After the non-stop
excitement of the London weekend, Essen greeted me with
more of the usual - pommes frittes and the felafel stand, freaks on the tram
and my increasingly messy room at the hotel (a ripple of surprised gasps
tumbles through the crowd). Lovely moments were had though, and are
detailed as follows:
Tuesday
Sorry, can i just first of
all say that i now understand why people keep diaries - it's so much
easier than constructing a flowing narrative.
on Tuesday Annabel and i
slept in and were late for our first class, so didn't go to any of them
("would've been bollocks anyway", we grunted). Instead we wandered
the town looking for a nice cafe (a long trek that ended in disappointment and
hot lemon drinks at the only nice cake shop we've been able to find so far,
breaking our 'never go to the same place twice when you're in an exciting
foreign land' rule) and trying desperately not to buy things as the january
sales, subtly forgetting their end date, continued to hound us with their
relentless barrage of affordable winter clothing. in the afternoon we got
ourselves a train timetable and a sonar device and trekked out to the tiny
outer suburb in which the bus company who had my glasses is situated. this
turned out to be a lovely trip and the sonar device was absolutely not
necessary as we would happily have stayed there forever. Kupferdreh, as it is
known to people who can pronounce such things, is exactly the kind of village
one pictures when one imagines ye olde europa - quaint houses, the odd
cobblestone street, pretty churches... naturally it's also been taken over by
supermarkets and hairdressers (and a diving shop, which A and i stared at,
bewildered, for a few moments before deciding that there are just some things
in germany that we will never understand), but the pubs are still old and
beautiful and it has a wonderful atmosphere. we wandered to the edge of the
town looking for the bus depot - i say depot because having seen a number of
buses belonging to this company traipsing around the place that's exactly we
expected - much to our delight and amusement though, what we actually found was
a tiny mechanic's workshop adjoined by a small lean-to office filled with
grubby smoking old men. the surly secretary handed me my glasses and bid us a
quick farewell before the old fellas could start in on us. they assured us that
we're welcome to visit any time and we escaped, relieved, to an ice-cream café*
via a gorgeous handmade jewellery shop before heading back to the dreariness of
home.
Wednesday
After finally attending our
classes in a manner similar to that of good students, we visited Dusseldorf. We were aware
of how lovely Dusseldorf is and had for this
reason put off our visit – we decided early that Dusseldorf
would probably only make Essen
look sad and tired by comparison and didn’t want to create such disappointment
for ourselves too early. We were absolutely right and I was very glad we’d
waited. Dusseldorf
was exquisite, it has a beautiful old town, interesting museums and a very
picturesque walk along the river. As usual we ate cake (in a traditional-ish
greek café) and drank beer. The beer brings me to the long-established rivalry
between Cologne and Dusseldorf, at the centre of which appears to
be a feud over which beer is better. So, our answer to the age-old Altbier (Dusseldorf) or Koelsch (Cologne) question is…
Altbier.
But don’t tell anyone in Cologne I said that.
Thursday
On Thursday we saw a
performance (actually, half a performance, for reasons that will become clear)
of Swan Lake that I will describe for want of
better words as unconventional. Crazed
modern dance students (Annabel calls them ballet-school-dropouts, she spent the
better part of her childhood en pointe and so has earned the right to be
something of a purist) flailing about with a flimsy grasp on the concept of rhythm
and even less understanding of synchronized movement. The moves were
unimaginative and repetitive, and gosh darnit, it’s just not ballet if they’re
not wearing shoes. The costumes were
odd, and apparently poorly organised because when they turned into swans they
had only skirts to cover themselves with and so ran about the stage clutching
their skirts to their breasts and looking most ungraceful indeed. Uncomfortable
with such erratic and rough movement juxtaposed with the intense beauty of the
music, Annabel and I left at interval like a pair of snobs so as not to waste
another 40 minutes or so of our lives looking at each other, horrified, and
trying to work out exactly what was going on.
Friday
There were workers climbing
through Annabel’s window for reasons we were happy not to know so we escaped to
the city for more coffee drinking (seriously, coffee drinking and beer
drinking, it’s just like I’m in Australia except it’s cold.) and faffing about
before returning home. I stayed in and discovered german tv – it turns out they’re
hilarious!
Saturday was the train trip
to berlin for the week, Berlin
stories to follow.
*some explanation is
perhaps necessary here, you did read correctly, ‘ice-cream café’. “are you
insane??”, I hear you ask, “sub-zero temperatures and you’re eating ice-cream?!” and I can understand your
confusion, as I was equally perplexed when I arrived here and saw these curious
establishments bloody everywhere. Brisbane is almost always
warm, and has only 2 cafes of this desserts-only persuasion, both owned by the
same people, and because of the liquor-licensing laws, they’re not even solely
devoted to desserts! The idea of freaky-cold germany
being more excited about ice-cream than crazy-hot Brisbane did bake my noodle, i must admit. The
idea has grown on me though, thanks partially to the presence of these cafes on
practically every block but mostly to Annabel’s crippling penchant for ‘spaghetti
eis’ (vanilla ice-cream pushed through a spaghetti machine and covered with
cherry sauce and grated white chocolate). Oddly, I’m now completely ok with the
idea of eating ice-cream in the cold (at least it doesn’t melt!) and do so
(arguably a little too) frequently. Most places offer a dish which involves ice
cream and bailey’s too, so that helps to warm things up.
