Essen, Germany - Aug 11, 2009

Time to hop on the train again! This time we didn't want to end up spending 7 hours in transfers, or worse not get a spot on the train at all, so we went to the train station 4 hours early, haha. They told us that we don't need a reservation for this train, so all we have to do is get on when it arrives, hahaha. Oh well, now we have a ton of time to sit here and work on things like the blog!

Carolina's friend Edgar met us at the train station in Essen. We couldn't believe how well he treated us while we were there. We can never thank him enough!! We spent 3 nights with him at his apartment, but only 1 day in Essen. We did day trips on the other 2 days (Dusseldorf and Cologne). This blog entry will only be about Essen. There isn't too much to see in the city itself. Edgar explained that the majority of the old buildings and churches were destroyed in World War II. Now it is mostly an industrial city. It was the first city to have a shopping mall after the war. It also has the oldest movie theatre in Germany as well as the largest! (2 different theatres). We checked out the downtown area and spent our evening here checking out the neighbourhood on bikes. Carolina's bike was way too big for her, but all you know how determined she could be, she managed just fine. Not a ton to post about this, but here are some pictures.

Die Einkaufsstadt - This translates to "The Shopping Centre", Essen was the first city to have a shopping mall built after the destruction of WWII.