Kuya got us aisle seats on our flight to Düsseldorf. Would've preferred a window seat, but it was alright. We arrived at night anyway, not much to see. A balding Indian guy sat next to me. He probably went to EuroShop as well. He had three phones with him, and he kept tinkering with all three of them the entire flight. If we had crashed that night, I would have had no one to blame but him. Haha. I mean, c'mon, there's a reason why phones aren't allowed to be switched on during the flight. And the cabin crew did remind us. Jeez.
We arrived 10 minutes later than scheduled, due to high traffic in Düsseldorf's skies, nevertheless, it was a good flight. I was quite hungry when we arrived because I chose sleep over plane food, which really is a good choice anytime unless you're dying of starvation. And the handles of my luggage got ripped. Crap. The customs officer I went to seemed surprised to see me for some reason. I probably looked too young to have a business visa. I had a 3 second panic moment when he looked at me, looked at my visa, looked at me again with an expression that seemed to say "what the heck are you doing here?" so I gave him my best smile, and finally he stamped my passport and gave it back to me with a pretty nice smile too. Danke, Mr. Customs Guy.
So, Düsseldorf. It was pretty quiet when we got out of the airport. Dark, cold, gloomy. Neuss, where our hotel was located- on the other side of the Rhein River- was even more quiet. The trees looked like they were picked out of a horror movie. Winter had taken all their leaves away, and they stood like swaying skeletons in the dead of night. Creepy. My room had a huge window that looked out to the creepy trees, and the whole night I kept imagining they would reach in and grab me. It was my first time to be alone in a hotel room, and it was a huge room too, with an extra bed, two sofas that faced the beds, a big closet that I didn't want to open for fear of something jumping out...so yeah, my imagination went into overdrive. It was going to be a long, cold night.
We went to Altstadt for dinner. It claims to be the longest bar in the world, but it really is just a strip of bars and pubs that ran fora couple of kilometers. It was pretty cool though. Everybody was outside, drinking their beer, laughing, fighting the cold. It was exactly how I imagined our first night would be. But then we ate pizza, at Pizza Hut no less. My companions weren't feeling too adventurous the first night, and we had a big day ahead of us, so ok, pizza. Then we went into an Irish pub and had some Guinness. Which made me feel guilty towards Germany. Eating pizza wasn't enough, we had to drink Irish beer too. Tsk tsk.
After walking around and taking pictures for a few minutes, we decided to check out a curiously named discotheque, also along Altstadt- Peter Pam. No, I didn't misspell that, it really is Peter Pam. Don't ask me why, I have no idea. Maybe it's Peter Pan in German? :P The interior was washed in ultraviolet light, and teenagers in white were glowing and gyrating to the American music. Suddenly we felt very old. We were gonna dance, but when we saw the much too young ones shakin' what their mommas gave them, we settled on ordering a couple more beers and moaning about how ancient we were. We were too tired to look for another place, so we just sat there watching the kids bump and grind like there was no tomorrow. I suddenly wished I had spent my teenage years in that city. Haha.
Went back to the hotel, all exhausted and old. I faced down the creepy trees and had a good enough sleep. Beer has its advantages after all.
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