Bericht aus Düsseldorf

Well, here’s my first post from in-country! I left Houston’s Intercontinental Airport in the evening of June 23 on a Continental Airlines flight that was absolutely packed with people—in fact, the airline overbooked the flight and was scrambling for volunteers to take a later flight for a $500.00 coupon! In spite of the crowd I had a fairly comfortable flight, got a little sleep and felt pretty good by the time we arrived at Schipol Airport in Amsterdam. I should add, however, that the food on Lufthansa is much better!

I had a tight connection in Schipol and at the gate for the city hopper flight to Düsseldorf was informed that my bags would not be coming with me but would follow at some unknown later time! I got to Düsseldorf and, just in case, hung around the baggage claim for a while and, magically, my bags appeared! So—clearly a lesson to be learned—give yourself enough time to make your connecting flights and check for your bags, just in case! Willem Spanninga (AIB, Düsseldorf’s Geschäftsführer) kindly picked me up and brought me to Hotel Lindenhof where I spent my first four nights in town. Quite nice and close to the Goethe Institut where I was to begin my Sprachkurs on Monday, June 27 (more on this in a subsequent post).

Das Wetter in Deutschland: it’s been mostly sunny and quite warm (by European standards) with daytime temperatures in the 80’s Fahrenheit. Really quite beautiful weather and I think those of you accustomed to Texas in July will be pleased. Remember, however, fewer places here are air-conditioned (mit Klimaanlage) so, while indoors, you may be warmer than you are used to. Late last night we had a storm roll through with thunder and lightening (Donner und Blitzen) and some rain into the morning hours. Then the sun returned and we had a warm, humid day. The forecast for North-Rhine Westphalia calls for some clouds, maybe some more rain, temperatures in the 70’s to low 80’s and then sunny and warmer over the weekend. I’ll get you’all an update closer to your departure time.