February 25, 2009: The Hand Waiving Electrician

Unfortunately today while biking to work the company electrician was struck by a car. This meant that there was need for another person in production. I was volunteered for the job. I was given a new shop jacket and headed out into the factory. I was working with one of the workers, Mannie. Mannie speaks English about as well as I speak German. Together we had to assemble the wiring harness on a compressed natural gas system. This is the kind of scenario that sketch comedies are written about. There was a lot of hand waving, gesturing, incorrect use of English and German words and altogether good times involved. We got five systems wired in no time, high-fived, drank a Capri-sun juice box and parted ways.

After work I Interneted at the Internet café and pondered what I should do with my night. I already had food made from last night so I did not need to cook. I decided against the pub because my poor lungs need a break from all the smoke. I decided to rent a movie. After some time I picked Driving Miss Daisy and headed to the cash register. The lady spoke perfect English except, ironically, did not know the English word “Rent.” I got a chuckle out of this. I got home put on my loungewear, watched the flick, ate some chows and hit the hay.

February 24, 2009: Climbing and Talking Climbing

My boss got back from Turkey today. It looks like if I behave myself at work I might be able to score a trip to Turkey at some point. Bitchin. I translated some English from Bad English to “Good”-English and buzzed out at 16:10 to go climbing.

I got to the train station at 15:00 and headed to the travel bureau to get at Eurail pass. It turns out that they can only be bought in Cologne. This means that this weekend I have to go to Colonge after work, get the pass then continue on to München then Budapest. It  will be a hell of a journey but the caving in Hungary will be worth it.

I got to the climbing wall and met a really strong climber named Steffen. Steffen is also a mechanical engineer. We climbed for a few hours all the while talking about climbing gear and climbing hotspots around the globe. I bid him adieu and three trains, a bus and hour later I was home. I typed up some bloggage and hit the hay.

February 23, 2009: Karnival!!

So I finished up another day at work today and reluctantly decided against going to the climbing wall in favor of getting some laundry done and checking out the Karnival events in Ratingen. After work I took the bus to the Internet café and got my FBook and Skyping in for the day then walked home. I finished up a delicious boil in a bag meal, I swear that I do that very rarely, and went to fetch my laundry.

After that the real shenanigans began. I decked myself up in my caving costume, you dress up for Karnival, and headed out to the local bar to get the night started. I felt slightly awkward walking the street in a helmet, headlamp, kneepads, gloves and caving T-shirt and it was not made any less awkward when I figured out that the bar was closed. No problem, I decided to un-costume and scout out the town in order to figure out the best place to go.

I got to the marktplatz beside the church and watched stumbley people old and young dancing to polka in their festive attire. I was confused as to what I should do tonight so I asked one of the festive stumblers. “Excuse me, do you speak English,” I asked.

“yes, a little,” this is the standard response that Germans give to this question. This means that she could speak anything from kindergarten English to high school English. She was some place in the middle. The nice fourty something year old lady was happy to tell me the details of what was going on. I listened with great interest. After hearing that I was in Germany alone she told me that I had to meet her daughter who spoke better English. I waited for a few minutes and then was greeted by Sofia, a 21-year-old girl dressed as a doctor. Sofia invited me into the bar that we were outside to meet her buddies and her American boyfriend. Sweet I thought, some locals to talk to, I said that I would love to but I had to get costumed first. We agreed to meet outside in 10min.

I came back as Caver Tom 10min later and Sofia was no place to be found. I decided to go in but was bounced by the bouncer because the bar was closed, at 21:00? I walked out into the main square and asked a group of teenagers what the deal was. These guys spoke shabby English so we spoke some sweet Germish to each other. I ended up sipping a beer that they gave me with a 15 year old and his 20 year old brother. We decided to go hit up a club to continue the night.

We arrived at a place that I had not seen before, Liberty Lounge. We all, about 6 of us by this point, bits of our costume so that the 15 year old looked 18 and could get into the bar. We walked through the door and the bouncer immediately found out that the kid was too young. A “common, please” by the guys brother, in German of course, and oddly enough the kid was let in.

This night was interesting, I could not really talk to anyone because it was loud; so I did some cheersing and some faux-dancing. I met some neat people, people who would have been neat had I been able to hear them over the techno. I also at some point in the night drank a beer on the street while talking to a police man, you can drink beer on the street here.

Well after I said my goodbyes I was back home for some well-deserved sleep.

February 22, 2009: Tom the Writer

Today was filled with me typing away on the ol’ computron. Unfortunately I still have a lack of access to the interconnected network of networks so I had to travel to the Internet café to harvest some Internet. After the harvest I procured some Berliners from the local bakery and made my way home. I did some exercise and read some Pride and Prejudice.

At around 19:30 I headed to the WWW Bistro across the street for a beer or two and some company. I was greeted by a bunch of people in costume; I forgot that it was Karnival. So anyways I tried to make some basic conversation and choked down a pack of Marlboro Reds (Second Hand), then headed home at 8:30 after I could not deal with the smoke anymore. Weirdly there was an 8-year-old girl at the bar as well; I think that her parents were ramping up for Karnival.

I got home and typed up this short and sweet blog, some reading and pondering the meaning of life will bring another Euro-day to an end.

Pics From Eric, Kate and my Adventure

Eric in "The Garden" in Cannabis College
One of the Dutch Cannals
Eric, Kate and the Arc
Alec, Len, Kate, Eric and Notre Dame
The Eiffel Tower and Us

February 21, 2009: Bon Voyage

We got up at a decent hour and picked up some bread at the bakery for breakfast. I love German bread, they mix rye and flour in a way that appeals to all the senses. While at the bakery we saw the beginning of the Karnival Parade. At the end of the parade was the a trailer carrying the most German cargo possible, a gas generator, two kegs of beer and a coffee machine. I got a good laugh out of this.

