DELIVERANCE: Travels WITHOUT my mother !!!! ...

The occasion warrants a new post! MomTown, June 29th, 13:45  
Deliverance!

I walk out of the old-age home and over to the bike-rental place, pay my 18 Euros, get my e-bike (it's the same one, with the seat still HIGH), and cycle to my pseudo-monastery. A fast check-in with the cute new receptionist they have, and .....

A quick bike ride to the gas station.  Grauburgunder !

My Vietnamese Visa approval letter was e-mailed to me in record time and the reception desk printed it out. 

What else is on the list?   What a change to only a few hours ago!  There are trace remnants of that 'bad vibe' radiated by a relative still hanging around in the recesses of my brain, but my mood has improved  so much.   The odd thing is that I feel sorry for Mother, but then she constantly pointed out that she couldn't wait for the end of the journey with me and to be reunited with the people in her home.   Overall, still a sad affair !

My hotel tomorrow! NOT ;-(

But I feel like I'm in my element again.   I'm planning the trip of the next couple of days.  And if I plan poorly, I will be only one whining ;-) 


Which in this case is unlikely. I booked a Junior Suite with balcony close to Dusseldorf Central Station.  Cost?   About the same as the horrible dingy North Vancouver DIVE I've spent the last 7 nights in.







19:00

Staying true to the Viet theme ;-)

I'm back at SOMA, and I just ordered Bun Chap Cam, the dish that last time had the typical Viet herbs in it.  And they deliver good flavour again.  About one hour ago, I overheard guests at my hotel talking to the receptionist, asking about restaurant options close by.  After the receptionist mentioned that there is 'an Asian and a German' restaurant close by, I pipe up with "The Asian is much better"

Oh, the waitress just brought me some HOT SAUCE for my dish.  Rat CAY ! I'm in culinary heaven ;-)

The dish teleports me one week into the future.  When leaving, I ask the elderly lady behind the counter in German "Did you do the cooking".  After she and others confirm it, I can't help but speak tien Viet: "Rat ngon!  Cam on nhieu !"







It's an emotionally turbulent time.  What's that book opening again?  "It was the best times, it was the worst of times"! 

Flip that around and apply it in a temporal sense and THAT is where I am right now.  Is it any wonder I'm ecstatic?

But that is also where the world is heading.  The US is moving to refuse to hear asylum pleas from refugees reaching its Southern border.  Europe is doing the unthinkable by not allowing the boats of non-profit organizations filled with migrants rescued from drowning in the Mediterranean to land in European ports. 

LET THEM DROWN seems to be what the Trump-encouraged over-fed hypocrites of this planet are chanting in unison.  The rich world is washing its hands.   All I feel is SHAME & DISGUST for my 'fellow human beings'.

The energy that was completely absent for the last 10 days is back: Let's go for a bike ride !  

I get up for a while at 2:00 and read the news.  Synergies abound.  In plain English that means that you can fire a lot of people if you combine big companies that don't have much to do with each other.  Another example:  ThyssenKrupp is a company that came into being from merging Thyssen and Krupp.  Those were the guys who built tanks and cannons for Hitler Germany.   ThyssenKrupp now merged with Tata.  What does that mean?   Only that if you buy yourself a Jaguar car you MIGHT think that you're buying finest British tradition. 

But what you're actually buying is a car manufactured by a company that is half Indian and half Nazi tanks.  Don't get me wrong, there is NOTHING wrong with it (except for all those people who will get fired in the merger).  After all, they don't build Nazi tanks anymore.  As long as you KNOW where your Jaguar comes from, LOL.


In summary: Money rules the world and people drown or get fired and everyone seems to think it's a good thing because the rich get richer.....
Depressing!


Stepping out for a cigarette brings some solace.  A CRISP full moon in a cloudless sky!   

Amazing crater detail on the right edge !

The same moon that I will hopefully be able to watch turn deep RED in exactly one month from today in Vietnam.   Looking at the full moon I can not help but think of the people I loved and who have died.   It's as if Kookum & George are smiling at me from up there.......

I am WIDE AWAKE and try to have another nap at 3:30

After waking up at 6:30, I'm dead tired ....

....which hasn't improved much by 7:30, despite two espresso.   I have that strange feeling again...  when people look at you in a way that makes you wonder whether you remembered to put your pants on ....  I noticed it already yesterday at the gas station ... the feeling of not fitting into this culture seems to be mutual!  Seven more days and people will smile instead of stare and maybe even say ao dep ;-)


10:30
The bike has been returned and I've said Good Bye to Mother.  She is as aggravating as yesterday, but at least she's happy to be back in her routine.   

11:10
On y va !  

 Off to Parts Unknown (The void left by Bourdain's death is becoming more and more pronounced as time goes on).

 This time I manage to buy a ticket from the retarded vending machines (memories of the old atrocious Translink machines awoke when I couldn't navigate the menu only one hour ago).  I speak English & German fluently but quite often trouble with the ticket-vending machines but somehow seem to be able to buy tickets in Hong Kong or Istanbul without problems .....

 Not really a surprise:  the train will be LATE, LOL.

What is a surprise is that there is NOT even standing room in the train.  The vending machines just sell tickets and don't keep track of how many!  Sick of constantly blocking the exit doors, I push my way through to 1st class, where there are still empty seats.  Only a few daring souls dare to violate that class taboo, LOL.

Solingen Central Station does NOT have a LOO!  After not finding any signs, I ask in the DB office and they actually say "We don't have one, but there is a McDonalds down the street".   Armes Deutschland !

