Yesterday, Friday, I checked out of my hotel in Frankfurt around 11:30 AM and headed across the street to the train station. For lunch I got a Frankfurter:
That's one weiner folded over. They put mustard on top. It was gut.
While waiting for my 1:22 train, I saw this on the platform. Mind the gap, bro!:
My train departed on time. It's final destination was Hamburg. I found it interesting that my reserved seat had my starting and end points:
Truth be told, I was kinda glad to leave Frankfurt. Wasn't too impressed. Maybe because it's a financial hot spot, that's why it felt like a city without a soul or even an authentic identity.
The train ride to Dortmund took about four-and-a-half hours. About the first half ran along the Rhine River. Beautiful! There were some castles. I probably should've taken some pictures, but I'm sure I'll come across other castles in the next week.
I took a cab to the hotel. Much nicer than the cozy one in Frankfurt. Lots of room here and I have two beds. It's gotta be a four-star joint.
For dinner I walked about a quarter mile away to a quasi-fancy place and ordered pasta, which came not in tomato sauce but with an oily sauce and parmesan cheese on top.
I spent the rest of the night just hanging out at the hotel.
Saturday I got up around 8 AM and went downstairs for the hotel's breakfast. Because it was €19 I ate three mini-sausages, a slice of bacon, and a croissant, and drank a glass of OJ . . . unfortunately they didn't have pancakes.
Around 9:30 AM I hopped on the nearest subway stop and headed downtown for a Germany national football team jersey. The store that the front desk recommended had the jerseys for about 10 euros off, so they were €70. I decided to wander around a little for a better sale.
I stumbled across the Germany Football Museum (das Deutsche Fußballmuseum), which is across the street from the train station I arrived in yesterday afternoon:
A ticket was under €20. Oddly, some Aryan asshole wouldn't let me in to the actual museum with my jacket on. Pissed me off a little 'cause I like putting my iPod, phone and passport in my jacket's two zipper pockets.
After throwing my jacket and hat in a locker downstairs for €1 (which I got back when I left), I checked out the museum. It was interesting. A lot of it I didn't get because I don't really follow national teams too much. But it was a few years ago, so it's pretty modern. It was cool seeing some old shots of Bastian Schweinsteiger, who used to play for Manchester United and is now with the Chicago Fire in the States.
Next, I walked around outside in the shopping area and saw an inside mall. In there I found an InterSport store. They had the German national football jersey for the same price as the other store, but I went with the version from a year or two ago for €40 -- I like how it's got the colours of the German flag on the collar.
By then it was a little before noon. I chilled out on a comfortable black leather seat next to an escalator.
For lunch I hit the food court and got a salad wrap. I think it had some goat cheese in there. If unsure, best not to ask. Ignorance and all that. . . .
I hopped on the train for Signal Iduna Park, where I'll see Dortmund play tomorrow. They only have two tours of the stadium in English, and I wanted to make the 1:40 PM one. When I got there and bought my ticket for €12, I told the cashier I tried buying it online Friday night and Saturday morning, but my credit card wouldn't go through. I think she said that's intentional with foreign credit cards. Whatever.
The tour lasted about 90 minutes and was pretty cool. (The only other stadium tour I've done was at Manchester United.) Signal Iduna Park holds over 80,000 and is the biggest Stadion in Germany. Pretty funny: the stairwell to the visiting team's locker room has 13 steps and Dortmund's stairwell has 12 steps; apparently players are superstitious, so visitors will skip the last step.
Part of the tour went through Dortmund's locker room, so I took a pic of Pennsylvania's own Christian Pulisic's locker:
In Dortmund's locker room there are two hair dryers. Apparently after an international match, UEFA sent them to be put in both locker rooms. As part of "psychological warfare", said the tour guide, a maintenance worker put both dryers in Dortmund's locker room. The only player to ever complain was Cristiano Ronaldo. Twice.
Next to the locker rooms were ice baths and pools, which were blocked off. The tour guide was pretty entertaining. He said the pools were, I think, 99 centimeters deep. "This being Germany and our love for regulations, if they were 100 centimeters, we'd have to have a life guard."
Another part of the tour took you by the teams' boxes. The seats in Dortmund's box are always heated, but the visiting team have to request their seats be heated -- more of that "psychological warfare". Here is the visitors box (most of the 40 people on the tour were lounging in Dortmund's box):
With the stadium tour concluded, I tried walking back to the hotel, since it's only about a half-mile away (one kilometric for you metric heads out there), but I got really lost. Not a big deal. It was a gorgeous sunny day; must've been around 66 degrees. I eventually had to take the subway into the city centre (about a 10-minute ride) and hop on another train to get back to the hotel.
For dinner I walked to a restaurant more than a half-mile away, past the place I had dinner on Friday night. I got grilled squid -- not sure if I ever have it before; I know I've eaten octopus -- skewered vegetables, and potato wedges. They also gave spinach in a bowl with melted cheese on top. I told both the waiter and server I didn't order it, but they wouldn't listen. When my check came, the server admitted his mistake, so I wound up paying for it. Not a big deal because it all came up to €27.50 for four courses and Earl Grey tea, though I only left a 15% tip because in addition to the spinach mixup, there was a black hair on the squid plate . . . it wasn't near the food so I didn't complain.
On my way back to the hotel, I found the path to the stadium for tomorrow's match. Also, I noticed that across the street from the hotel is the soccer team's headquarters:
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