Kate, Eric and I quickly ate some bread and cheese before it was time to catch a bus to the airport. I rode with them as far as the airport train station where they would have to catch the SkyTrain to the airport. I dished out some hugs and was on my way back home.

I napped for five hours and got up at 18:30. I had to get some food before the store closed. I grabbed some eats, made up a chicken Cesar salad for dinner, typed for an hour or so on the ol’ blog and got to bed at a very reasonable 22:00.

February 20, 2009: Bar Hopping in Ratingen

We got up showered and had breakfast. We were out the door by 11:00. I thought it wise to go to the train station and check out the train times. We got there and figured out that the next train to Düsseldorf was at 12:34 so we had an hour before we needed to head out. We spent this time shopping naturally even though most of us were running low on Euros. After our hour of shopping we went to the train station just to figure out that the tickets that I had bought were only good for the 18:34 train. So we had another 6 hours in Amsterdam! We stored our stuff in a train station locker and headed out into the city. We started by doing some more shopping (*insert negative opinions about shopping here*). In the middle of the Red Light District Eric and I found the Cannabis College and got our learn on. Eric and I got a tour of a working marijuana grow-op in the basement. The guy who gave the tour was a connoisseur of the green and told us what he would and would not smoke (he would not smoke 95% of what is available in Amsterdam). He told us about genetics, the lifecycle of the plant and how to grow them.

We left the grow op and decided it was time for lunch. We drew this part of the day out by each eating at a different café/restaurant and the others sitting with them as to keep out of the cold. Eric found something that would change his life after he got some lunch. We went into a toy store and Eric stood mesmerized by a glass orb rotating within a twisted steel frame suspended from the ceiling. After a minute of staring he decided to purchase it.

After shopping some more it was time to catch the train to Düsseldorf. The train was absolutely packed due to Karnival; we were lucky to find seats. At 21:45 we got to my humble abode in Ratingen. Kate and Eric started packing their things and I tried to convince Kate to come out to the Bar for a bit. She had none of it and because of her sub-par sleep in the hostel she was out cold on the couch in no time. Eric and I had a few drinks and headed out to a neat little bar that I learnt of called Café Comic.

Café Comic is a very small bar located in the basement of a bridal store and directly adjacent to a police station. Despite the lame location it is a very neat place with all the walls covered with newspaper and dim red LED lights illuminating the small tables around the outside of the room. Eirc and I ordered some wheat beers and took a seat. After talking for a while we decided to meet some Germans. Eric walked over to a guy with long blond curly hair and asked if he spoke English, he said he did.

This blossomed into a two hour-long conversation that soon included the guy’s crazy good-looking girlfriend. They eventually invited us to go with them to the only other bar in town, Tom’s on the Rocks. The girlfriend who had a name that neither Eric nor I could pronounce had not been drinking and volunteered to drive us. On the way we got pulled over by the Police, because it is Karnival in Düsseldorf, anyways they figured out that all was well and we carried on to the next place.

Tom’s was a good time and colorful conversation was exchanged to a background of rock music. At 2:30 we decided we should call it a night and we headed back to good old 19a to catch some shuteye.

February 19: Museum Day

I got up at 8:30 and headed down for breakfast. The prince and princess were still asleep. I enjoyed a great hostel breakfast and talked to some of the travelers in the breakfast area. I headed upstairs and roused Eric and Kate from their slumber so that they could get some of the free hostel eats before the breakfast room closed down. They ate and showered and we were out the door at noon. Today I wanted to go visit the Van Gogh Museum.

We headed out and shopped our way to the Van Gogh museum where we decided that the 15 Euro admission was a but steep so we went to the 11 Euro Rijksmuseum instead. After waiting in a line that was surprisingly long for noon on a February weekday we made it inside. I love looking at art that was painted by people that I can definitively say had crazy amounts of skill. The Rijksmuseum is full of Dutch master paintings and historical furniture that is all crafted with a level of workmanship that I can hardly fathom. I decided to separate from the group to take it all in to the best of my ability. I enjoyed the still life paintings the most. There is paintings of sculptures that when viewed from a distance literally look like sculptures not paintings and paintings of silverware that look better then actually looking at silverware for some reason. Anyways I was enjoying myself. Kate and Eric took off after an hour to grab some food but I stuck around and ogled the ivory inlayed into Ebony on a huge armoire in the museum for a while before looking again at the “Night Watch” for half an hour. It was a good time.

I met up with Kate and Eric and we headed off to Kate’s choice of museum, the Anne Frank house. We showed up, stood in line for a while and entered the truly emotional museum dedicated to the memory of the Frank family’s WWII hideaway. There was even the original Anne Frank diary. After this museum we headed back to the hostel to get fancied up for Eric’s birthday dinner.

We decided on a place called Humphrey’s. A three-course meal was 22.50 Euro, expensive, but the parental-units paid for this one so it was all right. The dinner was fantastic, I had mussels followed by chicken with Asian sauce on a bed of udon noodles and finished with spicy rum covered bananas and ice cream. I accompanied this with a Dutch beer. Sublime. We were all quite tired after dinner so we hit the hay.

February 18, 2009: Wow . . .

We got up at 4:00 and were out the door by quarter to five. We caught the 6:20 train from Paris Nord to Amsterdam. A sleepy train ride brought us to Amsterdam at 10:30, note this is still an hour and a half earlier then the previous day started. Anyways, we got out of the train station and were greeted by the splendor of Amsterdam.

First stop was the hostel. I had heard that the uptown location of the Flying Pig Hostel was the nicer one so that is where we headed. We took the tram to the area where the hostel was, which by coincidence was where the Hard Rock Café of Amsterdam was, and walked to the Hostel. It turns out that the hostel was under renovation for the winter so we decided to head back to the downtown Flying Pig after a visit to the Hard Rock Café. Kate procured another pin for her dad and brother; we ate a lunch of nachos and fries and hopped on the tram back to where the other hostel is.

