Dusseldorf, Germany
Trip Start
Feb 27, 2008
1
21
31
Trip End
May 28, 2008
Dusseldorf,
Germany
Monday, April 28, 2008
Germans are famous for their arguing. I prefer to call it discussion. We're familiar with the daily discourse with Jens, but I found it interesting that Christoph and both of his roommates all enjoyed engaging in deep philosophical conversations during our brunch. Germany is a very socialist country. For those of you Americans who think that socialism is the same as Communism, it's not! Socialist governments are very focused on the welfare of the people within the system. Even if it's not profitable. Capitalism doesn't rule in a socialist state and so some very interesting ideas came from the Germans that totally blew our minds coming from a Capitalist land. For example. Jens and Christofph believed that every person should receive a base salary. Say 500-1000 Euros, for doing nothing, then if they get a job, they get money on top of that they can use to buy extra things for themselves above and beyond food, clothing, and shelter. Karla and I had a hard time wrapping our heads around this thought because we know that if everyone in America got 1500 a month for doing nothing, nobody would do anything.
Dusseldorf Bridge
AND, inflation would cause all the rent and cost of bread and everything to go up because the bread and housing people would know that everyone had at least $1500 and could afford it. After about an hour of going around and around about this, I hit on a very key point that hadn't been raised yet. Most rent is controlled by the German Government, as is the price of many staple commodities, This is the key to making Christoph's idea work. The ability to put money in people's hands without causing inflation. It sound's good, but who's going to pay for it. Germans already pay 50% of their wage to taxes, but for that they get benefits like free health care, unemployment, and a government retirement that isn't on a path of self destruction like Social Security is in America. Jens had found out that the museum that he wanted to take us to was closed that day, so we would have to move on to the next thing on our itinerary. We thanked Christoph for the brunch and the coffee and departed Essen headed for Dusseldorf. During our discussion, Jens had stepped out and gone to his parents house to pick up their car, which they were letting us use for the next three days. So now we were driving, it was strange, this was the first time I'd been in a car (aside from three taxi's) in two months. German freeways don't have maximum speed limits. When they pass through urban areas, there are speed advisories and if you violate them, you can get a ticket, but there are no officers on the freeway, only photo radar boxes.
Dusseldorf pub
In fact, there is a law against officers pulling people over on the freeways because of the danger of passing cars. As we speed along at 105mph, I think about how great this idea is, I'm still not a socialist though. In a matter of minutes we were in Dusseldorf. It's a newer looking city straddling the Rhine, with lots of shopping districts and cool eateries and bars in the downtown. We would be staying with Sebastian and Elisabeth, more friends of Jens'. They had a very nice, but small apartment in the center of town, just a short walk from the river. After settling in, we walked to the river where Sebastian produced a bottle of wine. We sat on the bank and talked about this and that. Everyone's English was so good, I felt like a fool only knowing one and a half languages We went to a restaurant and brewery that resembled one of the beer halls in Munich. It looked full to me, but Jens and Sebastian walked in and sat at another groups table. In America this would also be a big problem. At restaurants, you don't sit at a table with another person unless it's cafeteria style seating, in which case you leave one seat between you and any person you don't know if possible. In Germany, and many places in Europe, it's not uncommon to walk up to a table of 6 with 3 people at it and ask to use the other 3 seats. I guess the opinion is, "why wait, when we can share." Again, very social thinking that doesn't translate to our capitalist society. After that we continued our evening at a bar down the street. Jens ordered us shots of some dark angry looking liquid and said it was a popular German shot.
Dusseldorf skyline
It was strong and tasted like Anise. I found this funny because earlier, when I had mentioned Jagermeister to Jens he said it was an "old man's drink". I guess it'll be another decade of American popularity for this to come back into fashion in Germany. Day 61 - I have been excited for this day for a while, today we were driving down the Rhine River looking at all the castles. There is a section of the Rhine that has about 30 castles in 20 miles. It's almost impossible to NOT see a castle if you are driving in this region. The UNESCO Heritage site must have gotten tired of labeling each individual castle, because they just made the whole 20 mile stretch one big heritage site. Our first stop was Braubach and the Marksburg castle. Marksburg is called the mother of all castles because it's one of the few castles to have never been destroyed during it's lifetime. So it gives a very accurate depiction of how people would live there in the middle ages. We took a tour and I thought it was very neat. The castle was built in the 1100's and had changed hands at least 6 times from wars, regime changes, bankruptcy and other reasons. Surprisingly, Jens had never toured any of the Rhine River castles either, he only lived an hour away from them! I can relate this to my living in Oregon my whole life but never visiting Crater Lake (which is now on my to do list before summer is over). I won't bore you with all the details, but check out all the pictures, they're great. The tour took about an hour and afterward we went south along the bank of the river, seeing all the small villages and towns on the way.
Entry to the Castle
Our next castle was Pfalzgrafenstein Castle in Kolb. This was a toll castle, built in 1327. It's unique because it's located on a small island in the middle of the Rhine. The boat shaped castle was equipped to house several toll men and a manager, as well as store cannons, guns and a prison in case someone attempted to pass without paying the toll. The only way to get to this castle was by ferry. We rode the short distance and walked ourselves through the castle. It was well preserved, but didn't have any of the medieval accessories like decorations, tables, paintings, or furniture like the Marksburg. There are very few bridges crossing the Rhine in this area, so to get to the other side, we took a ferry. Once on the west bank we stopped for coffee and a snack in the town of St.Goar. After exploring the town and buying some desert wine for Sebastian and Elisabeth, we drove back to Dusseldorf. Jens took us to his favorite place to eat for dinner. No sausages or sauerkraut here, we were going to a Lebanese restaurant. "What kind of food do Lebanese eat?" I asked myself as we entered the fragrant restaurant. It turns out it's mostly meat, which I could handle. Karla had Turkey in some kind of herbal sauce. I had Chicken and rice in some kind of pseudo oriental sauce. It reminded me a little bit of Chinese food, except Chinese food has lots of other requirements like having noodles in at least one dish on the table and fortune cookies served afterward. 
