Trip to nowhere

Arrived into Dusseldorf two hours late, temperature a warm 0degC! Caught a taxi to the main train station and was tossing up whether to go to Holland, Belgium or Luxembourg. I decided on Belgium. I had wanted to go to Brussels but was too far away so bought a ticket to Liege. I waited at the platform double checking i had the right time and platform number. The train arrived right on time and so i jumped on. Then the unexpected happened! One hour and 45 mins into the journey i realised im on the wrong train and going in the complete opposite direction!! The passenger sitting beside me told me that this train had arrived late into Dusseldorf so the train i was supposed to catch would have departed after this one. Obviously an announcement had probably been made but as i don't understand a word of german i had no idea. I decided to get out at the next stop at Koblenz which is half way between Dusseldorf and Frankfurt. By this time it was already getting quite late so didn't have enough time to go to Belgium and make it back to Dusseldorf in the same evening. I had no choice but to get on a train straight back to Dusseldorf.

I got up early the next morning and caught a tram into town. It was pretty early on a sunday morning so there weren't many people around. The tram was interesting with all sorts of people jumping on and off. I didn't feel the most comfortable sitting beside some guys with tattooed skinheads, beer bottles still in hand from a hard night out. Once in town i walked through the cobblestoned streets of the old town onto a road known as the longest bar in the world. There were hardly any remnants of the busy night only a few hours before. The only people that were around were a few guys cleaning the streets and a couple of wierdos talking to themselves.

Walked down to the rhine promenade which was quite beautiful. It was a really nice blue sky day but still bitterly cold. There were heaps of little restaurants situated alongside which were boarded up for the winter. It looked to be a nice place in the summer time with all the seating outside. I continued along the rhine promenade past the clock tower over the oberkasseler bridge. There were quite a few people out exercising, walking their dogs or riding bikes. Several barges were slowly working their way up the river. Walked along the opposite bank where there was a large park overshadowed by beautiful houses. By this time the cold was getting too much for me so made my way back to the hotel.

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