We rang the doorbell of the hostel and were buzzed in through the magnetically locked door. We were greeted by a reception area with a pool table, dark wooden furniture, a bar, and a light smell of a peculiar variety of smoke lingering in the air. Our bags were safely locked away in the lockers under our beds and we headed out to explore the city. Kate’s eyes had been lit up by the plethora of clothing shops around the hostel since we arrived in the area and now she let loose and visited shop after shop after shop. This continued for an hour so with Eric looking in places, with slightly less enthusiasm, for a jacket and pants. I however really had no need for more clothes so I half heartedly flipped through racks of shirts until it was time to move on. I really did however enjoy checking out the architecture of the area and watching workmen haul windows up the outside of buildings with suction cups, ropes and pulleys. The canals in Amsterdam are also really quite beautiful and really made me happy. Anyways after a while Eric and I decided to pull in the reigns on the shopping machine that is Kate. “OK Kate, only two more stores.” Kate agreed and we headed onwards to the next objective of the day, the botanical gardens. On the way whenever we would stop for more then a breath Kate darted into an adjacent store right after shouting “this one does not count.” Eventually we stopped for some food and Eric and I picked up some cake at a local bakery before going to the botanical gardens. Before we got there we stopped for some Haagen Daz ice cream.

I recommend the Amsterdam botanical gardens to anyone who has the pleasure of visiting this city. Eric and I wondered for a solid hour and a half between tropical rainforest, temperate forest, desert, and the outdoor garden. All the different climates were housed in different greenhouses separated by sliding doors. Above some of the gardens there were catwalks that looked down on the gardens. This really was a highlight of the trip for me. We eventually left this garden paradise to go back to the hostel for a nap.

Three hours of blissful sleep and we were up again ready to take on the town. We decided to check out the red light district. This was a good time, I will not go into great detail but the highlight of this part of the night was Kate eating a piece of banana off the bare chest of an Amsterdam stripper after beating her at meringue dancing. All that action made us all hungry so we grabbed a baguette sandwich before getting to bed.

February 17, 2009: Walking, Talking and Shopping

I got up this morning at 8:00 and enjoyed a great breakfast with Corrie. We talked about all the family connections and reasons that I should make a trip down to South Africa some time. Eric and Kate got up at 10:30. After a shower and breakfast we were ready to head out at noon. This delay is my secret reason that I wisely chose 6:00 departures whenever possible, hahahahahahhaha.

Anyways, after we left we picked up a bagette at a bakery recommended to us by Alec and picked up some brie, spiced ham, wine and chocolate at the nearby grocery store. The first objective of the day was to get Kate’s brother and dad a pin from the Hard Rock Café. Two metros brought us there and Kate got her sought after pin. We then decided that it was lunchtime and ate a picnic lunch on the stairs of the national opera house overlooking the Boulevard de Capucines. The brie is better in France.

Despite me being morally against the concept of shopping for clothes, I shut my mouth and slapped on a smile for the betterment of the group as we headed to Lafayette, a major shopping area in France, to check out some clothes. Eric and I picked up some 8 Euro T-shirts, the cheapest items in the store and we headed out, to do more shopping. We checked out the cheaper stores outside Les Halles; I was psychologically crippled with all the shopping by this point but they decided on one more shopping mall to check out. I did need to go buy some stamps at the post office in the mall so all was not lost.

We took the nearby metro back to Corrie’s house and enjoyed a fantastic lasagna meal that could not be beat before I distributed some hugs and thank yous before I headed to bed in preparation for the inevitable 4:00 wake up time.

February 16: Amazing Paris!!

3:45 and it is way too early for normal people to wake up, but we did. Our plane left at 6:20 and we had to be there an hour early. Breakfast, shower, check we have everything and we stumbled out the door.

Two trains and a plane and we arrive outside Paris at 8:30, when normal people are just getting up. We walk off the plane, hear some French announcements, see the French signs, we were here! Kate went ballistic as her dream of being in Paris (partially) came to fruition. I say partially because it was still an hour and a half to get into the center of Paris.

Kate’s amazing French, together with my amazing ability to hold the sheet with the directions, brought us to, Eric and my second cousin, Corrie and Steve’s house. This is where we were going to stay for the next two nights.

The house was a white four story high house set behind a hedge, fence and electric gate on a large plot of land on the side of a neat street with a massive boulevard. We walked in through the pedestrian entrance and knocked on the door. After a few minutes, a tired looking Alec answered the door, still in his pajamas, and kindly welcomed us into his house.

Soon Corrie arrived and we had a great breakfast to get the day started. During breakfast we also met another of our cousins, Len. It turns out that Alec had taken the day off school, Imperial College in London, to come out and show us around the city.

We caught the metro at a station close to the house and headed out to see Notre Dame Cathedral. We got off the train and walked along the Seine River and across the 1000 year old bridge called the “New Bridge.” We took some photos outside of the great cathedral then went for a walk around the inside. It really is a spectacle just how large and well decorated the building was. After Notre Dame we began to walk to the Louvre. The whole walk we were told the bits of history that Alec knew, most of which had a slight engineeringish undertone which made me pay more attention.

We decided that we would not go inside the Louvre because the lineup was too large, Eric and I had already seen some of the exhibits on our last trip and Kate was not too into it. So we walked around the old part of the great museum and admired the great sandstone façades, the sculptures, the large glass pyramid and the fountains. We then took the stairs in to “The Carrosel du Louvre” the underground visitors complex. Here Kate procured a France mug in the underground Starbucks. After getting out we walked out through the Louvre garden and decided to stop at a café for some eats. We stopped at a nice café beside the Place de la Concorde for some baguette sandwiches, coffee and conversation. The food and coffee was great. Next stop Eiffel Tower.

