Richtig im Dusseldorf

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I know, I know, it's not south east Asia, but it's still foreign!

I went for a long weekend (4 days) with my friend and flatmate (we don't have a single word for this in English, unlike in German when they just tack words together. This would no doubt be friendflatmate. In English we have to make do with spoonerisms. In this case "friendmate" doesn't work because that's tortology, and Bex wouldn't appreciate "flatfriend") Becka, to visit Ed Perugia (aka EJP), friend and former housemate, in his new residence in the stadt of Dusseldorf.

Day 1

The last time I went on a plane with Becka, on the way there she had a big freaking out session and we had to spend the whole trip with her asking, with panic in voice "why have the engines stopped" and "I want to get off the plane" (which wasn't really possible at 30 000 feet). But this time, I have to say, she was exemplary, made no fuss and you really couldn't tell her apart from a normal human being, so well done Becka!

So then, textbook flight there. What wasn't so textbook was our ability to get off the plane and onto a train to make a simple trip to central Dusseldorf. Once we found the station, we then realised we couldn't use our cards on the ticket machine and had to go and find a cashpoint. There began a half hour epic Frank Spencer-style search through the airport and - like a bad dream - no matter how many signs you followed to the "geldautomat" you always ended up in a car-park, foyer or zoo, before having to turn around and begin the search again (or fall into a trolley going down a hill, Betty). When we finally made it onto the train and arrived in Dusseldorf, we calculated that it had taken longer to get off the plane and make the 10 minute train ride to the centre of Dusseldorf than the entire flight. Well done us.

When we finally made it to Dusseldorf station and track down left luggage, Becka managed to bosh her bonce on a locker door, but not as bad as some other kid whose head started to gush with blood from a well aimed stand-up-while-the-door-above-you-is-open. We then had a choice of two exits to leave the station, wanting to get to the river for some waterside beerage. I chose which direction we should go based on how groovy it looked. Needless to say, I chose the wrong direction.

Not long after we walked we noticed an extraordinary phenomenon. Now if you or I, in London or any other UK city, are stuck at a "red man" signal but there is not a ruddy car in sight for 30 miles, do we not cross the road anyway? The answer to this rhetorical riddle is yes. Yes we do. In fact, we even cross when cars are definitely crossing. Not so in der Deutschland. Literally everyone obeys the rules - you'd get these hardened anarchist punks who had come from rioting in Berlin who would stand like Pavlov's dogs at the side of the road until the man turned green. Then they would cross the road and set fire to a Mcdonalds. But not before the green man showed.

Having come recently from Cambodia and Laos (where no one obeys rules simply because there aren't any), to Britain (where there are too many rules and so people tend to flout them where possible) to Germany (where there are a sensible number of rules and everyone obeys them) my head was all a-flutter about which one I prefer. I don't know, but it's not the English way. (I don't mean it's the English way not to know, I mean I like the English system least.)

Take drinking in public places, on the street or steps by the river. Now, I have no idea whether it's allowed in German law or not, but I reckon it is ok, and the reason I think that is that everyone does it there. In Britain though, if everyone was doing it I wouldn't make the same assumption. So anyway, look, the long and short of it is that we met EJP down by the river and had some beers. In the sunny weather everyone was in good spirits and there was a carnival atmosphere, even though nothing specific was being celebrated - gotta love that!

Ed's crazy French housemate Françoise turned up with a game of Boules and we had a good old session long into the evening with a delicious range of beers from Germany, Czeck and.... other countries.

Dinner. Me and Becka up since 4am. Bed

Day 2

We lurched our way out of bed and Eddy P had prepared a breakfast of proper style brotchen and about 22000 kinds of jam. Strawberry jam, blackberry jam, raspberry jam, cranberry jam, apricot jam, blueberry jam, plum jam... jam, jam, jam... and Marmite (our own contribution to add an element of English to the proceedings!) Coffee, OJ, all the trimmings - you know how it is.

A plan was hatched that there was a beach by the Rhine - hidden away where no one goes. Ed had drawn me a map - I could hear him yelling "the Beach - the f*cking Beach" through the mosquito net. Anyway, the plan was this: Becka and I were on beer detail, Ed was on food and getting a haircut, and Françoise was on the actual barbeque (not literally on it - that would have been cannibalism and besides, we had plenty of food, so it would be days before we'd need to actually cook him -although he undeniably had the most meat on him out of all of us, so if it had come to cannibalism I think he would have been the first on the spit). Fortunately it didn't come to cannibalism, and after about two hours of walking a 20 minute walk (Becka was in charge of the map ) we found the Beach, we found Ed, Françoise, a barbeque, volleyball net and some beers.

