Rotterdam - Dusseldorf

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We got up, and after a delightful breakfast of toast and granola, we took the metro back to the Central Station to get a train to Dusseldorf. The trains were once again great, and we actually took a train back to Amsterdam since it was a connection to Dusseldorf.

During the ride, we watched a pair of girls get busted for not having a ticket, then have a Dutch women talk the train attendent into letting them go. Where were the Italians to help me get out of my ticket in Florence... NO WHERE, thats where. Just beware that if you do travel here, they do check tickets ALL the time, and you shouldnt try to get away with anything.

On the train we sat with an older American women who talked about a bunch of study-aborad during the Cold War stories. YAWN! But she did let us read In Touch Magazine, so that we would be 'in touch' when we returned to the states in a few days.

Upon arriving to Dusseldorf around 3, we prepared ourselves for what would be our final impossible quest to find our hotel. There was no way that we wanted to deal with the heat, now close to 45 pound bags, and aggrevation of finding our place. It was too long of a trip, and it seems like forever since we found our place right away. We both agreed that we would take a taxi, and just eat up how much it would be. When we found a respectable looking one, the driver just laughed in our face, and pointed 50 meters down the street. Thanks to Heather's dad, we got an awesome hotel that was basically right next to the station. It was a welcome relief to the normal aggrevation of trying to find our lodging. We checked in and met a bunch of other American soccer fans who were pouring in for the game.

We got showered and settled into our room(s), we had a two room room. Then we decided to walk to downtown Dusseldorf to check it out out for ourselves. I mean, the hype for Rome, Paris, Amsterdam is one thing... but this was D-town. After a short walk, we got some food before walking through one of the lamest festivals Ive ever seen. It was a book festival with a local community band... but the Germans loved it. We walked through the rest of town and finally found the cool and happening parts. Too bad we had already ate. We saw fans from all over the world who were obviously in town for the World Cup, which had three venues within 45 minutes of town. It was a neat little town, but we decided that we would stop on the way back and get a taste of the good ole USA. We got some Ben and Jerry's, ate some at the resteraunt, and took the rest back to the room. Then, for the first time on the whole trip, I did something I hadnt done...

... I passed out at like 9 pm, even before I could watch the late soccer game. The trip started to catch up with me, and after waking up around 12 to find out we werent going to have World Cup tickets, we headed to bed. Little did we know, that even without the guarentee of tickets, that the next day would be one that I will never forget...

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Photos

Dusseldorf
Can you beleive that there was an INTENSE book fair / community band concert taking place only like 500 yards from there. You'd think it would look more out of control

Comments

[Heather]

Yeah, that book fair was BUMPIN' ... we should have tried to sell "The Devil Went Down to Austin" ... we'd been trying to ditch that book the whole trip!