We got to the metro station and Len decided to part ways with us to head home. On the train we enjoyed the standard engineering conversation topic of cars. Types of cars that we had driven, North American versus European cars, displacements, efficiencies, top speeds excreta. Kate fell asleep. We woke her up and headed up out of the metro station rounded the corner and the Alexandre Gustave Eiffel’s creation greeted us. We were lucky enough to have a break in the clouds to truly enjoy this sight. We took some photos and, without Kate’s consent, headed up the 704 stairs not the elevator. A couple hundred steps and 115m later we were at the second level. Eric, Alec and I enjoyed the view and Kate enjoyed the gift shop. We decided against heading to the top because it was too crowded and expensive.

The next stop in our one-day tour of the main sights of Paris was “The Arc de Triomphe.” We checked it out and admired the skill of the people brave enough to brave the traffic circle that surrounds it. After a few more souvenir shops we got on the metro to head back to Corrie’s house for dinner.

Back at the house Alec took Eric and I shopping for climbing shoes while Corrie took Kate on a tour of her dresses that she designed. A fantastic dinner of veal, veggies and potatoes followed by a few episodes of Top Gear got us ready for bed.

February 15: A Walk in the Park

9:00, we arise and start our first full day in Europe together! After a breakfast of bread, cheese, coffee and cold cuts we began planning the day. We decided on going to a place that was recommended to me by Julia at work, Kaiserswerth. Kaiserswerth is a small village on the coast of the Rhine filled with pathways, cafes, culture and an old castle.

Kate, Eric and I headed to the internet café first so that Kate could contact the family back in T-dot. It turned out that the café did not open until 13:00 so we decided to take a tram into town to avoid waiting. After a brief and hilarious attempt by Kate and Eric to make change for train fair, we were off.

The tram is nice because you can see the city while you scoot around town. The tram passed through a forest, gardens and by neat little German houses. The tram arrived at the main train station. Kate scurried off to Starbucks to procure a Düsseldorf mug, because she thought that it is a funny sounding city name, they were out unfortunately and she ended up with a Germany mug.

Another tram and we were in Kaiserswerth. By this point it was 13:00 and we were hungary. We sat down at a café and I swallowed a portion of my pride as I lay down the German menu and flipped though the English one. The waitress did not know the English word “carbonated” when Kate was ordering water so she kindly performed a little carbonation dance to get the point across. We got soup and drinks. The food came and it was quite delicious. After lunch we walked along the Rhine and checked out the old castle in Kaiserswerth.

We got home and a great curry dinner led quite nicely into an early bedtime, we had to get up at 3:45 to catch the plane to Paris.

February 14, 2009: The Journey Begins

I awoke anxiously at 6:00. I was crazy excited to meet up with Eric and Kate at the airport. So I headed out and picked up a loaf of bread from my favorite local bakery, there is about 7 within three blocks of my house. I grabbed some flowers from the adjacent flower store and headed home. It was 8:30 now and I had until 9:20 to catch my bus to the airport so I watched some CNN.

I should add that in my lonely afternoons in my humble German abode that I have only two channels that have English content to watch so I do not watch much TV. However due to how annoying the ads on MTV are I usually find myself watching CNN. Yesterday I was watching Anderson Cooper 360 and he was talking about the Bombardier plane that crashed in Buffalo New York. He however kept on calling it a “Bomb-ba-deer” not “Bomb-bard-dee-eh” this really bothered me so I wrote CNN an email correcting his pronunciation. I was happy to hear that they had fixed the problem.

Anyways 9:20 rolled around, I caught the bus and was on my way to the airport. The bus got off at a train station close to the airport and I headed up to the top level where I found the coolest form of public transportation ever invented. I got up and saw the SkyTrain. It is a two-car computer controlled trolley suspended 15m above the ground that travels along the track system that it is hanging from. I got off this fantastic engineering marvel and headed to the arrives gate. Then the waiting began.

I waited at the gate for about half an hour, flowers in hand, along side all the other anxious people outside the arrivals gate. Finally I saw them and behind the door and they came out 5min later after fetching their baggage. Hugs and handshakes were exchanged and we headed up to the SkyTrain. I was happy to talk some English with my brother and Kate and happy to see that they enjoyed the SkyTrain almost as much as I did.

We got off the train, took a bus to my flat and naptime began. I went for a 5km run while they were napping, then read 5 chapters of my book. I woke them up. Apperently Eric had not heeded my emails warning of quote “not being a fool and staying up until 2am.” He had stayed up all night in Edmonton and was a sack of tired when he arrived. Nap Time finished up, we walked to the S-Bahn station, hopped the train and were on our way into town for some sightseeing.

First stop was the Köingsalle, a famous road lined with posh stores and rich people in fur coats. We saw a Audi R8 and a Lamborghini Gallardo, sweet. Eric and Kate were still tired and complaining mildly, but we trudged on. I took them to see the Frank Gharry buildings in the media harbor and we headed up the Düsseldorf TV Tower to get a view of the city, something that I had wanted to de for a while. After this we decided to head home. A walk along the Rhine, U-Bahn and S-Bahn trip brought us back home. I busied myself making dinner and the prince and princess took a nap. After dinner my plans of heading downtown to a techno club were nixed in favor of more sleep so instead we had a beer at the sports bar across the road. Bedtime quickly followed. I hope that tomorrow has these two bringing their A-game.

February 13, 2009: Preparations

Today, work was ok, not much went on but there is promise for more projects in the future which is nice. I got off work and cleaned the house, stocked up on groceries, washed my clothes and recycled all my recyclables. I grabbed a pizza, headed home and read some Pride and Prejudice, it is now midnight so I should get to bed. I cannot wait for tomorrow.

