Blogs from Düsseldorf, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany, Europe - page 5

The Keller's in Vorst (outside of Dusseldorf) . . . After a weekend of luxury traveling in Prague with Kristin, I humbled myself and actually used one day of my six day train pass for eastern Europe. So, as Kristin and the kids flew back to Dusseldorf, I took a comfortable nine hour train ride to meet them back at their house. I don’t think Cameron quite understood why I wasn’t flying. (Currently my time is more expendable than my dollars!) Kristin and her family are going on their 15th year in Europe (Kasey's work is there) and they’re going on their second in Dusseldorf. They rented this great funky castle out in the country where their neighbor is a farmer with lots of corn fields and cows. It was a great place to chill out, ... read more

Thanks Nadja for emailing my friends.......and my professors.... It was quite helpful for me. It is still hard to type here and these computers freeze quite a bit and really have trouble with groupwise, which is why I asked her or Stacie to do it... but I didn't expect any professors to ever read my blog, so let's hope they don't. If any of them actually bring that agony upon themselves, I apologize in advance, especially for my unending indecisiveness. I also intend to blame all spelling and grammar mistakes on my keyboard or the fact that I write stuff in this blog that is from my personal journal written in German. Some may notice that I edited my first entry to clean up lazy word choice and typos, etc. Hahahaha. Carissa, I love your comment. ... read more

Day 14, 14th June. Tessenderlo - Leopoldsburg - Roermond (HOLLAND) - Elmpterwald (GERMANY) Woke up early, had breakfast and set off the same time as yesterday. There was blue sky and good cycle lanes ahead of us. After passing Leopoldsburg we went through a huge military area of Belgium before getting to Bree where we used up all our Belgian francs at Aldi and ate in the town square. My appetite was back with a vengeance! After then it was a straight ride to the Dutch border and coffee shops. We just cycled in, past an empty border station and along confusing cycle ways to Roermond where I managed to post my Barbie card off to Kathryn. Afterwards, Scott, Rory and I found an internet coffee shop which sold Colombian ‘specials’. We had one and checked ... read more

Hi. Pics later, and videos. I am trying to drink away my sorrows in Gelsenkirchen after my team decided to not play today and pretend like they are the fucking worst team in the World Cup. So I write you semi-drunk from Gelsenkirchen central square.... Fuck. I had so much hidden confidence for my nation's team and really looked forward to the match. We lost 3 to fuckin 0, and the goals came at the worst time. Minute 4, then right before halftime then after we hit the post and midway through the second half. Fuck!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! No one wanted to play. No one saw it as if this was the world cup except a player here and there. Thankfully the times since have been really fun. I love the Czech fans. They are so fun and ... read more

After a great night sleep, we decided that we would get a train up to Gelsenkirchen even without tickets around 11 am. As soon as we stepped into the train station in Dusseldorf, we could tell it was going to be an amazing day, and one that we could NOT miss. From one station to another, we met more and more American fans who broke into random chants and cheers. We met three cool kids from Wisconsin who were going to the game, then an awesome 27 year old couple from the US (but who lived in London) - Ryan and Brooke. Once we arrived in Gelsenkirchen, the athmosphere exploded as thousands of Czech and US fans poored into the streets. I was real confident of the game, and thought there was no way Czech Mix ... read more