Essen, Germany

On Friday I was in Essen, Germany in order to spend some time with a few of my friends from the University of Portland who are working with Fulbright as English teaching assistants in German schools. Essen is about 40 minutes from Moers by train, but will only be about 10 minutes away once I am living in Duisburg. It was exciting to spend some time with familiar faces and to meet one of their teaching assistant friends.
We spent the first part of the day walking around the downtown area and perusing the selection at numerous bookstores. Trevor, Lena, and Karin had all learned that Essen had a few Mexican restaurants and so we decided to venture there for lunch. Upon venturing to the restaurants we learned that they did not open until 3 or 4 p.m. We decided, however, to wait for our lunch because we were all craving Mexican food and there is no German substitute.
While waiting, we wandered around a bit longer and Lena, Karin, and I bought tickets for Swan Lake next Friday. Little did we know that this is a modern version of the ballet that takes place in the modern "party scene". Needless to say it should be interesting. I will post a blurb about the ballet after I attend.
Finally it was 3 p.m. so we headed to the Mexican restaurant which was surprisingly delicious (You never know what you can expect from Mexican food in Germany)!
After lunch, Karin had to head back to the town where she is living, Kamen, so we walked her back to the train station. Trevor, Lena, and I then headed to Gruva Park. This park is possibly one of the most beautiful and interesting city parks that I have ever been to. In addition to numerous flowers, trees, green grass, and ponds, there is a Hundertwasser Haus (a famous architect who did not believe in straight lines - pictured above) that is used as a Ronald McDonald Foundation Children's Hospital, a bath house, a swimming pool, numerous children's play areas, and lots of birdlife (thanks in part to a large aviary that houses Owls, Hawks, Eagles, Parrots, Herons, Storks, etc.). It was a peaceful place where I would love to spend more time. I have posted pictures of the park for your viewing pleasure.
After our adventure in the park, we walked through an area that everybody had told Lena is a wonderful part of the city. It was pretty, but not anything incredibly special. We stopped off at a grocery store in order to purchase some water (it is so easy to become dehydrated in Germany because you constantly drink coffee and water is not as readily available since the Europeans do not believe in drinking water out of the tap). I mention this stop at the grocery store only because the cashier stopped the woman in front of us for a "backpack" check as she suspected the woman of stealing. There were indeed items of food in the woman's backpack and a manager was called to the front. We, however, did not stick around long enough to find out if she was indeed stealing or if the items were from a different store.
Finally we walked past the Aalto Theater (where we will see the ballet next week) and the Philharmonie and headed back to the train station. I had just missed one train back to Moers, so we ended up waiting for an hour at the train station. I then hopped on my train back to Moers, however, due to the train strikes in Germany on Friday I ended up having to wait an additional hour in Duisburg for the next train to Moers. It is interesting how the train strike worked and it is likely one of the most organized and least inconvenient strikes I have ever witnessed. The train engineers who were striking were only allowed to stop certain regional trains in areas where passengers would be able to catch a faster train (which would normally be more expensive, but during the strike was allowed in order to accomodate passengers). There were frequent announcements of which particular train passengers could catch if the train they were originally scheduled for was cancelled due to the strike. I guess one could say it was more a strike in principal than an actual strike that caused severe disruptions to the lives of Germans.