Thats right, eat your heart out jarbabyj! For I am going to Dusseldorf 8 Oct. to 15 Oct.! Woo! This is part of my new job and looks to be a great trip, my partners are a lot of fun and it will be like a second vacation for me sans kids!
Any tips on what to do, where to go? I may also be driving down to Stuttgart later in the week, we shall see what develops.
Any Dopers in either place??
No offense to any of you Germans…
but MikeG, plan on eating a lot of Italian. Lord the restaurants in northern Germany are scary. Bread made of sawdust, meat that would frighten Eskimos. I would have starved if it hadn’t been for the fantastic (and ubiquitous) Italian restaurants.
Congrats Mike! Great news. 
Drink a beer for me. 
Ah, Deutschland. On the list of places in which I want to live, it’s pretty close to the top. Have fun (you say you’re driving, implying automobilial contact with the Autobahn… Sounds like you’ll be having more than just a bit of fun getting to Stuttgart.).
Haben Sie einen guten Trip!
Oh yeah, I forgot to mention the boss says he accepts nothing less than an M3 for his (read our)rental
Last weekend, I showed him and his fiance my cooking skills at the summer house, next time I get to show off what I learned at Skip Barber Racing!
And as for the food, I actually have a taste for some good Schwartsbrot and some good Schweinhaxen!
Well next on my list is to pick up a renewed passport, It sucks that you cant get good service until less than 12 days before the trip, if I tried to get it now, there is a good chance I wouldn’t so I have to wait…grrrr
Oh Mike, how exciting! A new job, and it comes with a free trip! Woo!
I’m jealous.
Rose
See if you can swing an overnight trip to Dublin. Think there might be a big Dopefest going on around that time …
ruadh that would be simply amazing. I will start pressing the boss to let me route thru Dublin, I’ll spout some shit about seeing long lost family…
mmmmm, Guinness…
MMMMMmmmm, the chance to find a nice wooden Irish 3 or 5 keyed flute at a decent price…MMMMMMMMMMMMM
Nice. I’m going next summer, with my german class. I’m looking forward (geez. Sp?) to it. Herr Mangan says that plenty of stuff is legal there. All kinds of knives, fireworks, who knows what else. (and Die Ärtze albums. I can’t wait to get those, and thanks to the doper who introduced me, but doesn’t realize it.) I’ll have to mail that stuff to myself, can’t bring it past airport security. …ah, the knives. not the … music… .
Mike G:
I spent 14 years of my professional life in Duesseldorf. I live in the US, but I still maintain an office and a small apartment there. This msg. reaches you from ground zero. As German cities go, Duesseldorf ain’t bad. Being born and raised in Munich, I have preconceived notions, but you will survive nicely in DUS.
If you like beer and to party, there is a whole district called “Altstadt” (Old Town) which boasts to have the “longest bar counter in the world” (they simply added the length of all of them, and probably faked a little).
As some have opined here, there are excellent Italian restaurants, some better than in Milan, info on request.
There’s the Rhine river in the middle.
Depending on the groups you will interact with, you will find that it is easy to make friends, but friendships usually don’t last long. The typical Duesseldorfer is rumored to be shallow, they can be a bit pretentious and style conscious (witness the number and pricing levels of trendy boutiques in the Koenigsallee area.)
If you stay there for one week, you probably won’t notice the subtleties. If you are into beer, you’ll immediately see the difference, because the local variety is dark brown. If that doesn’t agree with you, then you can obtain the internationally accepted varieties easily.
For a quick escape: The airport is within 15 minutes driving distance. Netherlands (where I’m told dope is freely available) and Belgium (where it’s not) are a short car ride away. Paris can be reached within an afternoon.
Cranky: Bread made of sawdust is B.S. Your last visit must have been shortly after the war. But they didn’t have Italian restaurants there either. You won’t find bread with Marshmallow consistency in all of Germany, they are actually pretty proud of their bakery goods, and they are best when eaten fresh. True, kept overnight, and treated with a hammer, a roll will disintegrate into a sawdust-like pile. That’s why a German baker’s day starts at two in the morning, so that he can supply the populus with fresh goods.
I support the choice of a fast car, but keep an eye on the posted speed limits, especially in construction sites, which are plenty. They have these little fully automated cameras behind just about every sign. They produce photographs of amazing clarity. License plate, driver, co-pilot. (which can lead to embarrassing moments at home …) Nobody will pull you over (much too much work), you will get the summonses in the mail… The rental company will forward. Even back in the USA, you may elect to pay. They have this bilateral agreement, and if they involve your local or state authorities, you may get brownie points as an added memento.
Have fun. If I could survive 14 years, a week won’t harm you.
PS: I’m not an expert on illicit substances. Last time I looked, dope was illegal, but possession for personal use will not be prosecuted. (Tricky, eh?) In theory, the police can arrest you, keep you overnight, hand the matter to the D.A. and he tosses it into the round file. Very theoretical.
The biggest hurdle for a newcomer will be to find the supply. Selling is strictly verboten and they chase the dealers from one place to the other. Even with local knowledge, I would be hard pressed to obtain the stuff. And there’s always the risk of buying aromatic cooking herbs at highly inflated prices.
Update: I am leaving in a few hours to go wait for 3 hours at O’Hare for my 9pm flight tonight. I also just got a nice comission check so I will actually be able to try some of the wonderful Bier!!
It turns out we are spending two days in Ddorf, then driving up to Melle, then down to Stuttgart - lots of Autobahn action, I hope we get a nice fast car!
I’m out in Leipzig in the East, but I used to live near Stuttgart in Tübingen. That’s my tip: a nice, quiet university town (not as many tourists as in Heidelberg) with an intact medieval center, which is hard to find in Germany due to the war. It’s a 30 min. drive from Stuttgart, which I always found to be all business and empty.
I unfortunately don’t know the Düsseldorf area very well, but you’ll be close to Holland, that might be worth a look. It all depends on how much time you have.
As for beer, the best in the Tübingen area is, IMHO, Haigerlocher. Forget the big Stuttgart brews (Dinkel Acker, Stuttgarter Hofbräu), although they are still much better than U.S. mass-markets. Try Köstritzer Schwarzbier (black beer) anywhere in Germany. And don’t waste time with anything you may know already (Beck’s, etc.) They are watered-down and made for export. Take a chance on any new names, you never know! 
OK, I’m on a crappy “Guest Web” thing in the Hotel in Melle so I have t okeep it short. It’s been fun so far! My first night in Duesseldorf, I ended up at a Irish bar in Den Altstadt (surprise, surprise:)) and was welcomed very warmly by the lovely waitress - modesty forbids me from divulging more but suffice to say, I did not stay in a hotel my first night in Germany:)
It’s bee nquieter since then, thankfully.Lots of Driving from Ddorf to Melle, and tomorrow I’m driving 6 hours to Stuttgart.
The Bier has been great and I’ve managed to acquire some kinda cool souvenirs on my trip as well.
More details when I’m on a decent connection and I’ll share at the ChiDope!