Love Parade

July 19

Michael and Marianne are the couple from Münster who gave me a ride and invited me to their place. My plan had been to head back to Karlsruhe via Dortmund where my dear 93 year old friend Luise lives. She was hoping to see me again and it would have been nice to visit with her. Originally, I was going to take the train from Kiel (where the ship docked) to Dortmund and then stay with her for the night. Münster is quite close to Dortmund and I wasn’t able to reach Luise once we arrived in Kiel. I called several times and so I thought she must be out and about again on once of her various adventures. So I took Marianne and Michael up on their kind offer and went home with them. It was about a 5 hour drive from Kiel. They were traveling with their VW bus. We had a good time. This morning we had a nice leisurely breakfast and I tried figuring out how to get to Karlsruhe today. We exchanged addresses and hugs and said thank yous and goodbyes.

It turned out that Luise is home and has been waiting for me and was just out during the 2 hour time period that I tried to call her. Since Dortmund wasn’t that far away I decided I’d get off the train there, spent a couple of hours with Luise and then continue on my way. Big mistake.

Today is the Love Parade in Dortmund. The train system is a mess. The first train I got onto was disgusting. Empty beer bottles, huge 5L barrels and wine bottles, garbage lying around in the train, the floor was sticky and gross. Many love paraders got on here too, well on their way to being drunk, cracking open bottles on the train. Then we had to switch trains in Hamm. That was a disaster. That was a main exchange spot and the number of people that were there wanting to go to Dortmund was incredible. I squished myself onto the next train. The door would hardly close and then the train just sat there and sat there. It was stuffed to the brim and didn’t move. Every time the doors would open again more people tried to squish themselves on. At one point 3 little old ladies thought they would try to get on. I felt so sorry for them. I felt sorry for me. People were smoking and drinking. I told the guy standing beside me that it was a no-smoking train and I was allergic. He did put out his cigarette right away but others were smoking too and even a train conductor guy who was just squished in with the rest of us and not doing anything. When some maniac started screaming, shouting, pounding at the wall and jumping up and down I decided that this was too insane and wasn’t going to go to Dortmund after all. So I got off and figured out how to get to Karlsruhe without stopping in Dortmund. Luise was disappointed of course and so was the train conductor on the next train who I told my woe story too and he obviously had his own woe stories this day. He was very helpful. The trains that are running are all 40, 50, 60 minutes off schedule…which is unheard of Germany!! And not only did they have the Love Parade to contend with, the connecting train I was originally supposed to get was 75 minutes delayed because of a lightning strike. So I was able to get on the next train which miraculously was on time but too short. They had to remove half of the cars because of technical failures so this train is way too full. What an ordeal! I’ve managed to find a seat and am updating here on my laptop and have almost reached my destination. Finally!