Giving Due to the Dusseldorf Do

Rheinturm

I took the day off of work on Friday and drove in to Dusseldorf from Eindhoven around noon.  I have never been to Dusseldorf before, so had to do the quick pre-check to see if I would be adding to my hat collection from Hard Rock Cafe...but neither is located in the city.  I did find that there is a Hooters in Bochum which is not too far away, but decided to head straight into town instead. 

I found my hotel (Hotel Dusseldorf Mitte) and then made the proper guess as to which parking garage I was supposed to use, and checked into my room by 1:30.  I was pleasently surprised when the hotel handed me a free pass for public transportation good for the entire weekend, an unexpected bonus!  The room was nicer than I expected, and the two packs of free Gummy Bears helped brighten the mood :-)

I decided I was early so I would head down to the Rhineturm today since I wasn't sure if we'd be going up later in the day or what the weather would bring.  I sent Lauro an SMS en route, and before I even got to the tower I was told to about face and head back up to the Hauptbahnhof as the first group of people from the Netherlands was arriving for a 3PM meetup.  Got there just in time for meeting the group...

Look Kids! Jan Willem! Town Hall!

Met up with Lauro and the beginning of the gang at 3PM at the Hauptbahnhof.  Others present were alex-b, globetrottingmike, 1morespicy,  festerwretch, ketmeister, travnet, Wendyveer, jamarek, sonja227, johan0604 and melissatms.  A presentation was made giving Lauro the first of his three presents, the Orange Horn. 

Lauro went to get metro tickets for the group, and jos-nijenhuis arrived while he was away.  Jos was staying at a hotel near me, so while Lauro went to bring the rest of the group to their hostel, we went back to our hotels and then met the group again at the Hbf at 4:30 or so.  We all hopped on the metro for a trip to the Altstadt where Lauro began a walking tour of the area, explaining the history of Jan-Willem the founder of Dusseldorf whose statue is in the central square, and over the coming hours, the most seen sight in the city.

Tha gang in the Burgplatz, along the promenade, awaiting the arrival of Thy.

We stopped for a beer at Schaukel-stühlchen then headed down to the promenade where we met icetea.  We walked along the promenade towards the Rheinturm, with Lauro and Ket breaking off to pick up the next arriving group(s) of travbuddies...little did we know we wouldn't be seeing them for a few hours more, with 10 more travbuddies in tow...

We tried to stop for a coffee at a local coffee shop near where we'd be eating dinner on Saturday, but they were closing up already, so we hopped across the street for some good-ol' Starbucks.  Willem will be owning them soon from what I understand...

We then headed back to the Rheinturm to wait for Lauro and the others, but decided after a while it would be better to meet them in the Altstadt where we could wait more comfortably (with food and drinks at hand).

Warming up after eating.

For Dinner, we wanted something small, as Saturday was to be the real meet-up dinner, so we opted for tapas in the Altstadt.  Thy brought us all to Alegria where the waiters went through the trouble of displacing one group of diners so we could have two entire columns of tables for our group.  By the end of dinner, we had spilled over into a third entire column.

Around the time our food arrived (tapas...mein gott, this was a lot of tapas!) Lauro arrived with the second wave for the meetup.  Wave 2 introduced me to mattgtfour, oussjarrouse, avemaximus, sylvie1, Diaaan, vosking, bmatital, Koosje88, wouternet, and oetzi.  Dinner was consumed, minor quantities of beer (or wine in some cases) as well, and everyone crowded around the lone heater for our area of tables.

"Listen to that guy singing behind us...can you believe it?"

After dinner was completed, the most exciting part of the evening commenced...trying to find a bar or club that was able to handle 22 people coming in at once on a Friday night.  The first attempt was at a Cuban place, but no luck there.  We wandered over to a local brewery (Look kids, Jan-Willem! Town Hall!) where we managed to get a round, but they only served beer, which did not suit everyone's tastes.  Back into the heart of the Altstadt (Look kids, Jan-Willem! Town Hall!) where we tried another club, but this place was also packed.  We tried then at one other beer hall type establishment that also served wine and spirits, and managed to commandeer the entire left half of the bar.

Having established a beachead here, we remained until almost 3AM, when we remembered that we all promised to go to bed early so back to the respective hostels and hotels we went.  Remember, go straight until the big white building, then turn left, then right. 

I'll let the other blogs tell the tale of this evening, from the method of tracking orders (at least they used coasters, and didn't just write on the paper tablecloth like they do in Köln) to musical entertainment.  All in all, a fun night was had by all.