The Success of Dorf's Failed Terror Plot

Dusseldorf's Altstadt, during Christmas.

Dusseldorf has made headlines around the world for terror plot.

Four men were arrested on terrorist charges. Half planned to blow themselves up in Dusseldorf's Altstadt, while the other two would shot people in the ensuing confusion. The Altstadt is the centre of the Dorf's nightlife, so it could have been messy if it happened.

What we know is a Syrian man was arrested in France in March and confessed about the attack and his three accomplices, who were arrested after weeks of surveillance.

Kata expressed concern that the Islamic State was coming for Germany after the Paris and Brussels attacks. I shrugged it off; they have to find the Dorf before they can attack it.

Well, they found the Dorf.

It's called a failed plot, but it was successful. Some are thinking twice before going to the Altstadt. Others simply react like they would have been present if it happened – as if the attack would have occurred when they were in the Altstadt for their weekly shopping trip or night out.

But, that's why it's called terrorism: You fear for yourself so much you ignore the outsized odds of even witnessing an attack.

The plot's other success is a slower burn. At least two of the suspects came to Germany along the Migrant Route through Turkey and Greece and recent reports about sleeper cells in refugee camps only add fuel to the fire.

Germany is not France or Belgium, where immigrants are systemically ignored into powerty and extremism. Even before the so-called refugee crisis, Germany had one of Europe's most robust programs for registering migrants and providing them social welfare and language courses.

But that was a different time. 

We're a little more cynical now. We defend liberal ideals and Christian values but refuse to uphold them. We build fences. We elect nationalists. We cut deals with dictators to keep people in need away.

We think we live in dark times, that terrorists are taking advantage of our kindness, that people with the resolve to cross stormy seas and walk hundreds of miles will do nothing but collect welfare cheques when they arrive.

Times are not bad. The suspects were rounded up. We've never been safer from war, disease, and famine. UEFA Euro 2016 is just around the corner and it's the summer. We have so little to fear in the world that we shouldn't forget that now is the perfect time for a drink in the Altsadt.

In the Fast Lane Through Flanders

I worked for the NBA over a summer organizing 3-on-3 basketball tournaments across Canada. One of the many fun parts of the job was renting vehicles in almost every city with NBA money.

It was like a week-long test drive of a car you were never going to buy. I drove an SUV all over Vancouver, a PT Cruiser in Montreal, a speedy Mazda sedan in Edmonton, and a minivan in Winnipeg – which was fine because that stopover sucked. 

I wanted the same experience in Europe, just with my own money, so for a chunk of 2015 I fought with ServiceOntario to get my drivers' license renewed. It took innumerable phone calls, several formal letters – they would have preferred faxes – and an old fashioned cheque.

I finally got my Canadian drivers license in the fall, which allowed me to rent a truck for a film shoot in the UK countryside. This drive gave me the chance to teach myself how to drive on other side of the road in the middle of the night.

Belgium's border is just a hour away from the Dorf, so the country and its waffles and its beer and medieval churches and its old-timey bridges and canals was always on our radar. We had gone to Antwerp last spring and loved the city. This year we were eyeing Ghent and/or Bruges.

Getting to both cities on a long weekend is no easy feat by train, so with my shiny new drivers' license we booked a car rental.

Renting a car in Europe is not without its difficulties for me, a product of the North American suburbs. I can't drive a car with manual transmission, which discounts me from most available models. We lucked out and found an automatisch Mercedes C-class and booked it.

The next obstacle was finding our way to Ghent. This is not so easy when you're driving through Flanders, where all the signs are in Dutch. We opted for the GPS at the last minute at the pick-up desk, which meant no Mercedes for us. We got an Opel. We were going to Belgium like real, fiscally-responsible Germans!


On Zee Road!

The German stereotype of moving about in orderly lines turns out to be a half truth on the autobahn. Everyone keeps to the right lane because the left lane is for screaming past the right-lane slowpokes at 170km/h.

