After dinner last night we got into a room full of people.   A bunch of guys from Saskatchewan and a dude from the UK were all hanging out pre-drinking before going out.

Soon they headed out to do their thing and Shawn, being a lover of Karaoke, headed out to some spot nearby to do his thing.

It was 10pm and I had the whole room to myself!

So, after catching up on the most recent episode of Survivor, I was turned in to bed at midnight in an empty room.

And boy did I sleep well!

It wasn’t until 9am that I finally got up.

After a frantic search for my damn pants which, it turns out, we’re (accidently??) scooped up by one of the Saskatchewan dudes, I was ready and out the door to grab some breakfast by 10am.

Today the temperature finally let up a bit and it was 10C this morning compared to the 4C we’ve usually been having.

Soon we were at the train station and ready to board the train to our next destination…

Train adventures

We were off to Düsseldorf today.   The city lies about a half hour train ride to the north from Cologne.

Ironically, despite such a short train ride, we had a little adventure on the train this morning.

Or more specifically, Shawn did.

The train company DB offers up BahnCards that are discount cards for your fares.   For €62.90 you can apply a 25% discount on all your ticket purchases.

They also have a trial offer for only €19.90 ($30) which both Shawn and I purchased.

As for all the train tickets, I had bought them all myself for both of us before the trip had started.

So, on my phone app I’ve got all the tickets and my BahnCard and on Shawn’s phone app he just has his BahnCard.

Anyway, the train attendant came by to scan our train tickets.

Usually they just scan the QR code on my phone that contains both train tickets and move on to the next person.

This time she wanted to scan the QR codes for our BahnCards as well.

No problem.

I just clicked another link on the app and it displayed the other QR code.

And then Shawn went to do the same.

He couldn’t find it.   And his app was in German.

Dear lord!

It took more than 5 minutes to finally figure out to just close the app and reopen it.

Anyway, it was an adventure.

Welcome to Düsseldorf

I couldn’t find a decent hostel for our one night in Düsseldorf so I had booked us a shared twin room in a hotel close to the train station.

We arrived at 1pm and, despite having a checkin time of 3pm, the let us checkin early and drop our bags off in our room.

The plan today was simple.

Just go in the old town to explore a little, see some attractions in the city, and have an early night.

Space Burger

I had a place called Space Burger marked on my map because they offered gluten free buns.

Sure enough, as we walked up to the restaurant, there was a huge pink sign sitting on the sidewalk exclaiming “Gluten Free Buns Available”

The interior design looked like the 80’s came by to visit and never left.

Homages to Space Invaders and Michael Jackson along with 80s artwork on the walls.

The menu was all burgers and has over 20 choices.

I went with the Neufundlander which was a patty, cheese, bacon, fried onions and egg.

Oh, and a caramel/vanilla milkshake.

And possibly the best fries I’ve ever had!

Seriously!   Each bite was so nice and crispy.

Anyway, the burger was awesome, the meal was awesome.

It was a good way to start our brief time in Düsseldorf.

A clock show

Next up was the Schneider Wibbel clock situated in the middle of the Old Town.

Similar, but at a much smaller scale, to the Astronomical Clock in Prague, a little man pops out of the clock every 2 hours and sings a song.

A two minute song.

It was quite a show and unlike it’s more famous cousin, there weren’t dozens and dozens of people swarmed around it. Just a few of us.

A walk along the river

After walking through the Old Town, we headed along the Rheinuferpromenade which is a pedestrian street along the Rhein river.

Since we were along the river there was a bit of a breeze so, for the first time today, I put on my touque.

Now, this touque I bought in Cologne actually has the word Koln on the side which is the German variation of the city name.

When I wear the toque back home no one will bat an eye as they’ll just think it’s some exotic name brand.

Here in Düsseldorf, I rolled the toque up a bit so the name wouldn’t show.

Why, you may ask?

Well, I found out on my walking tour yesterday that people from Cologne and from Dusseldorf have a very heated rivalry.

In fact, you could almost call it a hatred for one another.

Anyway, no way I was gonna get caught wearing a hat with Koln on it in Düsseldorf.

After a nice walk along the river, we ended up at the foot of Rheinturm.

A view from above

The Rheinturm is a 168m tower with a viewing platform at the top.

For €12.50 ($18) we got to take a high speed elevator up to the top.

The elevator didn’t have floor numbers.   Instead the display showed the height in meters whipping by on the display.

It only took 48 seconds to get all the way to the top.

It was a clear day today so we were able to see a 360 view of the city down below.

Well worth the €12.50.

Dinner on a Friday night

A quick metro ride took us back to our hotel at 4:30 where we just relaxed for a few hours.

Around 7:30 we headed back out for dinner.

The Italian place I had marked near our hotel was packed to the brim.

Me, being me, didn’t even contemplate that maybe, just maybe, I should have made a reservation for a restaurant on a Friday night.

In my defense though, in all my travels I’ve never had to make a reservation.   I’ve always just walked in and been sat at a table.

Also, I had no idea it was Friday night.

You know, traveling and all, you don’t really think about what day of the week it is.

So, we took ourselves back into the Old Town where we had seen dozens of restaurants when we were there this afternoon.

Holy sh*t.

These streets are crazy on a Friday night.

So many people!

We passed a few places, looked at a few menus, and then finally found our place for dinner.

German food?

Nope.

Italian?   French?   American?

Nope, nope, and definately nope.

Nah.   We had Lebanese!

And it was good.

And cheap!

For just €14 ($21) I got two nice moist and tender grilled chicken cutlets with fries and salad.

It’s a shame the place was virtually empty on a street full of thriving and bustling bars and restaurants because their food was really good and cheap for what you got.

Afterwards we just headed back to our hotel and called it a night by 10:30pm.

And that was it.

That was the day.

We had come to see Düsseldorf for a short time and I thought we pretty much saw everything we came to see.

Tomorrow is a day with 5 cities and 5 train rides.

Should be exciting!