So It Goes: SATs and Dortmund

4:25 Alarm goes off. Pushes snooze button.
4:31 Alarm goes off again. This time it can't be ignored.
5:20 Sets off on bicycle in below freezing weather. Survival tip: rain pants, two scarves, and arm warmers under gloves.
6:06 Train leaves Wesel station for Duisburg.
6:41 Train arrives in Duisburg a few minutes late, leaving 6 minutes to find the U-bahn station.
6:47 Finds the U-bahn station (and the right track, too) on time. No idea why it's called an U-bahn (supposedly equivalent of subway) when it spent most of the time above ground.
7:21 U-bahn arrives at Kittelbach street in Düsseldorf-Kaiserswerth (above ground). Walks to Niederrhein street and makes a wrong turn.
7:30 Finds out that the last 9 minutes have been in the wrong direction, but finds another person with the same plight, so it's not so bad.
7:45 Finally arrives at International School Düsseldorf to take the SAT.

The things people do for College tests, no? Traveling alone to Düsseldorf was an interesting experience, especially since some places, such as the U-bahn station, I had to find alone. At the test center there were several American exchange students taking the SAT (I don't know why I wasn't expecting it) I had the opportunity to talk with. Talking with other students with other programs is always fun.

I was away for the morning anyway, so after the test I took the train to Dortmund, which was a visit recommended by Yuy, who is back in Thailand now after a year in Germany. The city is huge. I walked from one end of the pedestrian zone to the other, and it had to be at least as long as, if not longer than, Essen. Plus there were a lot of pedestrian walkways leading to either side.

Football, aka Soccer, is a major characteristic of Dortmund. The team is actually one of the worst in Germany, I hear, but it has a ton of die-hard fans. You can see them packed in the trains like yellow and black sardines on days Dortmund plays. There are also lots of shops selling fan gear for Dortmund, Germany, or European football. In the pedestrian zone a number of soccer ball chairs are scattered about for sitting pleasure.

If you walk around the city, you will also notice the city's fettish for winged rhinos. They add color, culture, and, presumably, unity to the city. Dortmund lies in the Ruhrgebiet, meaning it is a highly industrial city. It does not have the organic elegance of Wesel. Walk beyond the pedestrian zone and you can see the condensed housing, 5-6 story apartments squashed together, painted in bright, bold colors. The city has the industrial look, somewhat used, perhaps even dirty. But in that way it has an elegance all of its own. I would definitely reccomend it to anyone coming to Germany, not because it's a great place for sight-seeing (I don't know how many tourism Dortmund attracts), but because it's like seeing Germany raw.

Here's a little photo journal of some of Dortmund, including those funny chairs and the winged rhinos:

Dortmund has two Doms in the Innenstadt. I got lost trying to find the train station, which is down a side street from one of the Doms, because I didn't look up: one Dom has a characteristic "Zwiebelturm," or onion tower.