Monday, December 12, 2011

Sat 10th December- A day around town

We spent and excellent day around town looking at the various stalls in the Christmas Market and testing the local beer, yet again and of course the hot red wine.
The market was extremely crowded most of the day and for a change we found a tram which took us to the outskirts of Düsseldorf by the River Rheine where we walked along the river and had a breath of fresh air.
The back on the tram to the town, yet another glass of hot wine was to be had at a large shopping mall which outside had the usual bars and stands selling sausages whiulst Jennifer had a pancake.
Then after a few more beers we returned to the Hotel before dinner that night which we had arranged in a old well known restaurant for its food and beer and where we all enjoyed the pigs knuckle (Schweinhaxa) and of course the odd beer.
The male waiter who served us was married to a girl from Huddersfield which he knew quite well and then he went on about the Germans bailing out Greece and that he and many others were against this stupid policy
After dinner we wandered around the market again and it was jam packed with visitors, young and old, enjoying the food and booze that was available and no signs of a depression here..
When returning by train to the Hotel we saw a couple of paramedics treating either a very drunk young lady or someone who was suffering from a drug overdose but she was really out.
Walking up the road to the Hotel we found some huge cranes which were beginning to assemble the largest crane in Germany or something like that to change an air conditioning system on a tall building and unfortunately you could hear this all night which meant that non of us really slept well.
Oh well that's life