cold.
For class yesterday we met Astrid for a walking tour of the city. Her cousin, who is studying to be an attorney walked the whole day with us. We saw the Frank Gehry buildings along the port and walked under the tower. The river is a big part of the city here, as is shopping. There are 7 bridges that cross the Rhein as it wraps around the city, each unique in its own right. We stopped for lunch at a Pub that Astrid has gone to since she was young. Mary and I split an order of ribs, and it was atleast 3 slabs. Mike Hee, on the direction of Astrid ordered a Pork Leg. It waas huge. He ate alot of the meat, then handed the rest around for people to get a sample of the incredibly dilectable meat. I have some great pictures of him holding the bone as he tears off meat. The funny thing is, the best part, according to some was the skin. I did not have any, but then, I dont think that I am a fan of boar hair in my diet. After we were set free we went to do a little shopping. I bought a jacket, for the weather for only 15 euro, and a pair of shoes to replace my poor spoiled and soiled merrell's. After we explored the city a little bit, we met up with most of the rest of the class to go out for Mike Samarippa's birthday. Before we went to dinner, we all met up at their hotel. We had a getogether in Mikes room, where Jeff sang him a song (written especially for Mike)on his newly purchased mini guitar. It also started to storm, pour and little bits of ice fell from the sky. Though "the sun will come out tomorrow", it did not come out yesterday. We walked in the pouring rain to the Hauptbanhof, or train station, only to find the tram would have been faster. We then walked through the downpour again to the tram and finally found the restaurant. All 14 of us sat down together and enjoyed a meal served by very nice people. The food was probably the best Thai I have ever had. For Mikes birthday, the restaurant gave him a slice of Cake, a free cocktail and a bottle of wine in a wine cozy. Though it had not rained since we got to the restaurant, Murphy's says it would start raining when we left. Which it did. It downright poured actually, and the thunder and lightning started up again anew.The tram we had to catch was the last one of the evening and we saw it at the station about a block ahead of us. I must say if I were the tram driver and I saw 14 people sprinting in the rain towards in the deep dark, of a stormy night, I would have driven off too. Oh well, we ended up walking back to the hotel and said good night to the rest of our group and headed home to do sit ups, take showers and go to bed.
This morning we met at the tallest building in the city, the media tower. We were given a tour by a native architect, and her boyfriend, a retired german professor from New Jersey. It was informative, but incredibly dry considering it was raining the whole of class. We were given the afternoon to explore the area, or go to museums. We chose the Picasso museum in the city. I never realised what a primiscuous man he was, nor how many children he had with as many women. Butanyway, his works were pretty neat too, though most of it was work from late in his life. My two favorites, La Guitarista, and Guernica were not there, not that I expected them to be. I got some good sketches of both the work, and the children who were field tripping to the museum. After the museum, we broke up to work on projects and mary and i worked on a transect of the streets in the city. We focused on the pedestrain, tram, bicycle and vehicular traffic through three different streets.
Oh, yeah, its still raining and has been all day.
Tomorrow we are going to Dusburg Nord.
No comments:
Post a Comment