Day 51: 3/06/99: Düsseldorf

Here is a pretty good interactive map. ( http://www.stadtplandienst.de/query )

"Out of Africa!" We said goodbye to Africa and flew to Amsterdam on KLM airline. At 7:30 a.m. we were about to land at the Schiphol  airport at Amsterdam. At the airport as our climb and safari friends continued with their flight back to U.S, we got into our Hertz rental car and drove to Germany. Fortunately I did not get into an accident while driving even I was pretty tired after a long flight from Tanzania.

See, we made it to our hotel room in Dusseldorf at 11:30 a.m. We stayed at Lindner Hotel Rhein Residence ( http://reservierung.lindner.de/ ) at Düsseldorf. It was a pretty nice place to stay.

The room was relatively large. I resisted the temptation to surf the WEB using the TV. It was fun trying to watch all the television shows in Germany. However, it seems that CNN is everywhere.

Yes, we could actually drink water from the faucet, unlike in Tanzania.

After taking a nice hot shower, we walked around and had lunch. Theresa had her first taste of Rhine Riesling white wine. I had an Alt beer.

We were impressed with this nice book store. It was difficult to buy anything since neither of us read Germany.

Goethe Buchhandlung ( http://www.goethebuch.de ) (40477 Dusseldorf, Duisburger Str. 11) was not the size of a Barns and Noble, but it was a very pleasant place to browse. We did buy a nice ceramic tile for 8.95 DM/4.58 EUR.

What's the most critical thing to do after several weeks of traveling? Even though we got our laundry done several times in Tanzania, we took advantage of a nearby self-service laundry. While Theresa read, I had a fun time translating a Chinese restaurant's take-out menu from Germany to English! I'm ready to go to any Chinese restaurant in Germany now :-)

You don't think I'll go eat Chinese food in Germany! Since we were tired, we went to the restaurant right at the hotel. It was actually very nice. Theresa had another glass of the Riesling. I had a Gatz alt beer, which was dark and flavorful. European restaurants are really nice, but there are too many people smoking cigarettes. Oh well.

I had a nice dinner of grilled salmon. Look at the baked potato with the sour cream. Yummy. The grilled salmon came with three different kinds of dipping sauce.

Day 52: 3/07/99: Düsseldorf

Theresa and I enjoyed a buffet breakfast at our hotel.

I ate, ate, and ate. Why?

Just look at all the food. There were three kind of fresh juices, cheese, cold cut, smoked salmon, cereal, nuts, fresh fruits, soft-boiled eggs, bread, roll, pastries. I sampled everything! Well, I lost more than 5 lbs. on Mt. Kilimanjaro; I wasted no time in trying to gain all the weight back :-)

Germany people is neat, clean, and organized. I was especially impressed all the flowers.

This is the front of our hotel.

Theresa and I explored the neighborhood near our hotel. There were a lot of apartments and also a lot of streets that have restaurants and shops. We parked out car in the garage (Tiefgarage Kaiser-Park) next to our hotel. It was an interesting situation the next day as we tried to pay for our parking but ran out of change. Fortunately I was able to ran back to the hotel lobby and got some coins exchanged.

We tried to look for a Catholic church to go to mass since it was Sunday. We did not have much luck with the phone book in our hotel room since we had problems locating the section that lists churches. However, we followed the church bell that was ringing near our hotel. Guess what? It was actually a Catholic church.

Altar.

Beautiful, modern-looking stainless window.

Pipe organ.

Theresa and I lit a candle and said a prayer of thanksgiving for our vacation.

Is not this a cool looking public telephone booth? I guess it's easy to see it in the dark :-)

An interesting office building. No, that was not a paper airplane on the top of the building. It sure looked like one, though. :-)

We had a nice walk through a park.

We did not have time to visit every museum. We skipped this one.

However, since Theresa is a lover of modern art, she did not pass the chance of visiting this Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Wesfalen museum. ( http://www.kunstsammlung.de/ )

Theresa and I both enjoyed soup for dinner. She had bean soup, and I had beet soup. For dessert I thought I was ordering something fancy--instead I got a big plate of cheese and crackers. Oh well!

After lunch we continued with our exploration of Dusseldorf.

We went inside of this church to get a brief break from the rain. Even though we were not longer on top of Mt. Kilimanjaro, but our Gore-Tex jackets sure came in handy to protect us from the elements.

Though we were out of Africa, I never give up the chance of taking a picture of elephants. Here were Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden.

The church was re-built after World War II. There were a few pieces of sculptures saved from the destruction.

I liked the cobble stone pavement.

Despite the cold and the wind, Theresa and I had a long and invigorating walk along the Rhine.

We were about to cross the Rhine on top of that suspension bridge.

There were people playing soccer on the grassy field along the Rhine.

Perhaps one of the most interesting discoveries on our walk was seeing all these gardens that are tended by people who are living in nearby apartments and homes that are too small to have their own gardens.

Gee. Why were there trees growing from the river? Later on we found out that there was a big flood just a week prior to our visit.

Pretty nice apartments facing the Rhine.

Theresa was especially impressed by the copper roof on this apartment.

It was pretty windy to walk on this bridge. There was a lot of traffic, including the train that traveled in the middle of the bridge.

There were also a number of barges that passed right below us.

Here was a Mercedes Benz that zoomed into my shot. German drives much faster than American.

By chance we visited this museum that had a temporary display of Volkswagen beetle. Theresa was ready to buy one right then and there. I don't think this car will fight into our luggage, though :-)

No, this beetle was not bombed. It was totally disassembled to show the guts of this car.

Aren't you ready to get into the driver's seat and drive away? :-)

I think it's pretty cool for me to use my most modern digital camera to take a picture of a very old camera. Besides, Theresa said that she owned a Kodak Brownie before.

It's also ironic that I'm here writing about the original IBM PC that was powered by an Intel 8088 processor while using my Pentium II 300Mhz PC. The computer industry has really changed a lot. I do remember using a PC at Intel 15 years ago.

I'm ready to buy this Smart Car to commute to work. However, see below.

People at my work know that I usually like to wear colorful shirts; I think this car is perfect for me!

Theresa and I like to go camping. However, we are not sure about this idea. Our dog Rondo certainly will have problem going up and down. :-)

We enjoyed the rest of the show. Notice the dune buggy and the pick-up truck version of the Beetle.

Easter is coming up. German really know how to celebrate the resurrection of Christ. We were impressed by all the Easter decoration and the chocolate goodies.