Düsseldorf – Brief Update

Heute (Today) was jumping back into classroom mode. I’ll give a sympathetic shout-out to my Cincinnati friends who had their first day of class today as well. It’s hard to do after being on a break! After a rehash of German prepositions and modal verbs, we broke for a quick lunch. Micah and I skipped out so we could book our Youth Hostel stay for next weekend. We found a nice one in Munich close to BMW, so all is set to go for the next big transition! It’s unfortunate we have to pay for an additional weekend outside of our apartment, but it all works out.

At around 2pm, we hopped a train to Düsseldorf. This is another city just outside of Cologne… perhaps 50 minutes by rail. This community rivals Cologne in culture, living, food/drink, and architecture. The primary mission of our trip was to visit the Fachhochschule Düsseldorf (University of Applied Sciences). We visited the small campus (read, “Giant Building”), which I believe had around 6000 students, and met with some of the department heads. The school was very education-driven. That is, those professors who taught there were more focused on educating students than in their own research. They did have some pretty awesome research sectors though. Air quality measurement, food processing, machine automation, and CFD (Computational Fluid Dynamics) analysis of blood flow were the main sectors of research they showcased for us. All were very interesting, although following all the technical jargon in another language was taxing. I was wiped out from just having to concentrate on what they were telling us! I think I was able to get at least 50% of it. That’s good, right??

Following the tour, the 13 of us German-Engineering-Junkies ventured to “Altstadt” to check out the local breweries, shops, and architecture. There was definitely a cleaner and perhaps newer feel to this area than in Cologne. I’m not sure which I liked better. I think I’ll ultimately go with Cologne, but for most of the younger crowd, I believe Düsseldorf is the hot spot. We went to a brauhaus by the name of Brauerei zum Schlüssel (Key Brewery). Here I learned two definite things. 1 - Schüssel Altbier is perhaps a little better than Kölsch (don’t tell my counterparts in Cologne)… it is a darker beer with a smoother consistency. And 2 – Blutwurst, despite sounding rather gross (translating to “Blood Sausage”) is quite good. Smeckt gut!

And with that, it’s back to the grindstone. Two more days of class and one exam to go!