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Published: March 4th 2009
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We flew into Dusseldorf which only took about an hr and a half & for once Bee got through customs without a hassle. We arrived at our hostel & it was probably the best one we have stayed at. The people working there were really nice, we had free breakfast & Wi-Fi & the best part was the vending machine which had Becks beer in it =) We'd been told by a few people that German’s were distant & cold but what we found in Dusseldorf couldn’t be further from the truth, most German’s we met were really nice with two different people stopping at asking us if we needed help when we looked a bit lost during our stay.
Dusseldorf is one of the richer areas of Germany & walking down some of the promenades shows you why. A set of clothes costs about a quarter of my entire savings for this trip!!!! It is beautiful though, whether you're window shopping or strolling along the Rhein. On our first night we went out to the main bar area & had dinner at a restaurant called Brauerei Im Fuchschen recommended in our travel book. After a little bit of confusion
Statue
Dedicated to ..... somone.... not sure who where we sat at a reserved table & having most of the waiters only speak German we finally managed to get seated and order. Bee got Schnitzel (of course) & I got ribs with a baked potato. The food was awesome & was made even better by the German beer Alt which everyone in Dusseldorf drinks no matter where you go. It's in such high demand that they carry around trays with glasses of Alt ready to go.
The next day we went to Aquazoo, a mix of an aquarium, zoo and a museum.The website didn't have an english translation so we weren't sure what was in there, if it was any good or if it was open but we did know it only cost 6 euro!!! So we got rugged up, grabbed our map & headed off in the direction of Aquazoo which was on the other side of Dusseldorf. We got to walk through most of the town, then along the Rhein until we finally came to a large park which was nice but you could tell it would be beautiful in summer. Once we found our way into the middle of the park, we found was
an octagon shaped building that looked old & not all that appealing so we wondered if there was a reason this magical aquarium/zoo/museum was only 6 euro.
After we had paid & entered we quickly changed our minds. The place was awesome, the first thing you see when you go in is an enclosure with a bunch of BIG penguins happily swimming around & a skeleton of what we think was a blue whale (Couldn’t be sure as all the signs were in German). We spent about 3 hrs walking around enjoying all the animals & enclosures - one of which was a tropical rainforest you can walk through, which after having to deal with northern hemisphere weather the hot and humid enclosure was bliss! We ended up seeing sharks, eels, about a hundred types of fish, turtles & tortoises’, monkeys, crocs, mongooses, mice, snakes & other reptiles, otters, seals and a whole heap of other animals as well.
The rest of our time in Dusseldorf was spent wondering around seeing the sights & for me getting to know all the different types of german beer =). Beer is cheaper to buy than bottled water in Germany so
needless to say I sampled a lot of nice beers for next to nothing. You can buy a 6 pack of beer for a little more than a euro in some super markets or you can go to bottle shops & buy them cold in 500ml bottles for about a euro each.
The real reason we were in Dusseldorf though was because we were going to our first dance event of the trip. Enzyme Incubation in Oberhausen but Bee will do a separate blog for that one. We both loved Germany and can’t wait to go back in a month’s time when we will be in Munich, Berlin and Bamberg for two weeks. Next we travel to Holland where we will be staying in Amsterdam for a week ahead of one of our biggest Dance events ‘Masters of Hardcore’ which will have about 20,000 people at it and should be amazing, plus it will be my birthday on the same day =)
Bee Dandy: I was really upset that we lost an hour of time once in Germany so I'm going to make up a story of what I did in that hour: Um, I frolicked in a
park and ate chocolate for an hour yayyyyy!
I loved Dusseldorf! It's a very picturesque city, I think that because it's a rich area, everything is quite moden looking and clean. Unlike Dublin, I felt like I could stress less about money so it was a more enjoyable in that sense...which sounds like a contradiction because it's a rich city but their food and drink is cheap. It was a pretty quiet place but this turned out to be a good thing. At our hostel, some funny spreads they had for breakfast were brutwurst SPREAD, pineapple & garlic & pepper eww. I had nutella 😊
All I could say in German was hello, thank you, please, sorry & do you speak english? so pointing really comes in handy. I was really scared I was going to offend people so I made sure I was always smiling and thankful but everyone was really nice anyways.
I got a really nice bar of chocolate that tasted like kinder chocolate for 33 cents, YAY! Everyone drinks on the street here and even though I know there isn't a law aganist it, I still find it a bit weird. I think
A huge whale!!!
Oh and a skelton behind her.... it's because if you're caught drinking at the train station in Sydney you get a $400 fine so I kept wanting to tell people to put away their drinks at the station! Big groups of people sit around drinking cases and doing shots...you can also drink at Burger King and stuff so I guess you don't even need to go to bars and clubs if you don't want to haha.
Aquazoo was a nice suprise, nothing like going to a good aquarium/zoo. I'll spare you the details as I'm sure everyone has been to one before...oh actually, we did see shark sacks that had been laid with little sharks wriggling around in them. I'd never seen that before and it was GROSS. Oh and tiny little starfish as big as my pinky nail - cute. No two-toed sloth though. All I want to do is a see a sloth 😞 they're so cute and slow! Apparently there is one at the zoo in Dresden, Germany and Bristol in the UK. Hopefully we can go.
German kids are really cute with their swishy hair, overalls and cute accents. They have a drive through Subway in Dusseldorf! Oh, one of
my contact lenses ripped in my eye and it really, really hurt. Obviously you can't take it out either because you can damage the pupil so I started crying it and it fell out lol. A tiny piece of contact stayed in my eye for a couple of days though.
Peace out
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