Spontaneous German Weekend
I consider myself very reserved, organized, precise, and planed. Yet, I do know that spontaneity is the spice of life. And once in a while it is okay--as they saying goes in Germany, "when that cat is out of the house, the mice dance on the tables." In other words, I had no homework over the weekend so I wanted to dance on tables. Hence, my very German spontaneous weekend.
I have been in Germany for over 3 months now; I was bound to make some German friends. When I got out of school on Thursday I went over to Dominik's flat. Wait, some history, sadly, a few weeks ago his car finally kicked the bucket. He has been stuck in Bonn for two weekends. Bonn is not really known for being a party town, so if you want to go out you need to take public transportation or have a car. As we all know, having a car means you are very independent and do not have to schedule around the public transpiration. So, when I was over at Dominik's he asked what I wanted to do this weekend. I told him I had been to west German, south Germany, and east Germany, but not in north Germany. We talked about different things we could do and eventually landed on renting a car and heading up to north Germany.
That evening his mom drove us to Avis (the car rental place--same one in the USA). Yes, his mom. She so happens to live in the same apartment complex as him around the corner. Sweet lady, only speaks German. Anyways, when we got to the car place they said they were out of cars. But they did have the backup Audi TT 2008. Because it was the last car on site they gave it to us at the compact price (not sports price) and the 3 day special weekend rate. On top of that, I used my ASLA Avis discount (Danke Landscape Architecture Society of America). The grand total was only 150€ (we split it 50/50), instead of 260€. That also included unlimited kilometers; we just had to pay for gas.
That night we headed out and went clubbing in Dusseldorf, Bochum, and Essen. They are all near each other. Furthest one is about 2 hours from Bonn. We had so much fun. In Bochum, we went to a club called Stargate. Yes, Stargate like the movie. The entire club was decorated like SG-1 with a mockup Stargate behind the dance floor. The other dance floor of the club was decorated like one of the Egyptian ships. For happy hour, which is around midnight, they had 1€ cocktails. I danced on the dance floor for over 4 hours straight. The rest of the weekend was just that. We bounced around club to club, driving the awesome car (getting much attention from the ladies), and sleeping at his friends house in Essen (saved me alot of money!). My favorite song of the night was ,,Alles Neu" by Peter Fox.
Oh, Dominik had never been in a sports car before and he fell in love with it--wanted photos with it as well, as you can see. I wanted him to drive mostly because he knew the area well and it was dark. It was really fun to play with the 6 gear transmission. Also, in Germany the autobahn (highways) has no speed limit. The recommended speed is 130 km/h (81 mph), but there is not a necessarily posted speed. So on one of the straight stretches, and the road having no traffic because it was late, Dominik opened it up and we got up to 220 km/h (137 mph). It was very exhilarating. Amazingly, the car is so comfortable, it did not feel like 137 mph; if I had to of guessed, I would have said it was 90 mph.
We got back to Bonn Sunday at 9pm; which was good. The next morning I had so much work at school. We had a project day. We basically design for 8 hours straight. I was mentally exhausted after. I was glad to have a weekend of simple independent travel; helped me relax some. This week at school is going to be very difficult and intensive. Only three weeks left in Germany.
Wo ist das Dussel?
This week in school we went on a few excursions to Dusseldorf. We learned about the history, architecture, and culture of the city. It is a relatively young city, founded in 1135, yet, Dusseldorf is the capital of capital city of the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia (containing both Bonn and Cologne). I think Cologne should have been the capital. Dusseldorf just feels smaller.
The main thing we were interested in was the Dussel River. Dusseldorf was settled on the river, hence its name meaning "Dussel Village." The Dussel went around the original city, forming an island. As the city expanded they built over the river, incasing it underground. Now, almost all of the river is under ground. Hence the phrase, "Where is the Dussel?" On our tip we learned about a group trying to uncover, or "day light," the river and restore its ecological banks (remove the concrete/stone culvert that incases the river). The city has an opportunity to uncover the river and create a kind of "San Antonio River Walk" feature in the city.
Also on our trip we saw my 3rd Frank Gehry building. This time, instead of one large building on the lot, Gehry designed three buildings on one foundation of a underground parking lot. Each building's facade is different. The south building (A) is brick, middle (B) is stainless steel, and north (C) is stucco. The brick building represents the original materials of the harbor (where the buildings stand). The Stucco building represents the new architecture to the north. The middle building's stainless steel facade reflects the other two building facade, symbolically/visually representing the merging of the old south harbor architecture and the new north architecture. The buildings are interesting, but they sit in a field of concrete--no plants or landscaping. They looking like they just where plopped on the lot; interesting.