February 12, 2009: Swimming, Running and Speaking English

Work today was quiet with my project progressing slowly and steadily. After work I took the bus home, had a quick bowl of soup then geared up for my daily exercise. I ran 1.5km to the pool dawned my suit, swam 1.5km, and then ran back home. I felt like I had done enough physical exercise for the day so I ate some dinner.

At 21:00 I took the S-Bahn into town to meet up with other English speaking people at the Expats meeting at O’Riley’s Irish Pub. I spent quite some time talking to people from all over the world and telling them to go to Canada to check it out, but only the west because its best. I picked up some suggestions of bars to go to with Eric and Kate and then headed home. I made it back at 2:00 and went to sleep.

February 11, 2009: Mind on Thoughts on Intracontinental Movement

Work today was quite lively, we had a visit from one of my coworkers in Calgary. Because of my great English speaking ability, ha-ha, I was invited to tour around the factory with him and my boss. I picked up a bunch of little details about the plant which I did not know before which is always nice.

After work I procured some beer and bottled water for the visit of the crown prince Eric of cow town and the archduchess Kate of the center of the universe. I then fixed myself a most magnificent meal, sat down and expounded the details of my travel plans to myself. I finished my travel bookings for Riga today. I am going to leave after work to the airport that is 2 hours away from my house by transit and spend the night near the airport. This way I can rise early and catch my 7:00 flight on time.

The magnitude of travel ahead of me makes me tingle inside with excitement. This is going to be two of the most amazing months of my life that lay ahead of me.

February 10, 2009: The Intrepid Traveler (Me)

My job today consisted of 8 hours of partial completion of tasks and waiting for other people to do things. To pass the time I sat down and thought out my game plan for attacking Europe. Here is what I have thus far:

February
14-15: Düsseldorf with Eric and Kate
16-17: Paris, France with Eric and Kate
18-20: Amsterdam, Holland with Eric and Kate
28-1: Cologne, Germany

March:
6-8: Riga, Latvia
14-15: Strasbourg, France with Nancy
21-22: Berlin, Germany with Martin
27-29: Caving Trip with Sarah (Hungary?)

April:
3-4: Rotterdam??
12-18: South German Tour with the Units and Stuart
24-25: Some Place in Southern Europe??
30: Calgary, Alberta, Canada

Not too shabby if you ask me. I personally cannot wait for Eric to Kate to show up. We have plans to stay with Eric and my Dad’s Cousin in Paris, which is going to be awesome. We then head to Amsterdam where we will be staying at the Flying Pig Hostel. My next trip to Cologne may be a bike ride if weather permits and my legs allow. My trip to Riga is another one that I am excited for. I am staying at Friendly Franks Fun Backpackers Hostel. With a name like that you cannot go wrong. Apparently they give you a beer when you check in. It is only $6.25 CAD to stay there and they give you a free beer when you show up. I have been places in Düsseldorf where a beer alone costs more then that.

Anyways the just of it is that I am freaking stoked to have the opportunity to travel this great continent. I do however miss all’yall back home. Shout out to the Vic Crew. Bed time, goodnight.

February 9, 2009: Talking Shop

So Today I hosted a meeting at work. I sat near the front of the room and gave my Powerpoint presentation and paused after each slide for comments. All the conversation that took place after I stopped talking was in German. I was in the dark. I really had no clue what was going down at my own meeting. My boss filled me in with the summary of the discussion after each slide, but it would have been nice to join in. I need to learn some more German.

I left work at 16:10 because I showed up at 6:20. I took the bus then the S-Bahn to the climbing wall and was surprised that it was relatively empty at 17:30 on a Monday. I cringed as I saw the lone staff member teaching two teens how to belay using a Münter Hitch. The instructor was 5’4” and she was pushing the 190lb barrier, not a climber. I went upstairs to get away from the bad climbing karma downstairs. It turned out that the people upstairs were also only belaying using Münter Hitches. I shed a single tear.

Later I met up with a climber named Frank and we talked of climbing in the south of France and types of belay devices. He had the coolest climbing accessory that I have ever seen . . . climbing periscope glasses. These were glasses that had two mirrors that changed the angle of your vision from in front of you to above you. He really looked like a dork, but the concept was sweet. He could watch me climb above him while looking forwards and not straining his neck by looking up.

February 8, 2009: “Short” walk to the Internet Café

I got up at 9:00 after a lovely 12-hour sleep. Some cheese, salami, coffee and bread started off the day. I decided to go and find where this internet café that I had read about on the internet at work was. I followed what I thought was the right direction and about 5min from my house decide that “you know I really like walking” so I did. I saw a sign that pointed to something that I thought would be vaguely interesting, and followed it. It led me down a secluded one-lane road then into an industrial/commercial area of Ratingen. I saw what I think was the ESpirit clothing company prototyping facility (I don’t think that prototyping is the right word when applied to clothes, but oh well), a Nokia building and a bunch of run-down factories. About an hour and a half later, I had been walking thus far with no consideration of where I was, I felt like going home. I walked for another 2min and saw a bridge that I recognized, I was right next to my house!

I got home and regrouped. Now I really wanted to get online so I left and found the Internet café in no time. I spent an hour and a half of sending emails and waking my mom up at 6:00 Calgary time with a Skype phone call. I left for home and thought that I would go to the climbing wall, but (may the climbing Gods strike me down) I did not feel up to it, and instead decided to listen to Garth Brooks, Tim McGraw and type my blog.

After dinner I headed to the WWW Bistro/Café that is right across the road from my house for a quick Alt before bed. I met up with a former German tennis pro who was telling me about his opening match at Wimbledon against André Agassi. The bartender was a big fan of hockey and told me that the Oilers were better then the Flames. Then a bookie came in and told the tennis pro that he owed 3600 Euro in gambling losses. The tennis pro paid his 20 Euro bar tab with a 500 Euro bill. It was quite a good time for a Sunday night. I got to bed early so that I could get to work at 6:00.

