Hamburg

I was not kidding about a whirlwind time in Hamburg. We got there and our host, Martin, picked us up. He is 29 and really into outdoor activities, especially climbing. One of the more interesting things about him was that he was born in East Germany and grew up there during the East and West separation and remembered times before and after the fall of the wall. It was super interesting to hear what he had to say about day to day life on the East side of Germany during those times.

We got settled, had some food and then headed out on the town to see the night life in Hamburg. They have a mini red light district which doesn't even compare to Amsterdam's but was entertaining to walk through still. The area we were in was mostly discos and places to dance but neither of us were into that, especially Hilary who hates dancing, so we walked around for awhile until we found a bar that hand comfy seats to sit and talk. That lasted about 10 minutes before we found a foosball table. Turns out Martin is amazing at foosball. He plays a lot at his job - which happens to be consulting for companies like Microsoft, haha. After awhile of some foosball action and beer we headed home. Hilary is starting to get sick now and I have been super tired lately. I think fighting off actually getting sick is taking a lot out of my body so I'm trying to sleep as much as possible. 9 weeks of traveling is really starting to take its toll on me. My body is telling me to slow down and all I want to do is keep moving. Hopefully once we get to Sweden where Hilary's family is I'll be able to take a day or two and just do nothing, which would be aaaamazing.

The next day was crazy. We had gotten a message from a guy on CS named Alex who offered to take us on a guided tour of the city. Since we were only in Hamburg for one full day and a couple half days we thought this would be great. It was a holiday so Martin came along with us. We met Alex for breakfast and right away we knew it was going to be an interesting day. He is quite the character. Very boisterous and full of energy. Always cracking a joke and almost seemed more like an animated voice at times. He had a car so the day consisted of driving around the city and him showing us everything there is to see. This was the first day we had spent the entire day in a car and only the third time we'd been in one at all this whole trip. It was nice being able to see everything on one hand, but on the other we went through everything so fast it's hard to remember much. The other major upside was the weather was crap and raining on us all day so it was nice not have to be out in that. Driving definitely gives you a much different perspective of the city than walking everywhere. I prefer walking.

We headed back to Martin's in the late afternoon, walked around some gardens he has out in the neighborhood he lives in then along the riverbank and finally back to his place for dinner. Dinner was great. Martin made us meat, bread with tomatoes, fresh strawberries and homemade raspberry ice cream, along with some wine of course. We haven't eaten that complete of a meal in so long, it was delicious. At this point two other CS girls originally from Peru that Martin had also accepted to host that night showed up. Hilary was behind on her blog so she did that for the rest of the night and the girls, Martin and I were up talking for awhile. It was a really fun and relaxing night. Definitely needed after the day we had.

The next morning we got up and Martin had to work so we went to the train station to put our bags in lockers and wander around the city a little more before our train at 1:30 to Copenhagen. The weather still wasn't amazing so our wandering around turned in to stopping at a purse store, H&M and finally a food market area where we hung out for a good 2 hours until it was time to catch our train. The train ride was really beautiful. It was actually sunny all day and the landscape was full of flowers and water everywhere. At one point we had to take a ferry ride to get in to Denmark - I did not realize this. So they literally drove the train on to the ferry and then we all had to get off for the 45min ride across the water. We have now been on a bus that drove on to a train and a train that drove on to a ferry - so bizarre, but fun!