Yesterday after we finished school I decide we should spend the remainder of the day shopping downtown Neuss. While Germany does have Malls (as does our city), all the cities we have visited also have Pedestian only areas where people can pick up just about anything a person would need. Esprit, Gelato, Bread, Lunch, Grocery Stores, Dollar Store (or more like Euro Store), Toys, Open Markets, etc can all be found in these areas all without the fear of being run down by a car (Trams and buses still run through).
We had gone downtown a couple of times on our way to dinner or to do Laundry, but never gone down to just explore. We started off by lunching at McDonalds. I know, way to venture out Meghan you may think. But McDonalds is a treat no matter where we are. But boy I wish we had lunched somewhere else. The lady who helped me spoke no English and I don't know how to express this, but wasn't in the mindset to interpret my pointing and gesturing as language, causing me to break into a low blood-sugar cold sweat. Well all said and done, I didn't receive anything close to what I ordered and my kids who had been looking forward to their normal Happy Meal order let me know at length their disappointment. A not so great start to an afternoon.
Well I debated vigorously with myself on whether to call it a day. Afterall, it was I who wanted to explore and do some shopping. Maybe I should just cut my losses. Right?
I decided we would give it another try. Afterall, it had most us nearly much to get downtown as our lunch had cost. Things began to look up when we found a Euro store packed full of little trinkets to bring home as gifts. Feeling re-engergized we hit a couple more stores and turned a corner to find this Glockenspiel. I really feel like it was God ordanianed to encourage me.
I mean the chances we would walk into this square at one of two time during the entire day was just to amazing. I never would have noticed it if it had not been exactly 3 pm that we decided to walk through. While I mistakenly didn't get it all (phone went to sleep), it went for a good 4-5 minutes and consisted of a sort of military parade.
You may have also heard the gonging of the
Church of St. Quirinus.
1 comment:
Dont' let little mess-ups stop you from exploring. They will make for great stories later. Once when we were taking my sister around southern Germany, she offered to pay "pig-and-twenty" = (schwein und zwanzing) rather than "two and twenty" = zwei und zwanzig for something. We still laugh about it over 20 years later.
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