Monday May 6, 2024

Sunday in Germany is a day of rest for most businesses other than restaurants, museums and gas stations. I had a lazy morning (hit the gym but not a lot more), then went to the ETUF Essen club for a late afternoon practice. Before practicing I walked along the Baldeneysee which is an artificial lake between the Ruhr River…I walked past the lake along the Ruhr for a short while. It’s very green here and quite beautiful with hills behind the lake covered in green trees, some of which are in bloom.

I practiced with Karin Plagenborg. I played Karin in the World Team Championships a couple of years ago…she’s a very good player who plays #1 for a nearby German club. We drilled and played points for nearly two hours, great work out. Karin then took me to dinner at the Boothaus ETUF (top center in the collage above), good food and we overlooked the lake.

Today I had an earlier start, playing with one of my teammates, Reinhilde Adams who lives about 30-45 minutes away in the small town of Meerbusch. Rain was called for in the afternoon and we just beat the rain. Reinhilde’s club is very pretty, down a narrow street lined with trees and adjoining a park.

After playing I was going to go to Tennis Point to buy tennis balls, but the traffic was bad (will do it tomorrow I think), but on the way back saw a parking garage with and “Aldi” sign (I was thinking it was a free garage for the Aldi…it was “Frei” (meaning open spots in the garage) but not “free of charge”. I parked there anyway, took my Aldi. I stopped at an Edeka store first which was pretty gourmet. This jar of sausages made me chuckle..some things do not translate well.

There was more than one aisle of candies, mayonnaise to dip French Fries in, jams and Nutella type spreads galore and some lovely fruits and vegetables.

I found Aldi as well, more serviceable but not as pretty as the Edeka.

As I exited Aldi I reached for the parking ticket which had been (not was…had been) in a pocket. It was not there, it much have fallen out when I pulled my phone out along the way. I went to the parking garage and hit the telephone icon on the pay machine. Fortunately someone answered who spoke excellent English and was able to help. Interesting fact: the machine did not accept American credit cards, only German ones, so I had to run to my car for some Euros to pay the bill and called back, then she had the machine (#11) print out a paid ticket which worked to allow me to exit the car park. As adventures go it ended well and didn’t take up much time.

I returned to my hotel, went to the gym for a while and that was Monday in Essen. Tomorrow I will make that trip to Tennis Point to buy some expensive German tennis balls! (In the match on Saturday, we had used balls for doubles but fortunately Sabine’s match balls were only lightly used).