Dussledorf

The day after I arrived, Puppy's cousin, Pat-Pat, and her friend, E, were scheduled to arrive. They were traveling across Europe to celebrate graduating from college and wanted to make a stop to see Puppy. So at 10:30am I reluctantly got up, showered, and we trekked back to the Dusseldorf airport. Once we had them in tow and found the car again, we headed into downtown Dusseldorf for lunch.

We stopped at Brauerei Schumacher, a brewery that specializes in alt bier (which is light and delicious) and I had my very first schnitzel experience. Maria from The Sound of Music had deceptively led me to believe that schnitzel had noodles, but I guess I misunderstood her meaning of the word "with," as schnitzel does not have noodles. Schnitzel, in fact, is a fried pork cutlet, not unsimilar to katsu in Japan, except in size of course. I had jaeger schnitzel, which means they cover the cutlet in a thick brown gravy with mushrooms, and it came with roasted potatoes and a side salad. Or rather I should say a small bowl of dressing with some lettuces floating in it. I also had an alt bier, of course, when in Rome. It was all quite delicious, however, it was also quite a lot and the man serving us gave me a disapproving remark when he took away my half eaten plate.

I was actually surprised that German food is really just bratwurst, potatoes, and bier, excuse me, beer. I had thought that was just what people associated with Germany, like sushi and Japan even though Japan has many other wonderful dishes. However, everything on the menu in the brewery was a large piece of meat and potatoes, albiet prepared and arranged in different ways (not unlike Mexican food in America). Now I realize of course that I have been to exactly one German restaurant in my time here, so it is more than possible that as I progress through my travels I will discover the many delicate layers to German cuisine. But from what I've heard and seen so far, I'm going to go ahead and doubt it.

After lunch we walked to an ice cream shop, Eis Pia, that was supposed to be the best in town, but I was disappointed to find that it was just a gelatto shop. And while gelatto is delicious, I was hoping to find an excellent German ice cream shop. The search continues!

After lunch we headed back to Puppy's farmhouse to let Pat-Pat and E settle and start some laundry, and we started to plan our trip to Amsterdam!