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