Landing in Dusseldorf I felt a wave of excitement, but more than anything I just wanted to get to my Airbnb. I had less than 24 hours in London, and this marked the start of my two-week adventure through Germany.
Arriving at customs, I have to admit for some reason I was a little nervous. I watched multiple people get questioned, fingerprinted, and take longer than one would hope when going through. However, after being asked the reason for my visit to Germany, and explaining, “I’m here to see Germany for two weeks!” with a goofy smile and enthusiastic attitude, the customs officer stamped my passport, smiled, and wished me an excellent stay.
I was in!
My travel bud, Ms. Emily Carsch, a fair maiden that I met seven years ago on Birthright, had arrived in Dusseldorf seven hours earlier, and was waiting for me along the mile long bar, aka Bolkerstasse, which is where we were staying.
Luckily for me, Emily is a super planner and relayed impeccable directions to our apartment, which I made it to within an hour of arriving. However, not knowing for sure which apartment was ours, I climbed the stairs to the top apartment hollering, “Emily!”
With the universe’s good fortune on my side, I knocked on the last door in the building, and bam, there was Emily on the other side of the door in all her German glory.
Seeing this angel’s face was exactly what I needed, and I knew instantly we were in for an amazing two weeks together.
Fast-forward through a quick night wandering around Dusseldorf, and we were on a train to Wuppertal.
After arriving in Wuppertal, and securing our bags up in a locker at the train station, we headed off for our first full day in Germany. We came to this city with the hopes of finding some of Emily’s family’s past, as this is where her grandfather lived before the Holocaust.
But after a quick expedition, and riding the Schwebahn, the world’s first suspended train, which they proved to the first passengers was safe by putting an actual elephant onboard, from start to finish, we agreed we had seen all Wuppertal had to offer.
We had decided to detour to Wuppertal purely because we had hoped to find some sort of clues to Emily's past, but that proved to be harder than we expected.
A quick stop on the way to Cologne, it could be entirely skipped, but we came here to see all different parts of Germany, and that is what part of this stop was all about.
Now off to Cologne to complete the second leg of our full first day!
Auf Wiedersehen for now.
