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Published: December 2nd 2006
We arrived back in the wonderful country of Germany last Wednesday, 22nd November flying from the not-so-loved Stansted airport into the quiet little airport in Duesseldorf! My friend, Sabine and her mum, Monika kindly picked us up and drove us to their home in Essen.
Why were we visiting Essen, you may ask? Well, I (Meg - if you hadn't already guessed....) was an exchange student twice in Germany. The first time was after Year 11 in 1994 to Essen and the second was in 1996 to Ostfriesland. Sabine and her parents were my hostfamily then. Was lovely to see them after such a long time.
Essen is actually the German word for "food" and boy, did we enjoy some very delicious home-cooking from Monika while staying with them for 5 days. We were very spoilt and extremely well looked-after.
The weather was unfortunately not that great while we were there. Had mostly rain and grey skies for most of the time we were in and around Essen, but that didn't stop us from having a fantastic time. Thursday we did a day trip to Cologne and saw the spectacular Cathedral and the very beautiful
Christmas Markets. That night, back in Essen, Sabine took us to a really cool Cocktail Bar with a friend of hers. It was such a funky bar and the cocktails were amazing!!!
Friday we had a lovely, long sleep-in and then headed into Essen in the afternoon. The Christmas Markets had just opened there so we spent the afternoon wandering around the many different stalls which were selling crafts, jewellery, Gluehwein, Christmas Ornaments, hats, more Gluehwein, candles, toys and...you guessed it.......Gluehwein!!!! Surprisingly enough we didn't actually have any Gluehwein, but instead had a mug of very yummy hot Mead at the Medieval section of the markets. To top off our Essen Christmas Markets experience we went for a ride on the Ferris Wheel and got a fantastic view of Essen by night!
Saturday was a long, long, looooooonnnnnnnnngggggg day of drinking, eating, walking, talking and more drinking! And why? Because Cam's friend Maria and her friend Gerard drove down from Holland to visit us for the day. (She wasn't in Holland when we were there, so that's why she came! Isn't that nice?!)
We started with a (non-aloholic) lunch in the pedestrian zone in
Essen and then headed to cosy cafe where we drank some beer and wine and caught up. Late afternoon we headed down to Sabine's favourite heavy metal bar in Essen to play some pool for an hour or so before we decided food would be a good idea before consuming too much more alcohol. So, we went for something typical German and had Mexican. Afterwards we went back to another bar (heavy metal), had some more drinks before saying goodbye to our Dutch friends and heading home.
Sunday was a snoozy day. Had a yummy lunch with Sabine and her lovely parents Monika and Friedrich. Mid-afternoon we drove to Duisburg where we visited an old Steelworks, which had been transformed into a kind of landscape museum. It was so awesome. Took some fantastic photos around there and have definitely decided to take up a photography course back in Oz. We climbed one of the old furnace towers and stayed up there to see an incredible sunset !!! It was amazing!!
Monday, Monika and Friedrich drove us to Muenster to visit a distant cousin of mine, Helga. I hadn't seen her in about 10 years and it
was just lovely to catch up with her again. She took us out to a nice restaurant in a little village outside of Muenster and then drove up to Tecklenburg for an afternoon coffee and piece of cake. We were lucky with the weather that day and saw some beautiful countryside around the outskirts of Muenster.
This Tuesday just gone (28th November) we said goodbye to our wonderful hosts in Essen and caught a train back to Ulm. The train ride along the Rhein River was just so beautiful and we were so happy to be back in Ulm and to see Warren and Christine again, after 6 weeks of travelling here, there and everywhere.
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