Essen -- Essen What?

Just a heads up... This is a photo-intensive blog-post! :)

So we took the train yesterday from Munich to Essen, and it might have been the nicest train I've ever been on! The seats were comfortable, there were little displays over your seats telling the conductor where you got on and where you were getting off, and last but by far not least, there was a power plug at each seat!

This meant that during our 5 1/2 hour train ride, we got to watch a movie on my laptop. That was of course, after we got it to work again. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that my laptop broke. Something is wrong with it, and on the train, the only way I could get it to work was by smashing it on the floor. Needless to say, the couple sitting opposite us on the train stared at us a lot as I continually dropped my laptop from about a 1/2 foot from the ground! ö

So Jenna and I enjoyed V for Vendetta during the train, which was fun. Neither of us had time to watch any tv, let alone movies up until this part of the trip.

Once we got to Essen, we found Matt Schröeder waiting for us at the platform. We jumped in his car (it looks like a little German taxi!) and headed to the Schröeder home.

When we got there, we met Mrs. Schroder, and saw his house, and even met his dad who came home from work just to meet us.. They all thought it was funny to "arrest" the American.. ;)

Matt started telling us all about what he had planned for our stay. It was quite elaborate! We started by going to a German club the first night, which was a lot of fun. It was an abandoned factory.

We got back to his house around 2am and headed to bed, as he had another big day planned for us the next day.

When we woke up, we went and visited this gas tower which people can go inside (www.gasometer.de) and went to the biggest shopping mall in all of Europe. It was fun. We found the Jagermeister store, and met up with one of Matias' friends too!

(The Gasometer from the inside looking up!)

We returned to his house for lunch where we ate some of the codfish that his dad caught during his yearly fishing trip to Denmark! We also finally got to meet his brother, Martin. Although he barely spoke at all, it was nice finally meeting him.

After lunch, we continued by going to an abandoned coal mine that had been turned into this huge public park / art gallery.. I didn't think it would be that cool... Boy was I wrong.. We walked around the coal mine for a good couple hours, took lots of cool pictures, and even found a break in the fence where we could go into this building!


After all this, as we walked back to the entrance, Matt mentioned that there was a Dunkin Donuts in his town... Immediately, we were all craving iced coffees and iced lattes! So this became our new destination.. When we finally got them, Matias wanted me to get a McDonald's hamburger.. I don't know why.. But I think it was to complete my image as a "fat american who eats only McDonalds".. So I did, and we got a picture of me; in an "American's" glory.. with my Dunkin Donuts in one hand, and my McDonalds in the other!!

After all this, we headed back to Matt's house to get ready to go out that night. Matias had us going to this strip of bars outside the mall we had been to earlier. All I can say about them is that they were AWESOME!! I had this drink called the Oriental Dream which was absolutely amazing! It tasted like some Hawaiian fruit cocktail, but supposedly had a lot of alcohol too! After a long while at that bar, we moved down a few bars to this bar where Matias wanted me to try a Mai Tai. I did, and wow. There was sooo much alcohol in that drink!

It wasn't long before Matias and I were both trying to sing the United States National Anthem.. Oh man.. Needless to say, we had a great time out that night!