So yeah yesterday I was in Düsseldorf for the day doing exactly that, the consulate there invited all the Fulbright ETAs in NRW to come and essentially meet the important people at the US consulate in Düsseldorf because that is essentially what they are there for.
Anyway I'm supposed to be working on a translation of an internship packet for the school, but I'm having trouble focusing because translation is boring and requires a lot of energy. Instead I'll briefly inform you of two things:
1. Düsseldorf, the city that never sleeps (though I wasn't really there at night so who knows)
2. This insane game I saw played on Sunday that I forgot about till now (weirdly).
1. Düsseldorf
So yeah, I was only here a couple of hours, but I did manage to take some pictures!
The meeting itself was only 2,5 hours long, and since there was zero indication in the email as to how long it would be I gave myself a generous 6 hours in Düsseldorf because I do like to explore. Afterwards they gave us a bunch of swag (including Twain's semi-famous essay, That Awful German Language) PLUS 3 poster sized American flags, because one clearly is not enough. I plan to add them to my walls such that they can never be removed. I want all following tenants to understand who lived here at one point.
I walked through the Altstadt after the meeting, I didn't take any pictures because once you've seen one Altstadt you've seen basically all of them. However, given that my knowledge of German geography is very poor I forgot that Düsseldorf essentially sits on a long stretch of the Rhine, so I sat out and watched the sun set for a while,
Yeah, it's pretty spectacular, photos can't capture it etc. this picture may not seem like much to you (I was actually trying to get the wall to unfold into the river, I'm a pretty bad photographer) but that's because you can't really take a lot of interesting pictures of a river. The Rhine has to be seen to be appreciated, also there were sheep:
I have no idea who was watching the sheep, but they were definitely making sure the grass along the Rhine doesn't grow too much.
So after a while I decided that just sitting along the Rhine wasn't enough, and that my favorite past time in Germany has always been to appreciate the scenery with beer and some kind of food. Unfortunately the first grocery store I walked into was an ALDI, which if you don't know is the bargain bin of the bargain grocery stores in Germany. I've never found anything I need at an ALDI and like an idiot I always forget that until after I've entered the store and it's too late for me to duck out (German stores have dedicated entrances and exits, and the only exit is through the cash register) so I figured well crap I'll just pick up a crappy beer and some chips or something and it'll be fine. No, I somehow managed to find the one grocery store in all of Germany that somehow doesn't sell beer. It sells wine, but not beer. Seeing as I was essentially trapped until I bought something, I picked up a cheap can of peanuts and moved onto a REWE, which was quite nice. Thus my dinner was an Altbier (one of the few ales you can get in Germany) and a can of peanuts. The peanuts were a little disappointing, but then they came from ALDI so I don't know what I was expecting. I'm guessing the Altbier would have been better had it been cold, but everything is cheaper warm in Germany.
Anyway I sat, drank, ate and watched the Rhine go by. It was pretty cool. My trip home was fairly uneventful, which was nice because due to a mistaken impression that tickets purchased online can be printed out at the Münster Hbf I had to run from the internet cafe across the street to the platform on my way to Düsseldorf. The Regiobahns are slow, but you really can't beat the price.
Anyway part 2:
Radball (Bike Ball)
A brief overview:
So on Sunday as I mentioned previously, there was a big bike race in Münsterland that ended at the Schloss. At the festival that took place afterwards there was a giant demo area where various aspects of biking could be shown off. By chance I happened to catch the final minutes of Radball (Bikeball) which is essentially soccer, but played on bikes.
Now I earlier referred to this sport as insane, let me explain why.
The game itself is not fast paced, the playing field is barely the size of my apartment which basically means it's impossible to get any kind of momentum going. What makes it insane is that at no time are you allowed to exit your bicycle, that would result in a penalty. Instead you have to use your bicycle to kick the ball into the opponents goal. Your bike has no gears, no brakes and you really can't sit down either. The game is structured so that each team has an opportunity to attack the goal, while the other team must defend. This means that you as an attacker have to somehow maneuver a tiny ball through two guys on bikes who are allowed to ram into you to stop you from shooting, and to shoot you essentially have to throw your balance completely off and hit with your wheel.
Nobody was wearing a helmet obviously.
It was good fun.
Anyway I need to work on this translation. This entry went on longer than I wanted it to go.
No comments:
Post a Comment