Monday, October 6, 2014

Free and Hanseactic City of Hamburg

I am very behind on blogging- which makes this much harder! I will try and run through all of this so that I can catch up and do a decent job again.

On Wednesday night (week ago) David called and we impulsively bought tickets on the train to Hamburg.  We then talked again at Friday, the day our trains left. I had found a place to sleep that morning, and we found a way back home right as our train left.  It was a miracle we pulled it together with so little forethought.

We got into Hamburg super late and went straight to our AirBNB.  Im my haste to find a place and save a buck, I chose not to read the advertisement or the reviews- I pressed "book" and forgot about it.  For that reason David and I were really suprised (and uncomfortable) when we had to walk through the 14 year old sons room to get to our bed, which happened to be inside of a glorified closet.  Did I mention it was 12:30pm?

But, it ended up being great.  In the morning we had a chance to sit around and chew the fat with the family.  The mom was from Columbia, specifically a town that spoke German for some reason.  The dad was from Turkey, but had been in Germany pretty much his whole life. And, the 5 year old daughter, as a result, was fluent in Spanish, German, Turkish, and English.  It was really impressive to see, and also fun to speak some basic Spanish.

After we met everyone we got our to see the city.  My roommate Manuel had a lot of great advice we followed.

But first, Breakfast:

This is some ground (raw looking) schwein with onions, and sliced hardboiled eggs.  Cucumber and hardboiled eggs are often found on sandwhiches here, and it's absolutely awesome.

Disclaimer: I really like boats.

We went to the harbour.  Haffen pictures:



We got on a ferry for fun:

Hamburg has a tonnnn of modern buildings:


David is a photo-snapping fiend. David loves to go "Gebaüde Hunting" (building hunting):

Hamburg is Europe's second largest port. There were tons of ships. Also, Hamburg is not on the ocean, so everything seems crammed:

Hamburg has a birthday party for the Harbor because it is so important for them. It features tugboat dancing. Check out around the fifth minute:

Even more boats, submarines, ships, sails, etc:

Back to the timeline....

David and I wanted to go check out the submarine-museum, but ran out of time:

I still like boats:


After we got our fill of boats, we checked out the Old Elb Tunnel. The tunnel is around 80 years old and used to convey people and cars underneath the busy waterway.

First step is going down a staircase under the river-bottom:


Next step is to snap gratuitous amounts of pictures:

Then look at the city from the other side:


And then return for more Gebaüde Hunting:



After all of the walking, we met up with David's friend from UNM.  We explored the colorful bar scene:


Fun fact: The Beatles played their first shows in Hamburg before they got famous.

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