Took a trip to Dusseldorf with a friend on Saturday evening. Dusseldorf is about an hour drive, northwest of Bonn. We planned to walk around so I could check out the town, have dinner, check out some live music and just enjoy the evening. However, the evening didn't quite work out as well as planned. When we left Bonn, it was overcast and warm but when we arrived in Dusseldorf it was raining which added a chill in the air. Not exactly the best for walking around town. Although, it really reminded me of Seattle. Lots of green trees, people were still out walking around with umbrellas although, I'm told that more people would have been outside if it weren't raining. We walked around the shopping area and there was quite a bit! It's more upscale shopping like Prada, Armani, Cartier and Tiffany's but you still have the lower and middle end shopping too like H&M, Levi's, and their local large department stores like Kaufhauf (not sure of the spelling).
We walked down to the waterfront on the Rhine River and across the river on the other side is a large carnival, which I've added a photo. It was pretty miserable with the rain, so we didn't stay long. We went to a local brewery pub and it was huge inside! Not to mention, it was packed! Dusseldorf is known for their Altbier, which means old beer. It's a bit darker, similar to an amber beer. It was okay but really nothing special, per my taste buds. It is interesting that at the brew pub, they do have food menus, however they have waiters that take platters of food around and offer it to you. Apparently the main thing you go for is the beer and you can have a little food if you like too. And the waiters take large trays of beer already poured in glasses and offer them from table to table if you want another beer. I guess this is the easiest way to serve beer to people, as they only have one beer option. They also had one guy taking around a bucket of dill pickles and offering them to people to eat. Now that was a new one I didn't expect!!! Dill pickles in a bucket at a brew pub. LOL
After I was able to try the Altbier, we went to a Lebonese restaurant for dinner. I've never had this type of food, so it was all new to me. They served about 10 different tapas (small plates) and they bring them in 3 different courses, with the meat as the last course. Basically you snack through the dinner on a little of everything. I really enjoyed the hummus and a few dips similar to hummus. The pickled veggies were tasty too! But my favoite was the meat at the end but of course, I was a little full by that point. The the chicken and beef was SO delicious! The chicken was cooked with garlic and oh my! YUM!!! I would have loved to take that home with me, but I was told that take out boxes are not common in Germany. My friend said he once asked for a takeout box for leftovers and a few Germans with him laughed and gave him a bad time about the American asking for a doggie bag. The only downside was the dinner was incredibly long.....2.5 hours! I guess that is typical since you snack and socialize over the many small dishes of food, but it was a bit long for me. Although, during dinner, they did have 2 belly dancing shows and the woman was a very good entertainer! She even got a few people in the restaurant to get up and dance but you didn't catch me doing that.
After dinner we went to a small piano bar. We stayed for a bit but I just couldn't handle it very long. By the time it filled with people, it was also filled with a LOT of cigarette smoke. It sure seemed that every person in the bar was smoking excpet for us and I couldn't handle the smoke and got a really bad headache. So, that is a big difference that I'm not use too. And not sure that I can get use to hanging out in bars if they are filled with smoke. But the brew pub and the restaurant weren't so bad. There were still smokers but not as bad. And of course, in the nice weather, you can sit outside on the patio's, which is very common and the fresh air helps cut down on the smoke. But very interesting difference in culture from the US.
Overall, it was interesting to check out Dusseldorf but the rain put a damper on the experience. Hoping for more sunny days when I explore the area!
No comments:
Post a Comment