Us, the nokia quadruple from sg at the Deutsches Bergbau-Museum.Weekends are unusually quiet. gone were the days of shop-till-you-drop and outings. Comes friday, grocery shops are packed, lines forming all the way to the back of the store, with people getting ready with their rations as the ghost town welcomes the weekend. No food, no shops, no banks, no information centre, no nothing. The first weekend was just awesome, a big eye-opener at how dead a place can be, a vast difference from the bustling weekday unicentre.
Thank our lucky stars museums are open in the weekends! So we found somewhere to go to, something to do and had an insight into the haydays of bochum which started as a location for coal mining and industrial factories. some interesting facts:
- women make up a large percentage of miners
- 12 degs C is the temp in the mines and these women work naked. (guessing they must have had really thick skin)
- many mines are beneath the grounds of the city and apparently there was this house that was built on one, and is now leaning like the tower of pisa, not to fall over only because someone put a stick for support on the falling side
- people check for holes underground before buying their land to build their houses and theses german houses are H.U.G.E.
- nokia and opel are among the bigger companies who have plants in this city
It was then a brief introduction to the city centre and the most happening place in the city, the bermuda 3eck, the hip youngish fashion street, and the area. A happy hot choc in the coffee bar ended the day quite well.
A friend also brought us around the place and really memorable was Jahrhunderthalle, at night. An S-Suspension bridge supported by only two poles, way elevated hole-ly walkway definitely not the the weak-hearted. Trees lighted up by night, ice berg posing on the bridge, climbing up stone slabs half my height. It has to be more than just interesting, not to mention us doing all of it in the cold darkness. A different experience, and definitely a good one. =)
Handball fuer Sie? Watching the handball finals in dortmund with my colleagues at work was just awesome. Painted faces, black-red-yellow accessorised, even before the game i was singing auf geht Deutschland schist ein Taur at the top of my lungs and screaming out loud my tikatakatikatakahoihoihois, not to forget the tuneful and patriotic deutschland deustchland deutschland deutschland. A snipshot of how it was like during the world cup last year, but not even close. love the feeling of togetherness, how one thing just bonds the entire group together, it's just like one big party in the entire nation, everyone high on winning the championship title. and while germany was fighting for the finals, i heard we did well in the Fussball game against thailand too. cool beans.