February 7, 2009: Mechanical Mecca

I got up at 11:00, sipped down a coffee and started the day. The goal for the day was to visit the Zollverein Shaft XII coalmine and coking plant, a UNESCO World Heritage Site in Essen. I got to the Ratingen Ost train station and waited for 30min for my train to come. It took about 40min of bumpy train riding to get there. I wandered around Essen for about half an hour then decided to ask where this place was. The nice lady at the info desk sold me a day pass for the public transit and told me which tram to take. I took the wrong one.

20min later I found myself in a place that I did not think was in the right direction. I was right; I was way out of the way. I waited for a train back to where I came from and finally was on the right tram. I got off at a place that looked like a giant triumphant mechanical engineering tipi. This was the lift into the main mine shaft at Zollverein. I walked in through the gates, in the rain, and was drawn to a massive orange glowing escalator. My love for glowing things shone through and I boarded it, not really knowing where it led. I got off after a good 75m of escalatoring and found myself in a room filled with what I later found out was coal sifting machinery.

This was cool! I walked back and forth between massive gears, coal elevators, coal sifting claws, gauges and a thousand other things that if operating looked like they could shred a person like cheese. I was all smiles and took my time checking out spur gear systems with gears 1.5m in diameter. The place was dimly lit to make it seem more ominous. After having my fill of this room, it took quite a while, I decided to move on and I figured out that there was a display of golden medieval church memorabilia in the basement. I paid the 3 Euro to get in and followed a massive orange glowing staircase down into the abyss. There was gold as far as the eye could see.

This exhibit was held in what used to be a series of coal storage silos. They had added floors where there previously had not been and cut doors where there had not been doors before but the walls were still pitch black from all the coal that had been stored there. I walked between these amazing gold scepters, angels, crucifixes and candleholders but I really just wanted to be in the rain walking around the coking facility. So that is where I went.

The next hour and a half was magical. I did not see one person in the whole hour and a half, all I heard was the sound of rain falling on metal and I was in a MASSIVE WWII era coal processing facility. I followed piping racks around, taking time to look at all the pipe supports and justify to myself why they were there. I looked at expansion loops and bellows expansion joints and got a kick out of the fact that there was probably some 1940’s coop student designing these things. This place had nothing that was built small, the chimneys were huge, the outbuildings were huge and there was railway tracks crisscrossing the place. I had to sit down to really take in how beautiful this place was.

I finally picked my jaw up from its dropped position and left this place to go for dinner. Some schnitzel and a beer at a small restaurant opposite the coal plant finished off the experience. I caught a tram and an S-Bahn home and typed up the days experience, in point form before going to bed.

February 6, 2009: Feeling . . . Old

I got off work today at 15:30 because I got to work at 7:00. I got home and tried to decide what I was going to do with myself for the 4 hours before I was to meet up with Corey and Sarah. I decided to go for a run because the weather was so nice. My plan was to run the ring road around Ratingen, about 5km. I go running once a month at school usually but since I moved out here I have been ramping up. It took me less time then I thought it would to complete the loop and when I got back an amazing thing happened.

I got home and in just my t-shirt and shorts headed out to the balcony with a beer. I was surprised that it was warm enough out to finish the whole thing without getting cold. Spring has arrived!

At this point my nights activity begin as I boarded the S-Bahn to Corey and Sarah’s place. Just as I showed up to the station the train that I wanted pulled away so I had to wait 20min for the next one. I got off the train and walked to Corey and Sarah’s. They have a very nice modern apartment in a nice part of time with two huge orange sectional couches, a huge balcony and a bathroom with a bath, shower and sauna. How cool is that.

Just to fill all y’all in, Sarah is a translator for a cosmetics firm in Düsseldorf and Corey has his doctor-it in chemical engineering and works in sales for a chemical company in Düsseldorf. They are both in their mid-30s, Sarah is from the UK and Corey is from New York. After drinking a whiskey coke Jan showed up. Jan is a 27-year-old German guy who speaks German, English and Japanese. He is in the job market for a position with a Asian car company he said.

After some conversation about how nice their apartment was we were off to dinner. We decided on a Continental restaurant, I had never been to one of these, I think, but it seemed that they serve food from all over the place. I guess the whole continent of Europe? Jan and I ordered the same thing, some long German word I cannot remember. Sarah thankfully is a translator and could fill in the holes in my German menu reading ability spectacularly well. The food showed up and it was quite good, a very thin crusted pizza with cheese, bacon, onion and a cream sauce base. I washed it down with an Altbier and we were off to the karaoke.

We taxied it over to this place and got to the door. Oddly there were no front windows and you had to ring a bell to get in. We walked in and saw a bunch of “karaoke boxes” lining one wall and the entrance to the main bar area at the end of the hallway. We were waiting for another couple to show up so we sat in the lounge for a while. This was a Korean place and all the songs that were sung by people on the stage were in Korean. Like most Asian songs that I have heard with English parts the English was not all that good.

A 40-something year old Korean guy in a dress shirt and tie got up on stage and let loose. It took me a while to figure out that everyone (mostly Korean) was laughing because he was singing the ladies part of the song. I caught on when he sung “I woman waiting . . . fall in love” about six times in a row. Sarah could not wait to start singing so we headed to the box before the other people showed up. We (not me) opted for the big box which was 45 Euro/hour to rent.

Two hours of singing of varying quality followed. Jan sang a song in Japanese and shared a duet of 50 Cent “In Da Club” with me. The lyrics in the songs and the backup music were all put together by a South Korean company so often the lyrics were a bit off. This was a good time and went on for about 2 hours: then the bill came. I was the youngest person by about 7 years and felt slightly out of place but everyone was speaking English and was very funny so I was not complaining.