We spent an idyllic afternoon on the mostly deserted beach, and it seems that for some reasons all Germans are bloody brilliant at volleyball. Must be because of all the beaches Germany has. Hmm. Anyway, after the Germans played a professional-looking 4 a side match (or was it 5?) with Françoise and his friend Jérémie representing "us", Ed Perugia got up and made a distinctly English effort. My excuse was my bad back and Becka's was being a girl (even though the German girl players were brilliant) and as a result, we really let Blighty down. On the other hand I had a beer and some delicious BBQ'd fish, and load of sunshine so could not have given two hoots, my friend. In fact, make that one hoot which I could not give.

That night we went out on the town. The plan was this: 1. Dinner/drinks. 2. Party of friends of Ed's. 3. Go out in Dusseldorf and - in Becka's words - "f*ck sh*t up". In the venue for 1. there was a blond waitress whom EJP had his grubby little eyes on, so Becka suggested writing his number on a beer coaster. Then Becka augmented this with a little doodle of Ed and the waitress walking down the road hand-in-hand, before innevitaly drawing a protrousion from Ed's groin region (the doodle of Ed, not the actual person) leading to the outstretched hand of the girl. Ed thought this might send out the wrong message, so Becka scrubbed out the lower half of the doodle and compromised it into a bed, labelling Ed with "me" and the waitress with "you". When we left, for some reason, Ed didn't want to give the dirty coaster to the waitress so when we got down the road Becka nabbed it off him and I ran back down the road to give it to the waitress. I gave the girl a wink and pointing to the picture of the two of them in bed with an "OK" gesture using my free right hand. I don't know if her phone broke or something, but, do you know, she never rang! Must have been a lesbian.

When we got to the party it took me right back to the international parties I used to go to with various foreign students who stayed with our family when I was younger. A load of people standing around copious amounts of booze, sipping delicately and waiting for some British yobs to come and - in the words of Becka again - f*ck sh*t up! Unfortunately 2 Japanese birds were leaving just as we came in, and we couldn't convince them to stay. Oh well, so a room of about 7 lads and Becka it was. Anyone who knows me knows that in this situation I try to get some drinking games on the go. Those people also know that I won't let it go until there are some drinking games. Was v good in the end - we played a game introduced by them (they were all called Marco, it seemed) and then the "what's the name of the fookin game" one, downing big dirty jugs of vodka and red bull, or dirty punch, along the way.

To the club! There was a novel but potentially dangerous system here where you get given a card on your way in, then you go and buy drinks and they mark it on your card. At the end of the night, you hand it in and pay your bill. There is severe room for bank-breakage with this system, I fear, especially if you're already inebriated from copious quantities of punch, vodka and fizzy Benylin. Increasingly drunk, I was increasingly amazed at how brilliant my German was on the locals, and the more I drank the better I got. I could tell that this was true objectively because more and more people were walking away after having spoken with me for a very short time. Therefore I must have communicated my message so accurately in German that no more needed to be said.

At some point in the night Becka's order of "f*ck sh*t up" penetrated the old noggin, so during a heavy song probably by Rage or someone, I gently started to introduce the idea of a mosh-pit to the crowd, which was picked up enthusiastically by others and reciprocated. Pretty soon bratwust-pumped German giants were pushing each other with vigour and gusto. Escaping the massacre to get a drink, I looked back over my shoulder and thought to myself: "oh my God. What have I done? If I live a hundred years I will never forget this moment." Meanwhile Ed and Becka had each found a pair of lips to tangle with, and I was so taken with the novelty of being able to smoke inside that what with the foreign students, vodka red bulls and inside smoking I thought I was 18 all over again. But I wasn't. In fact, in 2 days I would be 9 years older than that. But that's another story. Which I will tell.... now.

We finally left the club at something like 5 am, taking a cab back to Ed's on the calm back streets of the city that never sleeps. Except at bed time.

Day 3

Another classic breakfast. I challenged myself to try all available jams. No mean feat. Today we were up for going to Bonn, seeing Beethoven's house, then to Cologne for some odour cologne. Aka, dirty beer.

