Dusseldorf, Germany

Day 7

AirBerlin was our transportation of choice and I found them very nice, they gave you socks, an eye mask, a tooth brush, ear plugs, and a very nice meal.  But after 6 hours the first leg of our flight was over and we had a 22 hour layover in Dusseldorf, Germany.  Now what would any good traveler do, but go out and explore. 

Now my first experience with passport security is one I may never forget.  I walked up to a German polizei officer and handed him my passport and told him I was going out into the city just for the day.  He was not only crusty but downright scary, like a dog growling at you.  Then as soon as I mentioned we had a long layover, he allowed me to pass with a stamp and a comment to Aubrey that she had more stamps in her passport than me. 

We were truly comforted by the first sight we saw was a Cartier.  American commercialism is everywhere.

It was our greatest pleasure to find an adorable little park just down the road from the train station where we were able to take a lovely nap by a lake full of ducks.  The only drawback would have been all the bugs that flew around us.

Once we had taken our rest we walked quite a bit until we found the Rhine River and a row of the cutest little European houses.  

We even watched a little German family playing together.  Right beside it was the historic part of Dusseldorf and it was so quaint.

Apparently Germans are extremely patriotic as well.  There were flags hanging out of apartment windows all over the city; I am not sure if it was for the Euro Cup or the Olympics or both.

When we returned to the airport we still had the whole night to while away.  We found food and benches without armrests so we could lay down and stretch out directly behind a statue of a giraffe (we named him Geoffrey) giving us a lovely view. 

But wouldn’t you know that there were absolutely no flights out all night so there were very few people to disturb us which of course meant that every time someone did come by I twitched and had to make sure they weren’t going to touch our stuff meaning I slept basically none and barely got to rest my eyes.  Finally it was through security and onto our final short flight to Italy.

This is a random little addition, but I couldn't help it.  I saw this sign and just thought, "Ich ben ien Berliner."  Thank you to JFK and the random funny tidbits of history.