The Finale

I had this incredible post, there was even some emotion involved. It has vanished. I have to do it all from scratch. I am more than a little upset about this.

Here it goes again. This is the last post about my random, last minute take off to europe.

In the early afternoon, we caught the train from downtown Copenhagen to Hamburg. If I didn't mention this before, it deserves a mention now. After a few hours on the train we hit the water way, the train boarded the ferry and set sail to Puttgarten, Germany. It was a 45 minute boat ride, it wasn't as bad as the first time, I hit the gravol early, which resulted in my passing out with book and pen in hand about 10 minutes after we got back on the train. We arrived in Hamburg at about 8:30 pm or so to find out that weezer had sold out. Something to make note of, Germans tend to buy their tickets later rather than sooner (whereas North Americans tend to buy their tickets the second they go on sale). We were sad.

We had dinner at one of many, many middle eastern restaurants on the fast food strip. It was pretty good. There were lots of drunk Germans around because it was Friday night. Our hostel was neat. We slept in the "Hall of Dreams" a huge room holding 25 beds, lockers and a bathroom. Across the street there was a sand pit enclosed by a high wooden fence. It was filled with young people drinking (I wasn't sure how to say that without sounding old myself).

Saturday we got some culture. We hit the stores and walked through an international food festival.


Der hamburger Rathaus. This, contrary to what the name suggests, is not a McDonalds. It's Hamburg's cityhall.


We never figured out what the deal with this guy was, but he is all over the place and painted differently. It's like the moose in Toronto or the sparrows in Ulm. We think the guy had something to do with the town founding.

Sunday morning we got to the fischmarkt (fish market) at 8:30 am. People were already leaving. It was packed full of tourists and locals. It resembles a flea market combined with fresh food merchants.

We then headed over to the port to take a boat tour of the harbour. I took some gravol because we decided to take the smaller boat rather than the larger. The tour was filled with drinking Germans (it was 10:00 am). The tour was in German so I just got the gist of everything and only the good things were translated so I didn't hear any of the boring stuff, it was great.
Here is some stuff I saw.




(Hamburg City)

From there we went to the photography musuem (I'll spare you the German name). The exhibit was of a Czech photographer who had at some point moved to the states. The photos in Czech were a lot more effective and better, in my opinion. This was from the 1920s-1960s, I think. He took some of the famous photos for the nazis.

While walking between sites, we saw a boat get stuck between buildings due to the lack of water. Those buildings used to be used for storage, but now house a variety of things.


After that, we headed to the Hamburg Dungeon, if you've ever been to the London Dungeon, it is based on the same idea. We waited a crap load of time and it was quite expensive, but it was fun. It is a haunted house of sorts that is based on various events in Hamburg's history. We weren't scared at all until we were walking out and one of the actors started following and running after us.

That night we had dinner, as per tradition, at a Chinese restaurant. It was fun. We got back to the hostel and met some people in the lounge. Both Canadians. We talked until about 1:00am before heading off to bed.

The next morning, we made our way to the train station to catch the 10:26 am ride to Ulm. The train ride was not particularly eventful. We got to Ulm, had dinner and then Ina took me back to the train station where I was to catch the train to Nuremberg. Of course, there were huge delays. We found out that the actual power lines went down (they use electric trains) and so I had to catch a bus to Augsburg to catch the train to Nuremberg. I missed my train by 5 minutes, so I had to wait nearly an hour. I felt terrible that my cousin had to come get me at 10:30, instead of 9:30. At the train station, I eventually found my cousin and my uncle, who both came to pick me up. We headed to my cousin's apartment in Nuremberg and had drinks with them and my cousin's wife. We talked until about midnight. The next morning, I had breakfast with my cousin and his wife, before going to the airport. My cousin and I had a cup of coffee while we waited. He told me that next time I visit, I need to give more notice and that they'll take time off work and take me (and whoever comes with me, my brother for example) to East Germany.
As I headed to the gate, I thanked him profusely and he shook my hand. The first time I went to Germany I realised that these people were my family and that it was nice to have such family. This time I felt it so much more. It's weird that they (my uncle and his family) grew up not knowing about us (my cousin is the same age as my parents) and that they accepted us as though we have always been tightly knit. My cousin kept asking me about my grandfather (my uncle and my dad's dad) and what kind of person he was. I didn't really understand why, until a while later when I realised that it was his grandfather too and even though I didn't really know him because I was quite young when he passed away, my cousin had never even met him. I hope I get to see them again soon and spend more than a day with them. I'd really like to get to them better.