A fast week

After 6 weeks here on my own, it was a nice change to have a visitor. I’d been so involved with getting myself oriented – at work and in general – and then with trying to keep up with training and racing, that I’d not had much time to relax.

It was still early when Carolyn arrived. After dropping her things at my apartment I suggested we go to the bakery. She started towards the car, and was surprised when I said we could walk there in less than 10 minutes (one of the things I like about being here).

Going to the bakery is something you “must” do here. My first week, while taking German classes, I mentioned to my teacher that I had gone to the supermarket and bought bread. She said, “Do not buy bread from the supermarket. Go to a proper bakery.”

At the bakery we started a week-long routine of taking pictures of our food.

We stopped at the grocery on the way home. Carolyn looked up and down the aisles at all the unfamiliar items. The foreignness of the grocery is part of what makes being here interesting: strange food, strange money, strange customs like bringing your own bag, or depositing a Euro to release the shopping cart.

In the end Carolyn picked out something that would be familiar to her: a box of Kellogg’s “Smacks”.

I think we repeated the bakery and grocery trip about every other day, and found something new to try every time.

I told Carolyn she was helping me to do some things I’d not had the chance to do on my own: we found the closest movie theater (which actually shows some movies in English), tried some new restaurants, took trips to Köln (Cologne) and Belgium, went to the top of the Rhine Tower in Düsseldorf (see photo). She helped figure out how to work the machine to print train tickets and itineraries.

We also learned:
• The movie theater gives you assigned seats (next to someone, even though the theater is only one-third full).
• The dogs all seem exceptionally well behaved.
• None of the ticket machines at the train station seem to work when you are in a hurry to catch a train.
• When you are about out of gas on the Autobahn, the next gas station will not be one that takes your gas card. But as soon as you fill up, the next one after that will.
• When you are on the tram, if you stand too close to the door it will not open and people will yell at you.
• There are plenty of cash machines when you don’t need them, but none when you do.

But for me the most enjoyable times were simple things we did: going to the market and bakery, shopping in Düsseldorf, riding the train, cooking out on the patio, picnic by the Rhine, watching a movie on TV in German and trying to make sense of it.

The week went by incredibly fast, and it seemed so quiet after she left for home. Her box of “Smacks” is still on the counter. They’ll go stale now, but I can’t bring myself to throw them out. They’re a little reminder of her trip here. The morning after she left, I poured some in a little cup and ate them with my coffee.