Europe Trip 2009: Friday July 30th – Rest Day in Emmerich

We were scheduled to take a rest day either today or tomorrow. Since our accommodations are nice here in Emmerich we decided to say an additional day.

Breakfast was an additional charge of six euros per person but it was well worth it. Since we were still recovering from jet lag we requested to have breakfast around 9:00 AM. At 9:00 AM (probably to the second) there was a knock at the door and several trays arrived. Orange juice, eggs, bread buns, cheeses, meats, jams, nutella, chocolate sprinkles, honey, coffee and tea all arrived. Per person they provided were two buns, two pieces of dark bread, an egg, orange juice, tea and coffee. There was also several types of cheeses and sliced meat. The buns were perfectly warmed to be crispy on the outside and soft on the inside. The eggs were small but clearly farm fresh with hand written numbers on the shells.

We feasted on this breakfast for about an hour. Towards the end of the meal when everybody was starting to fill up, I started taking ¼ of a bun and placing one variety of cheese, jam or meat on it. I cut this into small pieces and passed them around the family so we could try everything. The honey had a distinct buckwheat taste; one of the jams was actually a ginger spread; another jam was a combination of red fruits that included raspberry. It was a taste experience. If you were expecting a standard pancakes and bacon breakfast, I guess this could have been a disappointment but we enjoyed it completely.

I spent most of the morning making future accommodations. I'm making request using the city web sites and send emails. So far email has not been very successfully, Europeans don't seem to be as tied to their email as we are. I will get an email back but it will take several days. All but tomorrow's overnight has been confirmed. Based on the city website there is plenty of availability, we will likely be rolling into town and trying to find something. We have a few places that look good and available but no confirmations. We are planning to get up early (so far this has been an immense challenge) so we are arrive in town early.

We walked into Emmerich and went shopping. We wanted to find some better bike route maps, bells for our bikes and a map holder for our bikes. Yes, we still believe it is possible to get less lost. We found the map at the city information booth and finally found a bike store where we were able to get the map holder and bells. Unfortunately the bells could not be installed on our handlebars since the handle bars were too wide. We will see how the new map and map holder work tomorrow.

We also had lunch at a restaurant on the Rhine. The food was not very good but the view was great. As I was translating the families orders for the waiter, he asked where we were from. I explained that the parents were Canadians and the kids were Americans and we were all living in the U.S.

“You moved from Canada to the US” he asked with a puzzled look.

Yes I explained.

“Canada is better right” he continued.

“They are different not really one better than the other” I replied as best I could with my broken German.

“Canada is good, America not so much” he replied.

The kids asked about the conversation was about, so I recounted the story. This started a conversation that included difficult questions like “Why don't people like the U.S.?” and “Should we say we are from Canada?”. As we left the restaurant the waiter said “Goodbye Canadians”

It was clear that he intentionally didn't include the kids. I maybe it was just the parent in me but I started thinking that this was a form of racism. Why dislike my children just because of their country of birth? Is that any different than disliking them for the color of their skin? Maybe just wishful thinking or maybe I was being naïve but I thought this type of negativity would not be as prevalent. We talked as we walked along the Rhine board walk and didn't really come to any conclusions.

We are going to pose as Canadians (not so hard) for the next week and see if our reception changes. Maybe the email turnaround time will improve when we use a Canadian address.

We ended the day with a light dinner and went to bed early in preparation for our early start in the morning.