Trip to Essen

Writing aboard the ICE (InterCity Express) train from Essen back to Frankfurt:

A couple of observations:

As a retail reporter, I’m appalled by German merchandising – in the grocery store, everything was piled helter-skelter with no regard to appearance, logical juxtapositions or ease of use. But good wine was cheap – about three Euros for bottles from Spain, France, Chile and Australia. And in Woolworth’s, the same type of merchandise could often be found in two or perhaps three different places in the seven-story store. I needed clothes hangers for my closet and found them on the basement floor – and again on the seventh.

The train system is difficult to figure out here, and much more expensive than I thought it would be. A one-way short trip on the Ubahn (metro) is 1.55 Euros, almost two bucks, and a monthly pass is nearly 64 Euros (about 80 bucks). It seems to be largely honor system, as I have never been checked to see if I’m carrying a fare card. And in the stations, multiple trains with different destinations share tracks and signage is poor, so it’s difficult to know whether you’re waiting in the correct spot for your destination. As far as the intercity trips go, I gulped at the price for a Eurail pass allowing me to make 10 trips within two months – I’ll use it up easily, and may have to scale back some of my original plans. I also belatedly learned today there’s no need to fork over the extra 3 Euros each way to reserve a train seat on most trips, as the first-come-first-served seating is just fine.

The weather is much chillier than I expected. The Germans tell me it’s unusual and will get warmer before it’s chilly for good, but for now I’m convinced I overpacked summer-weight clothes.

I traveled to Essen today for an interview with the German owner of Rack Room Shoes in Charlotte. The city is in the northern part of the Rhine valley, though the river was not visible on the train or in the city. From Frankfurt, you pass Cologne and Dusseldorf on the way. Essen was rather ugly compared with most European cities I’ve seen – gritty and worn down, lacking the spectacular modern (or is it postmodern?) architecture of Frankfurt’s many skyscrapers.

I had lunch at a café on a reasonably lively boulevard and mistakenly ordered a plate of smoked salmon – the waitress tried to explain the menu to me in broken English after seeing me trying to translate it with a dictionary, but I clearly misunderstood because I thought I was ordering a stuffed fish dish with cheese. I ate the salmon anyway. I walked around a bit in the shopping district near the train station but was unimpressed. The city’s main theater was a garish pink modern building with square columns of what appeared to be concrete – ugh. But it had a Starbucks with a great T-mobile connection across the street.

I’m enjoying the intercity train ride, about two hours each way. While the scenery is not spectacular, it’s different from anything I see at home, and the bright blue sky is dotted with dramatic clouds, and the seat is comfortable. Oh, and the interview was reasonably successful. So, all in all a pretty good day.