That's just the way it is. You can pop into the left lane to pass someone, but be prepared for a Rhenish soccer mom in a Porsche to approach from behind with high beams flashing and her front bumper inches from your rear bumper. And that's in our Opel with German plates. Who knows what they do when they see foreign plates.

We rode through the orderly craziness of Germany into sedate Netherlands, where people are so easygoing and so courteous on the highway that you feel like an asshole for getting close to the speed limit. From the Netherlands, you get into Flanders, which used to be in the Netherlands and where they drive like they're still in the Netherlands. 

We were debating where to stop for lunch. Kata wanted to stop in Brussels. I thought Brussels was too big, too busy, and too Brussels-y for a quick stop on the road. Kata didn't like that, but before she got hangry I took the next exit and said, "We'll just eat here at..." I looked for a sign. ...At Leuven!" 

Leuven's Town Hall.

What we saw while we ate our lunch.

The detail on Leuven's Town Hall is incredible.

We never heard of Leuven and never would have thought of visiting. The fast lane in Flanders opened up an incredible destination that we were happy to have visited. We easily parked close to the old town centre,  ate a healthy lunch at an outdoor cafe, wandered the streets, and saw all sorts of beautiful things.

We got back onto the road and approached Brussels. It's a bilingual enclave within Dutch-speaking Flanders and the signs were in Dutch and French. The style of driving went from friendly Flemish-style to French Fury Road-style. As we took the ring road around the city, cars jostled and tailgated for position. They cut each other off, swerved onto exits at the last minute, and avoided signalling before changing lanes. 

We survived the Brussels Circle Pit and made it to our Ghent Airbnb. Well, it was not that easy. The Airbnb was deep in the countryside, down a narrow road and tucked between a few farms and a nature preserve. Our GPS couldn't compute where it exactly was and, because I began trusting the computer over my own eyes, we drove past the place.

Our accommodation was a lovely renovated loft above a small, physiotherapy clinic. We got our own kitchen, which used to be an army camper trailer, and access to an indoor pool below. We'd go into Ghent and see the sights and walk along the canals and drink the beer out of fancy chalices before getting back into the countryside to relax and sleep.

It was a tranquil way of discovering the city – and it is a beautiful city – and very different than our Antwerp getaway last Spring, where we stayed in the city.

The Fish Market, which thankfully did not smell like a fish market.

Kata in a Church.

Guys, just get to Ghent. It's very pretty.

Ghent's Contemporary Art Museum, where else!

The gardens of St. Michael's Abbey in Ghent.

In – then out of – Bruges

The weekend went by quickly and we hit the road on Sunday for our final destination: Bruges. But before I get into all of that, let me write a bit about the GPS.

Our GPS didn't talk, which surprised me for the first few turns because I thought they all spoke in that... halting... voice. It would often silently tell me to turn after I read the signs and already taken the turn. It was also difficult to read while navigating around traffic circles, which are already a challenge for sheltered North American drivers.

I went to Traffic Circle School on the wrong side of the road in the UK, so I thought I could handle all the traffic circles the roads of Belgium, the Netherlands, and Germany could throw at me until I encountered a five-lane traffic circle outside of Ghent with stoplights.

This was the traffic circle to end all traffic circles. The GPS didn't help much either. With no sound, I'd look at the little screen, look at the winding road, look at the cars around me changing lanes, check the mirrors, all while trying to find the Dutch road signs that would lead us to Bruges. 

I am not ashamed to say that I went around a few times to get the correct exit. A first pass for reconnaissance. A second pass to make sure. Then we exited the circle on the third pass towards Bruges.

A F**king Fairytale Town

We figured Bruges was a tourist trap built around a beautiful well-preserved medieval town and always hesitated about doing an entire weekend there. We planned a brief afternoon stopover to walk along the canals and over the bridges and into a few churches, before driving across Belgium to return to the Dorf. A car made this plan feasible.

It's a beautiful town and for a history nerd and an art geek it had a lot to offer. We made good use of our limited time: We took a boat tour along the town's main canals, devoured a great Flemish lunch (meat stew for me, salmon for Kata), walked the cobblestone streets, and stuck our heads in as many old churches as we could.

