GERMANY Day01//07.May.04 - Drupa & Dallying About: Dusseldorf
After our itinerary driven tour in Spain, the freedom of not having to adhere to a schedule felt quite liberating. The only reason why we were in Germany was because Dad had to attend drupa, the mother-of-all printing fairs in Dusseldorf. Excerpt from drupa's official website:"drupa is to the printing and paper industries what the Olympic Games are to athletes. Every four years, hundreds of thousands of experts come to Düsseldorf for drupa. It's an unmissable opportunity for seeing all the latest technologies in mediaproduction and processing live in action. No other trade fair has such a vast, fundamental economic and technological impact as drupa. drupa is a constant reflection of the printing and paper sectors."
The printing and publishing fraternity from around the world had gathered in full force and descended upon Dusseldorf. Because of that, hotels in Dusseldorf were fully booked and we had to stay in Cologne. Even Cologne was not spared from the effects of drupa. drupa related brochures could be found in our bedrooms, and on our pillows, complimentary sweets packaged to advertise drupa. In the morning, we had breakfast on drupa place-mats, coasters, and napkins. After breakfast, we took the train to Dusseldorf and left my dad at the humongous exhibition halls and headed downtown.
Unlike other historic German towns like Heidelberg, there was nothing much to be seen at Dusseldorf. The town center looked like any typical modern city. The only activity left was to shop. But alas, due to the persistent rain, mom and I were basically stuck to the few shopping complexes that were adjacent to one another. Throughout the afternoon, we wandered through shops, never to find anything worth our Euros. The only thing I found fascinating, but could not buy was a shoeshiner's console. When evening came, we took the train back to Cologne, sans shopping bags, but at least having experience what a grey, rainy Dusseldorf is like.
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home