The flight itself was an uneventful ten hours. I was seated all the way in the back and had a seat empty next to me. I snored my way over Vegas, Minnesota, Greenland, and the United Kingdom before touching down in Duesseldorf, home of Dieter from "Sprockets" and the pioneering late-seventies synth-pop band Kraftwerk. Exchanged some euros, didn't gather my luggage (as it had been sent ahead already to Moscow - more on that in a second), and was outside of the airport and on a train to the city center by 10:45, about half an hour after I'd touched down.
So yeah, the luggage. The LTU lady at LAX informed as she was taking my luggage that it would be proceeding directly to Moscow, despite my 25-hour layover in Duesseldorf. I had time to grab a clean pair of underwear (or lederhosen, as those wacky Germans say) before my luggage disappeared. Oh well, I thought, assuring myself that I had everything I'd need -- even an extra shirt -- in my backpack.
Of course, not having the luxury of back-up clothes made for a bit of a challenge for me, who is notorious for being a bit of a messy eater (or el slobbo, as my mom or the Spanish would say). I made it, however, through two meals on the plane -- one of them pasta in a very runny sauce, no less -- without dribbling all over myself. Had they known of this accomplishment, the cutie LTU stewardesses might have given me a medal or some ice cream. No...ice cream bad...mega dribble potential.
So I arrived in central Duesseldorf and it looked just like it had on googlemaps the night before when I'd checked my hotel location at home, only more three-dimensional and more...real. I walked to the Hotel Bavaria, ready to go out and explore
Duesseldorf after dropping my stuff off. I checked in, went to my room, and...fell asleep for four hours. Fortunately, at this time of year, this far north, it stays late until 11 at night or so. Like, really light. Like sunglasses until 10:30 and clouds visible in the clear Northern sky until well after midnight. I got up, showered in my lovely 2 foot by 2 foot German shower, which necessiated me standing outside of the shower half the time so as to not inadvertently send the water from comfortable to "scalding." 
I went out exploring Duesseldorf. Lots of street cars. Rode all around with the help of a map I found in the hotel room. One of the biggest differences I noticed between Duesseldorf and the good old USA (or at least Riverside, CA) was the numerous works of public art scattered EVERYWHERE around the city: giant whimsical slides, a huge cherry, playing plaster puppies...lots of cool stuff to break up the modern skyscrapers and centuries-old buildings that made up central Duesseldorf. Also, I was able to get all over the city on streetcars. And if that hadn't been enough, I could have taken the subway. And that trip from the airport to downtown had been so quick and efficient on the train...they (like the rest of Europe) have the mass transit thing down to a degree that we in American can only dream of. Also, they are big into recycling. Every corner had like four pails for paper or tin or plastic or metal -- all nicely decorated and none of them graffitied. The coolest eco thing I saw, though, was that at every traffic circle (and there were many), the perimeter of the circle was covered in recycyled auto tires, which was such a cool use for them! Why don't we do stuff like this?
I ate dinner (sausage! mmmm!) at a restaurant in the old part of town and returned to my hotel by 1 a.m., ready to get up at 7 for the next day's trip to Russia. My night's sleep wasn't that good because the bed was in very poor condition (a condition the Germans call der lumpypillow), but I survived, because I was tired, and I knew the next day would be epic as I made my way behind the Iron Curtain.
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