The follow-up

Back in the train thinking about the strange day I experienced today. It started out quite great: the sun was shining, I love traveling by train in general, I had a tasty sandwich and hot coffee as breakfast, I was listening to some new music on my i-pod (WBA, prodigy and royksopp) and I was finishing Pnin (Nabokov) with as back-up the ‘boekenweek-geschenk’ (a small story which is written every year by a famous Dutch writer on a certain theme) which allowed me to travel for free till the border (some sort of way to promote reading and traveling… I think).
As I mention above, I love traveling by train. I enjoy the change in landscape, the different people you meet, the nice pace. And, honestly, the track from Venlo (NL) to Düsseldorf is quite a nice trip, worth taking! Slowly the landscape changes into a greener and slightly hilly surrounding, the houses change features, the roads look different, the road signs, everything. (Funny remark: the first thing I saw when we crossed the border was a guy in a field with his pants down… don’t ask me why.) Suddenly people speak German, and you feel like you are in totally another country (something I also experience when going to Belgium) and I love that experience. I wonder why people so close from each other suddenly speak different, dress different, even behave different. Sometimes you have this sudden feeling of complete happiness, that’s what I experienced this morning.
Arriving in Düsseldorf, I must admit I was a bit stressed: I had been trying calling the two friends who I was supposed to meet (one even said he would travel with me by train from some small place near Düsseldorf), however, I wasn’t able to reach them before arriving in Düsseldorf. But as I said in my previous post, I am not that easy to be thrown off guard and had been contemplating on nice things to do in the city until I would be able to meet them.
One of my friends is in Wuppertal for a conference, while she is currently living in Tbilisi. I thought it was so great she came to Germany (and Düsseldorf: how close!) that I decided I wanted to meet her. One week ahead we already discussed this meeting and I was confident it would all work out. Since another friend of mine, who I also have met in Tbilisi, lives near Düsseldorf, I decided also to let him know about my plans, so there would be an opportunity to meet him too, which he agreed upon.
Unfortunately I wasn’t been able to reach them when arriving in Düsseldorf. I decided to go to the nearest café with wi-fi to check if I had received an email and to plan what I could be doing in the wonderful city of Düsseldorf, also known as the largest beer garden in the world. It started of quite weird as I saw myself lost in the Japanese (!) part of town. Although it was for sure quite interesting, I was also kind of curious about the real German part of Düsseldorf.
I found on googlemaps some musea and the Japanese speaking German (I am serious: He was German and he spook fluent Japanese to his customers!) might have been a bit odd, but he was really nice and showed me on the map some more nice sightseeing’s.
I decided to start of with the Goethe Museum, which was, unfortunately, rather boring. The lady at the counter wasn’t that nice, and about the content… people who have been at the Stalin museum in Gori, might understand what I mean.
The following part of my ‘adventure’ in Düsseldorf consisted of a nice walk through the park. Just like I love traveling by train, that is also how I love going to a park: I am easily pleased if walking through a park (nice tip for the ones who find themselves one day hosting me in their home-town: take me to a park and I am happy). The walk ended at the river Rhine. While I seated down on one of the benches and enjoyed the incredible view over the water, I saw I had received an unpleasant message on my phone. My German friend had to cancel our meeting, he didn’t feel well and wanted to stay home. Although on one hand I found it unreasonable to be mad on someone who got sick (it’s not something you can do about it) on the other hand it kind of pissed me of, mainly because I figured that if I would have troubles contacting one, I would still have another friend to meet. Now I only had my Tbilisi friend, who was still unreachable. But I hate people who complain, and I don’t like negativity in general, so I decided to put my negative mood aside and enjoy anyway.
Walking in old town, however, didn’t do too much well. Although it is a nice town, it is really German, for a Dutch person just way to kitsch. Though I liked the small streets with pink houses in Riga and I did enjoy the authenticity in Strasbourg, I just couldn’t really enjoy Düsseldorf. And, again admitting, mainly because I had imagined this day to be a totally different one.
I must tell you, I have been missing the Georgian way of living a lot: the chaos, the craziness, the friendly people (read: the supra-napping, the phsycadelic dance parties, gaumarjos). Here in the Netherlands it is not only really structured, but there is also such a negative (maybe even spoiled) tendency. I kind of hoped meeting my friends, though not Georgian but experiencing crazy Georgian things with, would allow that crazy happiness to show itself to me again. I even smuggled some pod over the border (I mean, that is really crazy for me, I am normally way to brave to even buy it! Though it is legal in Holland….). I asked my Tbilisi friend to bring some good-old chacha (Georgian vodka) and I imagined myself drinking beers with them, smoking weed and doing crazy stuff all day. Having that in the back of your mind while walking through Sunday-Düsseldorf all alone, is just sort of a disappointment, as you might understand.
However, when I went back to the Netherlands by train, I realized I did have a really nice day overall. I had the chance to do something totally different then working and studying all the time, I enjoyed the sun, I was abroad being a tourist. I had no worries whatsoever related to work/studies. There were no negative Dutch around me to complain about everything and I did what I love most: traveling/reading/exploring. So to come to somewhat of a conclusion: Düsseldorf isn’t that bad after all and I had a nice day ;).