I was Born in Dusseldorf, and that is why the call me Rolf!

In continuation with the Great Schlep of 2009, I made my way all the way out to Germany last weekend for the long weekend...and it was glorious.

The journey was off the a hysterical start as I realized that we were taking a BUS to the airplane..bc it was that small.  I feel hoodwinked by Luftansa, but oh well.  So, we walked onto the plane, which i was not entirely happy about, but i got over it quick enough.  I also finally got my italian food ive been craving in the form of ravoli and tomato sauce.  I also discovered a wonderful way to cope with my fear of flying...lots of wine.

We landed in Dusseldorf at like 1030, and our friend Lisa was there to pick us up. From there, we drove on THE AUTOBAUN, u know, the one with noooo speed limit to her house in Coesfeld, which is like 50 minutes outside of Dusseldorf in the beautiful german countryside.  Her house was ADORABLE.  We slept in the loft above her media room, which was soo cool.  In the morning we sat down to a traditional German bfast, aka like so much food and sooo goood, and met her mom, who doesnt speak much english.  Then, we took a tour of Coesfeld and saw some of the sites.  I was historically very happy bc the town was one of hte ones that was bombed in WWII, and some of Lisa's family members fought during the war, so it was really interesting to hear about that!  In the afternoon, we returned for lunch at her house, and then went to her Grandma;s farm to walk around there.  It was so pretty, and we ended up staying at her gmas house for a while, even tho her grandma only spoke a slightly arcaic form of german, which was even cooler.  Then, we went to see the big mansion in the city, and went home for dinner.  After dinner, we went to the local brewery to sample german beer.  It was a gooooood night :)

On friday, we were up early to go to Essen, which is where Lisa goes to uni, and then to Munster, which is a pretty famous city.  Essen had a super cool metro, and lisa's school was so cute.  We met up with a few of her friends there and went out to lunch at doner :) and walked around the city center.  Then, we caught the train to munster, which is FULL of bikes.  its considered the bike capital of germany.  We saw the room where the peace of westphalia was signed in 1648... look it up its sooo famous, and we went to a few old churches, one of which had cages outside on the bell tower that they used to kill Anabaptists in the middle ages.  So cool.  After that, we meet up with her friend Christina and went to a GERMAN CARNIVAL! That was sooo cool, and we rode bumper cars bc ive never done it before.  Then we got coffee and caught our train home, where we ate dinner and chillaxed with the fam.  

On saturday, we took a day trip to the netherlands with lisa's sister Uschi and her friend Annuk, whos Dutch.  We went to the market and ate traditional fishy food and these fries with peanut sauce on them...aka SO good.  Then, we went to another small town that's famous for all of its old book stores, and we happened upon a really old Dutch mill...so we went for a closer look and the owner, Martin, happened to be there, speak english, and gave us a private tour of the mill!  That was really cool.  Then on the way back into germany, we stopped at the border to take pictures, bc it was kind of a big deal. Then, we had dinner, got ready to go out, and pregamed while watching Deutchland Superstar, germanys American Idol, and one kid is 16 and sings like James Blunt.  Then, we went out to a discoteca which was like amazing and had like 3 different clubs, one of which was like a skater boy/death metal club called the basement, and everyone down there was like in a mosh pit and like being super hardcore.  We called it a moderatly early night at 3am, and headed home for some sleep.

Sunday was a surprise day, and it really was a surprise because we went to the place where lisa's sister rides horses and got a like 2 hour long tour of hte german countryside from the back of an old fashioned buggy.  The horses were these 2 beautiful black males and they sometimes wanted to go alot faster than our driver let them...but i mean come on dirt roads are realllly bumpy.  However, it was an amazing experience, and afterwards we fed them and got a tour of the farm, which included Cows, calfs, pigs, and bulls.  Then we went back to Coesfeld for the annual spring fest, and we chilled there for a while.  Our last lunch was this amazing fest consisting of all this traditional german food that her mom made, including schnitzel, which was SOOOO good.  For dinner, we had currywurst and fries, which was also super good.  Then we just chatted, said goodbye, packed, and got ready for our 4am wakeup call.

We left at 430 the next morning, and were back in spain by 930.  Overall, it was one of my fav trips ive taken so far, and it inspired me to take german next semester bc its a really awesome language :)....

hasta luegooooooo