Wuppertal Wanderings

Last week, Mr. Traveler informed me that he needed to make a day trip for work to Wuppertal, Germany the coming Tuesday. I quickly said yes when he asked if I wanted to tag along. I decided, just like in Maidstone and Sion, it would be easy for me to find something to do during the day. Plus, I'd never been to Germany before, and while we are over here, I feel that it is important to take advantage of as many travel opportunities as come our way (and are reasonable in terms of budgeting and planning, of course).

We woke up a little before our alarm went off to the sound of heavy rain against our bedroom window. I hoped that the storm would pass before it was time to leave, but no such luck was in store for us. I pulled on my running pants over my slacks in the hope that they would keep me relatively dry on our bicycle ride to the train station. This seemed to do the trick, and I'm pretty sure Mr. Traveler was wishing he had done the same when he arrived at the train station, completely soaked from hip to knee on the front and with a nice bicycle seat print on the back of his slacks. Luckily the pants dried about halfway through our train ride there, so he wasn't forced to show up for work looking like he was unable to make it to the toilet on time. (By the way, if it seems like the descriptions of my adventures are all characterized by the mention of rain, you might be getting an idea of what it is like to live in the Netherlands. While we do have beautiful, sunny days, it's hard to remember those in the middle of a gray week full of drizzle and sometimes it really does feel like it rains every day.)

The train ride out of the Netherlands and into Germany was interesting in itself. The extremely flat landscape of the Netherlands gave way to cascading hills in the German countryside. (On the way back, even though it was dark outside, there was still a marked change as we crossed the border, and taller, more attractive Dutch people began to board the train again.)


As we pulled into Wuppertal, I spotted the suspended monorail and knew we had arrived. When I found out where we were going, I did a Google photo search and found a bunch of photos of the monorail, including one of an elephant falling out of it.

Tuffi the Elephant (source)

From what I can gather from various sources, someone at the circus thought it would be a great promotional bit to have an elephant on the monorail to celebrate the opening of the monorail route to the zoo (or just because the circus was in town -- there are some discrepancies between the stories in different sources). The elephant (whose name is Tuffi), on the other hand, did not share the same excitement for the idea and instead decided to bail midway through the ride. Amazingly someone captured it on film, and now we can all enjoy the giant failure (or maybe success, as now Wuppertal celebrates this event in the form of souvenirs and artwork) of the promotion. For any of you who are concerned, as I was, the elephant had only minor injuries and lived for another 39 years.

When we got to Wuppertal, Mr. Traveler called his coworker, who came to meet us at the train station. Since it wasn't quite time for their meeting, we had lunch together in a sandwich shop before the two headed off to the client site. As they left, I headed outside with no definite plan in mind. As we had pulled into the station, the rain was coming down pretty hard, and I wasn't certain how much walking around I wanted to do. I was pretty surprised, then, to see blue skies when I walked out of the station. I took advantage of the break in the clouds and walked around the city for a couple of hours, snapping pictures and getting acquainted with the city. I'm not sure the name of the buildings, so I haven't captioned them below (notice, though, the tiny dog with an outfit and matching muzzle in the front of the first picture):

About 30 minutes before I returned to the center of town, it started to rain again. (You might notice the increase in clouds through the pictures.) Not near any overhangs or shops, I tucked my camera under my jacket and hurried along, looking for a dry place to put the camera away in my bag. I eventually got back to a bridge under the train tracks and was able to get the camera safely in my backpack. When I got back to the center, I decided that the rain wasn't going to let up anytime soon, so I thought I'd check out the shopping in the area. I headed to a store that looked pretty familiar, TK Maxx. The logo was just like TJ Maxx, except for the obvious 1 letter difference. I could immediately tell when I entered that the stores were pretty much the same, with aisles and aisles of discounted merchandise. (I did some research online when I got back, and it turns out that TK Maxx is owned by the same company as TJ Maxx. Supposedly, when the company first decided to open stores in Europe in 1994, they decided to use the TK instead of TJ to avoid confusion with the existing but separate discount chain TJ Hughes. They did try, unsuccessfully to open a chain in the Netherlands in 1999, but I believe right now the stores are only located in the UK, Ireland, Germany and Poland.) Anyway, I spent a little while walking around the store and eventually purchased a pair of boots for 13 euros. Afterward, I decided I would wonder around the mall until Mr. Traveler called to let me know he was done with his meeting. The rain at this point had only increased in intensity, and I was much happier being inside and dry. I only walked around the mall for about 15 minutes, but I was especially excited to find a gummi store. The entire store was filled only with Baren Company chewy, gummi candy (gummi bears, gummi hearts, etc). I bought a bag of mini gummi bears, but it is probably good that I don't live any closer. I would likely become a regular pretty quickly. (By the way, in case you are up for some trivia, gummi bears originated in Germany in 1920, when Haribo was founded.)

Just as I was thinking the mall had lost its appeal, Mr. Traveler called me and we arranged to meet back at the train station. His coworker helped us buy our train tickets, and by the time we had finished standing in line and making the purchase, our train had arrived. It was time to say our goodbyes to Germany and head home to Holland.