Excitingly enough, we got today the double-decker train (as a side note, trams are brilliant - between buses and trains they combine the best bits of both, and it's a shame we don't have 'em in London, although there's no chance of that happening these days, not that I care much, being a cyclist) which was lush on toast - we sat upstairs feeling like bloody kings (and queens in the case of Becka... and Ed, arf arf) until we rocked up to Bonn, where we were greated by lush weather. Lush on toast, it was. Lush on toast with 20000 types of jam.

We went to Beethoven's birthplace. I wonder when they turned it into a museum, who bought it and who converted it, but it was interesting anyway to walk around the old living place of the master and think- "wow! Where I'm standing, right here, in this very spot, is where Ludwig van Beethoven once took a dump." It was quite an experience, as was looking in the guest book and finding the entry of former visitor Nick Edmonds. If I remember correctly it read "NE and EJP were here RITC" . If you ever go there to visit EJP or for another reason, look us up: 17/04/2011

There are places where beer comes in what seem to be test tubes from secondary school science. Consequently you can zip through a lot of it very quickly, as I kept finding out - like a kid who eats his ice-cream too quickly and then gets jealous of his siblings who all still have one, I looked with envy on EJP's half full tube, before remembering that I was now, in fact, an adult and could therefore simply order another, thus solving the quandary. Good to learn that.

To Cologne, and the mega-gothic cathedral towering above us. It was so gothic I thought Batman was going to jump out the top. But he didn't. Shame.

Becka had yet to have a Schnitzel, so we searched a while for a place that had the national dish and some Stealios-friendly grub. Not easy, it turns out! We eventually found a place that had the curtest waiter in the world. Imagine a German Basil Fawlty with much lower job satisfaction (although we managed to avoid mentioning the war, and goose stepping, unlike at school when I got into trouble for doing exactly that to some German exchange students - why was it al right for John Cleese to do it but not me?) and you get the picture. However, the grub was totalement top banana and after being very well fed we headed back to the 'dorf, it was 11:30pm or so by the time we got back, and so to tea and to bed - a second night of clubbing would have taken the "fu*k sh*t up" doctrine too far, methinks.

Day 4

"Bon Anniversaire to you, Bon Anniversaire to you, Bon Anniversaire to yooooooooou... Bon Anniversaire to you!" Such were the sounds that greeted me from my shower - Becka had prepared a birthday breakfast of a bread roll, flanked by Françoise, a birthday banner and a couple of tea tree lights. After this most ostentatious breakfast we headed out to get some cake, beer, fizzy vino and sit on the beach until it was time to meet young Teddy for lunch. Unfortunately Becka and I are renowned faffers and so by the time we got into town we had to make do with the steps by the Rhine. Bloody hell though - this cake was fookin' delicious! We had a sponge with raspberry stuff (jelly? coulis?) on top and a good old slice of applekucken - LECKER!!!!

With Teddy we went for a delicious (and massive) Japanese, Ted yet again picking up the bill, which he had a generous habit of insisting on! Thereafter he had to go back to teaching (it was a Monday after all - incidentally, before this trip neither Becka nor I had any idea of what Ed's job was, to our shame!) and so Becka and I went for drinks by the station, in preparation for our journey back to blighty! Half way through the beer Becka had bought me I noticed it tasted a bit.... thin... and only after a while did I realise that I was drinking non-alcoholic beer. At this point Noggers would call this the "vegetarian of beer".

My belief that German trains are always on time was shattered - the S11 to get to the airport was delayed by 30 minutes - that's UK standard, so we got a different one which took half the time and allowed us to go on a sky train - just like at the beginning of Alton Towers when you get it from the car park to the main bit - when you head for Nemesis immediately, if it's a school day and the queue is short. Don't get one of the 'Nemices' though - they're well sickly which is not good just before Britain's most famous rollarcoaster. Sorry, where are we? Oh yes, Dusseldorf.

It must be said, so I'll say it, that the bit when aeroplanes accelerate then take off must be one of the best feelings you can get. Maybe I'll buy a jet one day (yeah, one day).

Once again back to blighty, and I have a tip for you - if you arrive at Heathrow and want to go to Ealing, get the piccadilly line and get off at Northfields, then get the bus. Don't take the Heathrow connect. Don't ask me why, just trust me. I said don't ask. Shh.

All in all, a great birthday weekend.

Gutegeburtstagwochende

A grithend, if you will.

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