210 EURO!!! What!? Yeah, apparently the 3L pitchers were 30 Euro a pop and Sarah’s long island ice teas were 10 Euro a pop. This was nuts, I only had 15 Euro left after dinner. Very kindly Corey and Sarah offered to pick up 105 Euro of the bill because they were the ones that opted for the big box. I threw down my 15 Euro and felt bad because I drank more then half a pitcher. We left and I parted ways with them because I was out of cash and I was going home.

I got to the HBF (Main Train Station) and found out that it was an hour until my train. Damn. This however was when the funniest part of the night would go down. I have found that the only time that I feel comfortable talking to people in German is when I have had a beer or three. I found a spot to sit in the train station waiting room next to two Spanish people who were making out and a drunk looking guy with a toque on. I had an hour to wait and nothing to do so I started talking to Mr. Toque.

“Hallo,” I said, “Ich bin Tom.” “Wie es Ihr Name?” he perked up and said his name (I forget it). I asked if he spoke English (in German) he responded with what I think means “a little.” Turns out a “little” really is a little, this guy only spoke 4 words of English: England, 5% (five percent) and money. These are not ideal words for conversation but this guy whenever I asked, “What is ()” (in German) he responded with one of the words. However he did not just say it once, oh no, he repeated it 7 or 8 times. This was REALLY funny to listen to because I do not think he knew the meaning of these four words and used them interchangeably. I asked, “what is ‘Store’” and he responded England England England England England England. This conversation went on for about 45min before I left for my train.

I got home at 2:30 and went to bed.

February 5, 2009: 93 Messages

Today I got up early and packed my bag with all my climbing gear. I was going to work until 4 and then go climbing. I left work feeling extremely tired and caught the SB55 to downtown Düsseldorf, I grabbed a hot chocolate and sat down. I had not used the Internet in half a week or so and when I turned on my machine I was surprised to see 93 messages. It took me an hour to go through them all and respond to them. I heard back from Corey and Sarah (yes another one) two English people that I met at the Expat meet up in late January. Tomorrow I was going to meet them and their friends for dinner and Karaoke. I am not a singer, but this karaoke was “box karaoke” where you are in a small room with the people in your group only and did not have to sing on stage. Anyways I was excited to speak some English to some native speakers.

Pic Update

February 4, 2009: Germans Rock

Not too much went down today. I went to the bakery with Julia at work, got home, had a three hour nap, put my laundry in, listened to some Dre and read some Pride and Prejudice. I guess that Dr. Dre and Jane Austin don’t go together that often . . . whateva I do what I want.

I want to take this opportunity to talk about the difference between working in Germany and Canada. Besides the language barrier being annoying (today I sat through an hour long meeting that I did not understand more then 15 words of) I find the general workplace etiquette here to be more my style. It seems that the ever present surely grease monkey stereotype that I have seen portrayed in Canadian factories and fabrication-shops is not the case in Germany. I walk around the factory and I am greeted with smiles, handshakes and broken English catch phrases from 90210. It seems that here everyone is happy to be working always and willing to stop what they’re doing to go out of their way to help you out. The amount of respect and lack of artificial niceties is very refreshing.

February 3, 2009: Becoming More European . . . Maybe?

I got off the bus after a fun day at work a stop before I usually do and walked through the shopping district on the way home. I was planning on going swimming today but did not have a suit. I stopped by a quite large sports store and asked the guy where the swim suits were. He pointed me upstairs and because the store was rather empty guided me upstairs to help me out.

I have to say that before coming to Germany I had always pictured the country as the home of the Speedo. A country where men wore tiny swimsuits instead of large because they allowed more speed and took up less space in a bag, a practical approach. When I arrived at the swimsuit rack it told the same story, three racks of Speedos and one of swimming trunks. I told the guy to give me some time to think about it and thought to myself: Speedo, or not Speedo. Speedo, I thought eventually I mean when in Rome. I got one with racing stripes to make me swim faster.

I ran to the pool got through the hi-tech automated entry machine and bravely entered a change room. Change rooms are one of those places in the world that signs are really important and not being able to read can hamper the experience. Thankfully I followed another guy in and did not have to figure it out for myself. I got Speedoed up and headed into the pool area. So it turns out that I was the only one in a Speedo . . . huh. But I rocked it anyways and made them look like fools with my blazing swimming speed, thanks to the racing stripes of course.

February 2, 2009: Tales of Berlin and being Tired

Dear Diary (just kidding JP).
It turns out that my 5:30 bed time Sunday morning was not that much of an a achievement my Berlin standards as Martin told me that he was tired because he was out at the Berlin clubs until 9:00. This is crazy, in Canada there is NO clubs that are open past 4:00 people here in Europe just take it to a whole new level I guess. I enjoyed a haggard day of work and on the way home a combination of Sara’s talk of curry and Sarah’s last name drew me to stop by the local health food store and procure some curry for dinner.


A dinner of curry and red wine finished off an early night. I also spent an hour digitizing previously paper journal entries. Live long and prosper.

February 1, 2009: The Walking Dead

I arose at 10:30 after a sub-par four and a half hour sleep. The previous night had taken its toll.

I checked out of the hostel and sat with a coffee, a water and a pen scribing away about my adventures last night. I used the computer that they have at the hostel to do the internet thing and then headed out for some food. My goal for today was to not break the bank and to not walk too much because I had this odd pain in my knee. I enjoyed some Subway and stumbled into a museum dedicated to Max Bill, a famous architect, designer and typographer. This would have been Tyler’s dream museum as it was filled with technical drawings, architectural models and industrially inspired furniture. Among the drawings were the best technical drawing of a shot glass that I have ever seen and a full size hand drawn construction drawing of a chair. This guy was really good.