There is so much packed into that medieval town that you can get the short version in a few hours, but you feel like you want to linger. One the slow return trip (It was the Sunday on a long weekend) we decided we will likely return – maybe once again with a car.

On a boat in Bruges.

There's a Michelangelo in this church.

More beautiful canals *yawn*

Bruges Bros. 

Dorfy Day Trips: German Downton Abbey

The glorious Schloss Drachenburg, aka German Downton Abbey.

Live long enough in the Northwest Rhineland (a year and a half or so) and you start itching to see if what's beyond Dusseldorf and Cologne. You get curious about the stuff further than a bike ride away. You look at maps and wonder about places with names that seem strange, but familiar. 

Then you get on the train and give it a shot. You head south and decide to see what happens when don't get off at Cologne's big cathedral. You continue down the Rhine into who knows what.


Poor Old Bonn 

Ludwig Beethoven was born in Bonn, started his musical education in its schools and at 21, he left his hometown for his era's Music City, Vienna. 

Vienna has been quietly claiming him as a local boy since the move. He wrote all his great symphonies and sonatas there. These were great years for him, and music in general. But he also went deaf in Vienna. Would that have happened in Bonn? Doubt it. 

The world mostly left Bonn alone until the city woke up one morning in 1949 to discover it was the capital of a new country. 

This wasn't a real country but West Germany, a temporary country formed from the British, French, and American occupation zones. The Soviets created their own East German country from their zone.

The West German chancellor, a hometown boy, made the decision to name Bonn the new capital. Before you start feeling proud for Bonn or start ranting about German pork barrel politics, Konrad Adenauer had his reasons.

The ultimate plan was never to keep Germany separated. Someday they would be reunited and when that day came Berlin was going to be the united Germany's capital. 

He also realized this plan might take a while to come together, so he would need a temporary capital city. Bustling, cosmopolitan Hamburg or Frankfurt (which was briefly the capital of a briefly unified German confederation in 1848) seemed like more obvious choices, but if the capital was moved there it would be difficult to move the government from such big, self-important cities.

Adenauer needed a small, humble place that no one romanticized. He needed a town close enough to a larger city like Cologne to be easy to reach, but far enough away from everything that no one would mind moving for Berlin if they had to. Poor old Bonn was that place.

Not all of the government agencies moved to Berlin. The defence ministry stuck around. As we sat by the Rhine sipping a midday drink in the sun, I realized I also would found it tough to leave this quiet, pretty place on the river.


Wagner's Strange Monument to Wagner

From Bonn's riverside, you can see the Seven Mountains. Two myths come out of these mountains. One is Snow White and her posse of seven dwarves – I'm guessing they each got a mountain. The other myth is about Siegfried and the dragon, which lived in a mountain cave.

If you're not familiar with Richard Wagner's operas or German mythology, Siegfried is a hero who killed this dragon and then bathed in the dragon's blood to become invincible.

Of course he missed a spot – mythic heroes always miss a spot with their invincibility coating – and later his wife betrayed him – yes, German mythology also respects women – by marking an ex on that spot to show another guy where to stab Siegfried while he took a bath in a river.

Some enterprising spirit saw an opportunity in this, and decided to put a strange memorial to Wagner part way up the mountain. Then, just in case that didn't pull in the big bucks, they added a reptile zoo, because of the whole dragon-reptile connection.

Although, as I write this, I'm thinking there might be an opportunity to open a Dragon's Blood Bath and Spa Resort. Oh, wait! Dibs! Patent pending.

 Wagner Land, the perfect place for the kids.

German Downton Abbey

At the top of this mountain is a castle-villa mansion thing. What is it about eccentric millionaires from the 1800s building ostentatious castles based on a mix of Gothic and Medieval. Toronto knows about this.

So, where else should we end this journey deeper into Rhineland than at Schloss Drachenburg.

There's a room for billiards, also known by its other name: Rich People Pool. 

A minimalist backyard.

Oh, hi!

A view to Bonn.

And a few upriver.