Monday, April 30, 2012

Dusseldorf, Germany - Day 22

Woke up around 7am and ate a rather large breakfast. I could have eaten a horse, but settled on two servings of eggs, a pile of meats, various cheeses, a cup of yogurt, and bread. All which got washed down by some orange juice and a coffee. Burp...

Bob and I worked at the table until around 12. About this time, Bob asked Matt (his son) to show me his electronic drumset. I had heard about it and have been dying to try it out. These things are so cool because you can make them sound however you want (studio drumset, stage drumset, steel drums, concert drums, etc..) with the push of a button. It was a lot of fun to play and I would love to have one of these in my basement for 3rd shift stress relief. Matt and I talked about drumming theory and I showed him the beauty of learning basic rudiments (ie. paradiddle, flams, rattamacues, etc...). He was actually quite good already and doesn't even claim to be a drummer. I was impressed with his knowledge of the rudiments and I think that I showed him how "easy" it is to play drums once you understand it's nothing but synchronous rudiments.

Eventually, Bob and I walked down the street to a nearby pizza place and ate some pizza at a pub-style table off the street. I ordered an all veggie pizza and a coke. It was pretty darn good, and it was nice to stand for a while; my legs are pretty achy today from pounding them all morning yesterday. After we ate, we walked around leisurely doing some errands and so forth...

My Solitary Confinement

We got back to the house here and worked til about 5:30 or so. At this time, I decided to head down to my hotel room and continue working. Once there, I was able to turn on my music, open the windows and focus 100% on a feature that I've been working on for the last two days. I'm easily distracted and sometimes solitary confinement is the only way for me to work. Such is the life of a computer geek I guess...

I started getting hungry around 9pm or so and decided to head down to the Altstadt for a light dinner consisting of any sausage based dish. Little did I know, there was a huge party going on tonight all over Germany. Apparently May 1st is a huge day in Europe, and they use the night before as a great excuse to "dance into May". I literally had to weave my way through this huge crowd of people (shoulder to shoulder), just to get to a curb-side sausage stand 20-30 meters away; this took me about 15-20 minutes. I ordered a curry-wurst and french fries along with a nice Hamburg beer to wash it all down. While there I met 2 really cool guys by the name of Gotz and Robin. They are both local Dusseldorf residents and spoke incredible English. They were fascinated with the fact that I was from Ohio.

After the healthy dinner, I made my way back through the crowd and back to my Hotel room. Once there, I was able to speak with Jennifer and the girls. We talked for about 40 minutes and I really needed that! It was great to just watch them all be goofy and drive each other crazy in front of me. :) I can't wait to see them this weekend!


After talking with them, I worked at the desk here in my hotel room for a little while longer and then fell asleep around 2am.

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