Dusseldorf

If you remember my blog post from last year describing my travel phobia you’re probably thinking did he do it? Did he break the hoodoo?

The answer is yes. I’m typing this, part 1, from my hotel bedroom in Dusseldorf and I’ve split the post into parts 1 and 2 because I haven’t seen the concert yet; that kicks off in just under five hours time. The concert will determine whether this trip was a good or a bad idea.

The irony is I’ve got past the phobia. (Had an anxious wait for the taxi yesterday morning, but in the weeks and days leading up to the flight out to Germany I didn’t feel a thing.) No, the irony is I don’t want to see the inside of another airport as long as I live and I’ve got Dusseldorf Flughaven to deal with on the way home tomorrow.

Manchester was grotesque: busy, chaotic, unplanned, the architectural equivalent of a dropped bowl of stew. The departure lounge was too small for the amount of travellers going through it and the navigation was unfathomable. Airports are clearly designed by shipping companies as a punishment for not travelling by boat.

And the flight was delayed by forty minutes. And the plane had propellers and very narrow seats. Mercifully, the flight was just short of ninety minutes.

I won’t bore you with the hotel, but suffice to say If I did come back to Dusseldorf (on foot) I wouldn’t stay here.

Only last week I was considering the possibility of buying another ticket to see Helene Fischer in Mannheim. A rearranged arena show replacing one cancelled earlier in the year. But I held back to see if tickets became available for her Christmas show on German television. The TV show was announced earlier this week. Mannheim for me was off.

Pre-sale tickets to fan club members went on sale this morning. Two shows, Friday and Saturday, 7th and 8th December in Dusseldorf, at the Messe Halle 6, which by incredible fortune is across the road from tonight’s venue, the Esprit Arena.

But I won’t be going. The 10 o’clock pre-sale deadline came and went and I turned my nose up at a five hundred euro trip to see a two hour show. Lucky really. If tickets had gone on sale before I flew out I would have bought one. I had already booked the hotel – the one I’m in now – but I can cancel that without any charges. I would have been stuck with the ticket.

So it all boils down to tonight. I’ll probably write part 2 on Sunday and you’ll either hear about my Damascene conversion and splurging on tickets for December’s show, or all my future holidays being confined exclusively to the north west of England.