Das Wochenende

Despite the fact that no one answered my calls or called me back I headed to Dortmund for the Love Parade. Joerg said that the freeway would be packed and there would be no parking, but luckily I got into town no problem. I found the spot, then drove 2 U bahn stations down and parked for free. After which I just followed the funnily dressed people to the station and got off where they did.

This put me right at the beginning of the parade. Since hanging out with Vlad I've developed a taste for electronic music and this was the place. Picture the DEMF. Now imagine that it is on every drug known to man, on wheels, smells terrible, and you'll have the Love parade. There were these kids on the U bahn that I was standing next too that were spraying axe cologne on and it didn't really help... regardless you get the picture. I wandered through the masses stopping off and following good tunes when necessary until I chose a spot right near a turnaround in the parade. I got a prime spot standing on top of a guard rail and danced while snapping photos. It's not nearly as impressive as from the fanmeile, but it was a long parade route and there was supposed to be about a million people there. I hung out for a few hours until the parade was driven to a grinding halt, seen here:

Much like every day here, there was a torrential down pour and all the monkeys ran to hide under the bridge effectively halting the parade. Although this definitely didn't dampen the spirits of ze Germans... see the attached video for a rousing rendition of Seven Nation Army. I of course had my umbrella and hunkered down for a while. Unfortunately the rain was so bad that my feet got completely soaked and my right shoe was full of water. Being cold and damp my foot started hurting so I called it quits and began my exodus back to the car. I got back to the U bahn station no problem, except by the time I got to the front of the line the cops had shut it down.... lovely. Once again I followed the masses not really knowing where my car was or how to get there. I pulled out my navi and couldn't get a signal so I kept walking. I ended up at a tram station and checked the map, but the tram didn't go to where I needed to be, nor was I sure of what direction was which. When I come home I'm buying a watch that has a built in compass. I bailed on the tram station and just picked a side road to walk down. Eventually my navi kicked in as the sun came out even though it was still raining. I took a shortcut through a park and the navi died again. After 20 minutes or so of wandering I found a road that looked kind of familiar and figured out where my car was.


Kai (my climbing partner) said that we would go out in Köln at night, but low and behold when I got the call everyone was staying home. Tired and damp I did much the same, watching some Married with Children. Today I went with Kai for some flea market fun where I tried to get Tony a sweet Russian pocket watch, but it was €50 and outside of my price range. Now I'm going to try and find some food and maybe wander around downtown for a while before it starts raining. Regardless I'm chalking this up to ein Wochenende wurde verschwendet...


New country count remains at 4... for now. Next weekend is Switzerland