I stopped by the train station for a bit and was met by the police riot squad. Apparently whenever there is a soccer game they fill the train station with riot cops to stop any funny-business.

I had six hours before my train left so I decided to go on a walk through Bürgerpark, the biggest park in Bremen. This was quite nice and gave me a chance to reflect on my trip to Europe thus far. I walked for three hours and returned to the train station tired and just wanting to go home. I still had three hours to go. I sat patently in the wating room and when that closed I proceeded to go to the train station stores and entertain my self by looking at their wares.

Finally the train arrived and I was on my way home. The transfer to the local train that takes me to where I live was quick and all was well until at 1:00 I missed my train station. This was no good because I had no idea when the next train was coming in the other direction at 1:00 on a Monday morning. Anyways I caught the next train at 1:08 and was home by 1:30. I arrived and fell into my bed.

January 31, 2009: Onward . . . to Bremen!

Because my train to Bremen leaves at 6:33 I had to catch the early train into Düsseldorf (5:12). I am here at the train station writing to you not from my fancy MacBook but paper because my computer is sleeping at home for the weekend.

I cannot express how much I love the train station at 5:30. There is a mix of people that you would never see anywhere else. I got off the train and saw two drunk stumbling girls in miniskirts, returning from the bar, passing an old wealthy looking couple each in expensive clothes with matching luggage. I am right now in a coffee shop at the train station waiting for my direct ICE train to Bremen. This is my first high speed train-ride. I am hella-pumped.

ICE trains are awesome! I got a forward facing seat with a table to write on. I started on my next read, that right Tom de Haas is reading a second novel this month! This go around I went for the cheapest book at the store that I recognized the name of, Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austin. This book is a bit harder to read then JP so I really have to concentrate. On the train I met a guy from south Germany and had a nice conversation about our respective countries.

I arrived at the hostel and checked my bag in. I met a girl named Sarah from Boston and an English singer/song writer whose name evades me. I chatted with Sara for a while and then left to go downtown. On the way out Sara asked me to dinner, I was excited because it always nice to talk to fellow travelers. So I left for downtown at 10:50 and decided to check out the Dom and the statue of Roland. The Dom turned out to be very interesting because of the great architecture and the museum inside. Unfortunately the mummies that the TUV inspector was telling me about were not available to be seen during the winter.

After lunch I walked around town for a while, drank a Beck’s at a blues bar and headed back to the hostel for a nap. This is where I met David (pronounced in Spanish). We talked about Canada and Spain, where he is from and our respective languages. He speaks English, Spanish and Catalan. I asked him what his first language was and he replied “I talk to my parents in Catalan, think in Catalan and make love in Catalan (pause) except once I made love in English”.

I got up from my nap and headed downstairs to rendezvous with David. We asked the hostel worker where a nice place to go for two hours is and she replied that we should check out the Schnoor area of town and more specifically a small café with walls on odd angles and a very low roof on the top level.

David and I spent an hour wandering around this really neat area before we found the café. This part of town had streets that in places were less then shoulder width and were lined with quaint stores selling everything from Christmas ordainments to ships in bottles. We finally found the place that were looking for only to find that it was not nearly as cool as we were hoping for. The main floor was quite normal and the upstairs had a roof that was probably only 4’10”. We took a picture and headed back to the hostel to meet Sara for dinner. We stopped to pick up some beers at the local Pennymarkt on the way back.

Sara finally arrived and we headed out. All three of us were in no hurry to find a place to eat and took our time wandering the altstadt and talking about the US, Canada and Spain. We found a nice place to eat with decent prices and found a spot to sit.

Over dinner Sara enlightened us with various history tidbits and I feudally tried to change the topic of conversation to the engine displacement of European cars. Conversation continued in a combination of English, Spanish and German. We finished up and decide to pick up some more beer/wine and get our “pre game” on at the hostel.

David had never played drinking games before. After a failed attempt, on my part, at playing quarters we switched to “Kings” a game similar to the Canadian game "King's Cup". We played for an hour or so until 23:00 then asked where the best club/bar to go to was. We were told of a techno warehouse party. My love of warehouses and techno immediately drew me to this option.

We left to the club at 00:30, a first for me. After half an hour and some German direction asking on Sara’s part we arrived at . . . a warehouse. The music was loud, lights were flashing and girls in neon clothing danced on platforms. I am by no stretch of the imagination a “dancer” but I guess that the beer had taken effect and I hit the dance floor. In my breaks from my “dancing” I manages to have a semi-almost half conversation with some German people at the bar.

After dancing the night away we left at 4:45 and headed to McDonalds for some late night eats. We got our fat injection and David and I got our star-studded banner waving in the background tale of the effect of 911 and why the US needs a big army story from Sara. We left for the Hostel.

We got back to at 5:30 and I hit the hay with a vengeance after one of the top three nights of clubbing of my life.

1.Bob in Nelson
2.JP in Calgary
3.David and Sara in Bremen

January 30, 2009: Iverson the Great

Today at work I got an email back from my professor at UVic, Scott Iverson. I am working on a systems engineering project at work and this is Dr. Iverson’s specialty. He directed me to a website for ICOSE, The International Council of Systems Engineers, and told me to read some of the material available.

I found a 67-page document on technical measurement and began reading, next to reading engineering standards this was one of the heaviest reads I have had in a long time. It took me all day to read, but some of the information was very relevant to what I am working on. Thanks Scott!

I got home, had a nap and then set off for an afternoon stroll. I went to the swimming pool that Julia at work had told me about and a near by castle. I got home, made some dinner and got to bed early as tomorrow is a big day!

January 29, 2009: Dragons and Fire

Today I fought a dragon and lit aluminum on fire just by looking at it. Not really I just forgot to enter anything and instead of missing a day I thought it best to put something here.