Fun Fun Fun on The Schwebebahn

Today we hopped on a train from Düsseldorf to Wuppertal to ride The Wuppertal Schwebebahn!  

The Hauptbahnhof Station is just steps away from Wuppertal HBF. We bought a day ticket online so we could ride as much as we want to. 

We heard about this unique form of transportation from a few places but I think the video that shows it the best is this one here. 

The trains are a hanging monorail because most of the 13 Kilometer track is over a river gorge that cuts though the city. 

Our train was full of legit riders and people just riding to ride like us. The people like us want to sit in the back for the panoramic views. The back was full in our first trip. We decided to ride to the end of the line and get back on in the back. 

We got off at the end of the line and quickly made our way out of the station and back up the other side. We were I time to watch the train come around the sharp corner. 

We didn't quite get to the prime seats but we got nice seats and I was able to take zoomed photos between the people in the prime seats.

We rode to the other end of the line and stood under the line as our train left for another trip. 

We walked through a park and then went to a brewery for lunch. 

It is Easter Monday so much if the city was closed but Wuppertaler Brauhaus was open!  This brewery was built in an 1800s bathhouse. The beers were good, the service was great, and the food was delicious. 

They had a model Wuppertal Schwebebahn in the lobby and all of them seats were in areas named after the 20 stations. 

After processing some of my beer, I went to the toilets. 

There was some penis size shaming at the urinal. 

Apparently I didn't take a photo of our delicious food. Oh well, it was delicious. 

We were given a dyed egg wrapped in a napkin that looked like bunny ears so I took a photo. 

On the way out we were given more eggs. Now we have 4 dyed eggs. 

We rode back to the station and enjoyed our last ride. 

It was a really fun day trip. Would recommend!

Hilton Status has its Privileges

We use a Hilton Honors Amex for many of our purchases. Ove the years that has helped us build status. When we were on the road for 2.5 years we used it to pay for our Airbnbs and this got is free stays at Hilton properties and Diamond status. Out status just dropped to Gold on April 1st but Gold is still good enough for us to get free breakfast abroad. Most of the hotels in the US offer free breakfast to everyone but abroad, most people have to pay. Breakfasts range between about $20 and $35 per person. We will have gotten free breakfast for 24 days at Hilton properties this trip. That's 48 meals!  If you assume each meal is $20 excluding the expensive breakfasts we would have never bought, that's a savings of $960!  We have also gotten 14 free drink tickets as well as free mimosas and bloody Marys at some locations. That's a ton of value!

We even got to try Mett, whish is minced raw pork. It's something we were going to pay for at a restaurant and it was free with breakfast. 

Free Bloody Mary station in Köln. 

Free Champagne in Rotterdam. 

Honey straight from the honeycomb in Scotland. 

St Patrick's Day liquor in London. 

2 of our free drinks, these are in Kôln. 

So yea, all in all, The Hilton Honors card had been great for us. 

Brussels Pinball Museum

Today we took a tram, a subway, and a bus to The Brussels Pinball Museum in Auderghem.  I tried to do as much info gathering as it could before going to set expectations. My gut said it wasn't going to be amazing, but we went anyway. 

It looked pretty cool from the outside. There were playfields in the windows and it said Brussels Pinball Museum on the window. 

When we entered there was a Revenge from Mars and a T2 and then some broken / turned off machines. There was a back room with a bunch of folded up machines so it wasn't clear they were open. I asked if there was Pinball and he said yes upstairs. There were 3 options for time, 9 Euros for 1 hr, 12 for 2 hrs. and 15 for 3 hrs. We chose 2 hours. We also bought 2 beers. 

I really wanted to want the shirt they had but it was uninspired and I decided to pass. 

I took my beer and went upstairs. The 2nd floor had arcade machine and bathrooms. 

The 3rd floor had the rest of the pinball machines. I came to play 2 machines I had never played before, Future Queen and Strange Science. 

Sad Trombone!  At least Strange Science was working and playing pretty welk despite weak flippers. In fact almost every machine had weak flippers. It was disappointing how many machines played poorly and how many were off. 

I did get high score 2 on Bride of Pinbot. 

This is a museum, you can make a better effort with the instruction cards.

They did have some cool stuff around like this Williams testing unit. 

After about an hour I was kind of done but we had an hour left so I got another beer. The owner was teaching a child how to serve beer. 

I continued to play Strange Science and Evel Knievel and take photos. 

I'm glad we went but temper your expectations if you go. There is a fine line between not going because the machines need work and going to get him money to work on the machines.  It just makes me sad that this will be some people's first experience with pinball.