Hamburg

I decided weeks ago I needed to go on a trip somewhere for the long Easter weekend, but couldn't make up my mind where. Living in the middle of Europe, it's a pretty hard decision, with so many famous places so close. In the end I decided to go somewhere in Germany because I'm embarrassed about how little I've seen of this country I'm living in. In the end, I settled on Hamburg, because I have some friends there with a comfy couch.

In Hamburg, the weather was amazing! For the 4 days I was there, I only put a sweatshirt on once, the rest of the time, I was walking around in a tshirt. The weather in Potsdam has turned too; green, sunny, warm! But Hamburg is a really nice city, quite a bit more open than Berlin, lots of big old (not actually very old, though, most of Hamburg burnt down ~100 years ago) merchant buildings, and heaps of water everywhere. The port is the 2nd biggest in Europe, even though it's 80km to the sea! There are lots of canals and lakes in the city too - the city has more bridges than Venice, even. In the city though, the highlight was probably St Nikolai church. It was bombed in the war, and hasn't been rebuilt. The bits that remain have been preserved as a monument. The tower is still ok, and we went up it for a fantastic view of the city. Unfortunately I left my camera in Potsdam, so have no photos of the whole weekend...

What Hamburg is famous for it's red light district called Reeperbahn. Kinda strangely, it's also the place to go for drinks at night. The drinks were soo cheap it was unbelievable, 50c shots and 1 euro beers. We intended to just go for a bit to see what it was all about, but the atmosphere was really great, so we had to stay an extra couple of hours. On Sunday mornings the fish market opens at 5am, so the traditional way to have a good Saturday night is to enjoy "the Kiez" until then, stumble down to the fish market, buy some fish, go home and cook it for breakfast. Yum... We took the shortcut version, and fitted a few hours of sleep in between. The fish market was very cool, again a very nice, friendly atmosphere, and stalls selling everything, including live guinea pigs.

Sunday we went to Florian's parent's place in Bremen for a bike ride. A very European bike ride. We rode along an asphalt path (as crowded as tour de France, almost) for a couple of hours to a Bier Garten where we had a Weissbier, then rode home. I didn't think it was possible, but even wearing (SPF5) sunblock, my arms were a little bit pink that evening! Aaah and that evening we had New Zealand lamb for dinner!!! It was great, tasted exactly like back home.

This is getting pretty long, so I'd better speed up a bit! We also went to Stade for a day, which is a really cute little town built in the middle ages, I think. It has narrow cobbled streets, houses that are sometimes 20 degrees off straight, and a canal. And I also went for a tourist trip on the Hamburg harbour on a boat. The commentary was in German, but I was stoked that I could understand some of what they were saying. Very big port!

And that was Hamburg, got back to Potsdam about 2am Tuesday morning, exhausted, but had a very good time. It was the perfect break, now I have to persuade my brain that it's no longer holidays and I need to do some work!

Thanks for reading, hope this finds you all well. I love hearing what's happening back home, so send me an email or something if you've got anything exciting (or not so exciting) to report!

Adam