That Was Surreal

Ahoy!  We went to Hamburg today.  It was disorganized.  And very, very, very surreal.

So this trip was through the school, right?  I decided to take it because A: it was cheaper than going on my own, B: it was supposedly more structured, thus less room for me getting lost and/or eaten by moose.  Anyway.

I got up at 6 this morning, got ready, went down to get breakfast but surprise! The breakfast room only opens at 6 during weekdays, so I couldn't get in.  So I walked to the school because nowhere in Bremen is open at 6:30 on a Saturday...  This poses many issues.  Namely, I have a bit of a coffee addiction, and I was completely unable to get a single drop of coffee this morning.  Uh oh!

We loaded on the bus, only one other UNCW language student was proactive enough to obtain a ticket, so I was mostly surrounded by people I didn't know and that one really cute French dude.  I fell asleep on the bus.  Whoops.  It was a boring ride anyway.

Anyway, fun factoids about Hamburg!  It is the largest port in Germany, and the third largest port in Europe behind Rotterdam, Netherlands and Antwerp, Belgium (Bremerhavn is number 4, woot woot)  It only has like 3 buildings from before the 1850's, so it's a very new city, and it sits on the mouth of the river Elbe.

It also is host to many weird things.  This weekend, for example, was the flower-power festival on a floating biergarten, so there were hundreds of 40-50 year old germans wandering around in LOUD stereotypical '70s attire.  Bell-bottoms, orange everything, flowers, silk blouses..... It was surreal.

It was also the weekend of a MAJOR international triathlon, so we were dodging bikers, runners, and swimmers all morning.  Fortunately, it was sprint day so it was done more or less around noon, but running the gauntlet every time you want to cross the street is something that normally one doesn't do.  I'm assured most the time Hamburg isn't this weird, but today felt like someone had spiked my water with something... trippy.

So we got to Hamburg, where we split into walking tour groups with a guy that told us very little, other than the old cathedral was bombed into oblivion in WWII so it's now just a monument against war sitting in the middle of the city, with large chunks taken out of it due to shrapnel.  He also told us about the opera house.  A lot about the opera house.  What did he say?  I dunno, wasn't really important.  Oh, the windows are expensive and they're all made in duplicate.  It's also the second largest non-church in Hamburg proper.  That's right, this city is one of those "no building higher than XYZ" cities, except the cap isn't the former cathedral, it's city hall.  So there are no skyscrapers whatsoever.  Yet.  Like Sevilla, one is currently being built just outside the historic city.

The Opera House.  It's quite bigger in real life,
and the city is very proud of it.  I dunno if you can see
the little people walking around just under
the glass area or not.  For scale, Mostly.

I was also told that it's impossible to get tickets into model train museum unless they're purchased ahead of time.  This is a bummer, as that was what I had planned to do in my free time today :(  I'll probably forego a trip to Berlin or Amsterdam in favor of returning to Hamburg in order to "do it properly."

Oh, I should mention the weather.  It was cold and cloudy, about 55-65 degrees.  I'm told this is normal for mid-July.  *shivers*  Why do I want to live in northern Europe again?  Oh yeah, because it's cool! (cue boos, tomatoes, and the comedic cane yanking me off the stage)

We then parted with the guide guy, and were told to get something to eat in the half hour before the boat was to come.  Oh, by the way, you have no restaurant choices, and we have to go figure out which boat is ours.  I ended up eating a turkey-schnitzel that had the texture of cooked leather rolled in sand that gave me heartburn and a tummyache.

The boat tour was cool, though.  (I have to stop using that pun, it'll get me in trouble some day).  We saw a Ü-Boot, a cruise ship with lips, a beach with a bunch of shivering Germans, the opera house from a variety of angles, and a whole bunch of, um, docks?  Loading docks?  Is that the term?  Now, even though I live in a port- Wilmington- I've never actually seen a dock before, certainly not one in use, and certainly not one of this size.  It was freaking huge!

Well, after that, we split up.  We had two hours to kill, and although there a bunch of museums that I thought were interesting looking, two hours isn't a lot of time to walk all the way across this huge city, sit in a cue, and properly peruse a museum.  Among the ones that looked neat: the world's largest model train museum, a natural history museum, the Ü-Boot museum, a shipping museum, and art museum, the bombed out cathedral, and more!  Yes, as much as I'd like to visit Berlin, it'll have to wait for another trip maybe in the far-off future.  Berlin will wait.  Hamburg is much closer.

So we- the one buddy and I- just walked around, looking at whatever seemed interesting.  This included a German Apple Store (cool architecture), a chocolate shop, a Levi store because denim jackets are über popular here, a coffee shop to fuel my addiction, a cool park, and the only irish pub in the city where we could watch the opener of the belgium-england game.  It was not surprising that England crashed in burn.  Lastly, we walked into the really cool Rathaus (city hall) which had architecture that reminded me a little bit of Spain.

 We got on the bus and came back, after I'd clocked in  a total of 9 miles of walking.  Phew I'm tired!  Tomorrow has nothing really lined up, I'll probably do some laundry, eat some healthier food, maybe kick around a sportball with the group.  Who knows?