Catchup, Dönnerstag, und Killepitsch

School has picked up a lot lately and I have been rather busy, so I am going to try and recapitulate the past couple of days, and hopefully I will be able to go back and develop the stories later. So I left off after having toured the Mercedes Benz plant (which I am still enamored with). The next day (Wednesday) we did not have class, but rather we had a little sojourn to Essen. We all met at the Hauptbahnhoff and traveled by train to Essen, which is about a 35 minute trip. The train ride was very scenic with green rolling hills and picturesque river valleys. Our first stop in Essen was the Villa Hügel, which is the site if the Krupp mansion. (The Krupps were steel barons in Germany and are now a part of the conglomerate Thyssen-Krupp) The kohle (coal) mines that the Krupps owned are also in Essen, but the Krupps wanted to live away from the noise and filth of the mines and that is why they built their mansion on the lovely  site of Villa Hügel.

Hügel means hill in German, and in order to get to the mansion we had to trek up quite a large hill. All around the mansion is an English style or “natural” park with multitudes of different tree species including sycamore, chestnut, and most importantly The Larch!

The house itself was more of a castle than and mansion, and the interior was entirely outfitted with ornate wood-work. 

 Other rooms were decorated in more of a Rococo style and contained tapestries fit for the Vatican – literally. Part of one of the tapestry collections in the mansion is actually displayed at the Vatican. After touring through the house we went over to the guest house which is now a museum, and looked at some of the artifacts from the early days of the Krupp steel company.  I liked the museum portion a lot better. Also, our tour guide was a little old lady that looked and sounded just like Hetty from NCIS.

After finishing up at Villa Hügel, we got back on the train and headed to Zeche Zollverein, which was the Krupp’s coal mine. We also had a guided tour here, but before we started the tour we had to take care of some important business. We had to essen some Essen in Essen! (That is…eat some food in essen) haha! I had some currywurst with pommes. The Zeche Zollverein was a shaft mining operation and we were able to walk all through the operation and see the different machines and tools that were used.                    

I got to hold one of the jackhammers that the miners used on their 12 hour shifts, and it was about 45 pounds! Those miners must have been jacked! (I hope you saw what I just did there). Just on the tour we walked several kilometers, so that might give you some idea of exactly how large this operation was. In its time, the mine used to produce 4 times more coal than similar mines, and the mine was actually shut down because they had mined so deep that the coal had become too pure and could no longer be refined for its other valuable constituents.

Donnerstag (Thursday) we had class again, and after a wonderfully long lecture we were all starving and needed some food. We were going to a modern art museum after lunch, and we therefore decided that we also needed a drink.  We popped in the local Biergarten and enjoyed a nice cold one outside in the nice weather and then we were off to find some lunch. We had recently decided that every Donnerstag would be Dönnerstag. As I previously mentioned, Donnerstag is Thurday, and Dönner is a delectable little morsel that is similar to a Gyro. Note: when I say little morsel I mean quite a large morsel, and the best thing about them is that they are delicious and cheap! Anyways, we found a dönner kiosk, and enjoyed our tasty Turkish treats.

After lunch we had to find our way over to the modern art museum “K21”, which was not easy to find, and we were not provided with any directions. I think Dr. Cothran might do that on purpose to make us practice our German by having to ask for directions, but I don’t know. We ended up finding the museum, but only after about 30 minutes of being sent all different directions through the city. We arrived about five minutes after Cothran told us to be there, and now we all have to memorize and recite a poem…bleh! The outside of the museum looks like a very classical building that was built in the 1800s, the inside looks like an Italian open air building, and the roof is an ultra-modern glass dome. 

I am not an art-buff, and trying to make sense of the modern “art” in the building was a bit difficult. The museum consists of hundreds of little rooms all containing art from particular artists. Some of the art that we saw included some cardboard boxes, statues of happy  little Asian guys standing in a circle, and a collection of photos, postcards, and other paraphernalia related to a stone skipping event that occurred on the Panama Canal. A lot of the other rooms that I peeked into contained random objects sitting or hanging in an empty white room. Honestly, the whole place feels more like an insane asylum than a museum.

After the museum we had the option of going to check out the Schloss (castle) Benrath. This castle is in the vicinity of my guest-family’s house, and I elected to go. It is the first pink castle that I have ever seen. The castle itself wasn’t overly impressive, but the massive garden surrounding the castle was.

We walked down a path in the garden and it felt like I was in the middle of a jungle. We came out a small strawberry stand on the Rhine River.

After sampling some of their wares we walked down to the river where there was a little beach. The beach was not a sand beach, but rather a small-stone beach. We took the opportunity to do some stone skipping of our own. We took pictures to commemorate the event, and I saved a small stone to add to my personal modern art collection. 

We finished up and went into the city to check out the jazz festival that was starting up. It felt a little funny listening to Jazz in Germany, but the music was good, and it was a good time. I also had my first shot of Killepitsch, which is a Düsseldorf specialty. I don’t typically like liquor or shots, but this was surprisingly smooth and tasty. Most everybody else also liked it. It tastes similar to root beer and pine trees – yum!