Thursday, July 21: Essen-Kettwig

On the last day of our trip I went with Billy and Uschi to Essen-Kettwig which is just north of Ratingen-Hösel.   First we went through an antique store which has since been torn down.  It had some really cool things, but the prices weren't so cool, especially with the poor exchange rate.

Then we walked along Baldeneysee which is a dam of the Ruhr-river. The Ruhr gives this area the name "Ruhrgebiet."  There were many different kinds of birds in the water and ripe blackberries along the other side of the path.

Uschi made spätzle with vegetables and meat for dinner--it was really good; we've started making it for dinner here.  Then we packed and got ready to leave for the airport.

Originally we were scheduled to fly nonstop to Atlanta and then after a several hour layover there and at another airport, get home late at night.  However, the plane was overbooked, and they flew us home on a much more direct route, a city hopper to Amsterdam and a direct flight to Detroit.  The only downside is that they didn't give us any flight compensation.

We had left our big suitcase at Billy and Uschi's house and had only had one backpack each.  Both of our backpacks expanded quite a bit, and we bought quite a bit.  We filled up both the suitcase and the extra bag in order to get our backpacks down to carry-on size.