At least the S-Bahn train is already sitting at the platform 15 minutes before its scheduled departure.  LOTS of empty seats ;-)  But then it fills up to the max 1 minute before departure again.  Germans take trains!

I check into my hotel.  NICE room, but WHERE is my balcony?????  That's the whole reason I booked a room in Burns Art Hotel.  A junior suite WITH BALCONY.  Reception gives me that old lame line "Not all rooms have a balcony".  Well, then don't sell them advertising a balcony.  But the receptionist manages to switch me to a Junior Suite WITH balcony.  

The moment I enter my new room I am happy. 

Nothing special on this side except the HIGH ceilings

I even take up their offer to have a demi-bouteille of White for 6.50 Euros, LOL.

It's this side where the fun is !

I've checked in on-line with for my flight tomorrow.  Something I NEVER do, but I'll be flying with odd airlines in the coming week and I want to prevent a disaster like the one time I flew with Ryanair 5 years ago. The first and LAST time I was flying with those bastards.  50 Pounds for the ticket from London to St Malo and another 70 pounds for them to print me a boarding pass!  NEVER AGAIN, LOL.

Yes, that was FIVE YEARS ago, but like an elephant, I REMEMBER if someone treats me horribly ;-)


On a trip to Netto Discount Supermarket (wine, salty pretzels, bread, cheese, instant coffee), I see this absolutely HUNKY dark black guy (oh spare me the PC crap! I'm supposed to call him an African German?  What if he's from the US?)  He's wearing the most unusual thing (tribal? Gay parade?) that leaves his nipples and muscular shoulders exposed.  

Yes, I stare ;-)  But then he talks to the cashier and it's in the local German dialect, LOL. 

But Germans always whine that foreigners don't integrate properly. Is that because they never listen or talk to foreigners, or could it be a more sinister motive?

After all, the UN just put the spotlight on Germany for racial profiling.  And YES, when I went through customs in Frankfurt 2 days ago, it was ONLY black- and brown-skinned passengers who had their bags searched by customs.  I could have smuggled 10 cartons of cigarettes and no-one would have thought of searching me, the pseudo-white-skinned pseudo-German.

Stop ranting, back to the present.  I'm surprised how much I like the vibe in this part of Dusseldorf.  A half-naked black man, lots of people from different cultures, tall trees in the streets, not too much car traffic.  As a dweller of Cologne, I was raised to hate the similar city down the river Rhine, but looking at it now from a cultural distance, I actually prefer it to Cologne (oopS, I just gave the residents of Cologne the excuse to NEVER EVER serve me another Koelsch beer again).

18:00
It's time to eat some Viet food again.  Good thing Huong Viet Restaurant is only 280 meters from my hotel ;-)
It's a very simple affair, like many Viet restaurants in Germany.  More like a non-chain fast-food restaurant.  The spirit is awake again. I'm going to try Bun Bo La Lot, beef wrapped in betel leaves.  I suspect it's the stuff I've eaten in Vietnam quite a few times, but I want to make sure.






















OMG, Dusseldorf has something they call FREIFUNK (literal translation: FREE WIRELESS).  I click on it and I'm ONLINE !!!

And no-one is asking for your e-mail address or shoe size to molest you with unwanted advertising afterwards. 

How CIVILIZED !





The beef wrapped in betel leaves is yummy. 

I probably should be more ecstatic about it but I've had it so often already, LOL.  It's one of those flavours pretty much impossible to find anywhere outside Vietnam.  Not only is the flavour there, but the whole dish feels healthy, being bathed in nuoc mam (fish sauce) instead of butter or cream or lard. 

With the help of this food, THE BIG GRIN (TM) appears on my face again. 
And I really miss Bourdain, because he said it first:




I'm back, back in Vietnam, shit-eating grin for the duration: A giddy, silly, foolish man beyond caring. 







He was SO RIGHT!  Me, with his help, I am now content. Because I am sure that I'm moving over the surface of this planet in the right and ONLY right direction ;-)

I wake up repeatedly until l I finally close the windows at 3:00.  Too many screamers on the nightly streets of Dusseldorf.  But then I manage to sleep until 7:00.

10:00
HOLY.  I could sleep MORE. I could sleep ALL DAY, but check-out time is approaching and I have to get to the airport later.....


12:00
The boarding pass is printed, I paid for my mini-bar wine. Time to walk to the train station. 

That flag has a special meaning....  TWO NOTHING .....

During the train ride, I keep nodding off. WTF? But then it's 3 am in Vancouver !

I'm at the airport much too early. My flight is not for another 3.5 hours and is not even listed on the display boards.  So there is no point trying to get to a gate because I don't know which gate I have to go to.....which forces me to kill time in the airport hall.

WTF?  Dusseldorf to Cuba is cheaper than Vancouver to Cuba?  Figures !

I should have known NOT to eat at Chalet, Swiss Bistro in the airport because the Swiss are NOT known for their cuisine. 

Banks & Watches, but NOT food.  But it's a comfy table with table service, a good spot to wait for my flight to appear on the display.  At least the Grauburgunder is quite yummy (I drink 2 glasses), even though it's frightfully expensive.  OK, let's put that into perspective:  I am paying the same price (About CAD 12) for a glass of excellent wine here at Dusseldorf airport that I would be paying for a glass of lousy wine at Vancouver airport.  But it's still very expensive for Germany.

14:00
I'm tipsy, to say it conservatively, LOL. 

But even with this tipsiness, some excitement is starting to build.  I might be tired and bored stiff right now (Airports are NOT my favourite places), and the day is still long and exhausting, but at the end of the day I will be somewhere I have NEVER been before, and if THAT isn't worth something, I don't know what is ;-)

.... to be continued ....