Hamburg

Yes, this is a belated post, but I have had a lot to do this past week and haven't totally felt like sitting down to write about it.

The Bus

Last weekend we travelled to Hamburg. We rode in an absolutely beautiful bus which was all inclusive. There were wood floors between the seats, a bathroom, curtains, a button to make the seats a little wider apart if you wanted to...even a button to call an attendant for drink service (didn't work, sadly, but trying it was a nerve wracking experience). I sat next to Claire, a girl from my class, and behind Varun, another classmate. Claire, as I fully discovered through the eyes of this trip, is absolutely full of energy. Varun on the other hand, is practically silent. This made my Saturday very interesting and somewhat confusing. The bus left at 7:30, so I had to get up at about 6:15, which meant I was exhausted. I am not totally sure why it hit me so hard that weekend, but I was out for the count.

The bathroom was a little small

Nonetheless, I stayed awake throughout the car ride, and the rest of the day. We drove about 3 hours until stopping for a small break (mostly to buy food apparently, though many people used the bathrooms that you had to pay for instead of the one on the bus...I'm not totally sure why). We finally got to Hamburg at about 11-ish and unpacked our bags into the luggage room at the youth hostel so we could explore the city before the check-in time of 4:30.

We then walked to the middle of Hamburg to get our train passes and have some lunch. The chaperons had some trouble initially getting the train passes, so we went off to lunch first. Varun, Claire and I travelled around the square a bit looking for a good place to eat before choosing a fun Italian restaurant where you get a card when you enter and for each thing you get from the counters of chefs preparing your pasta in front of you, you hold your card up to a thing and they say what it is. After the ordering you go back to the cashier and pay. Very cool. I had some good pesto pasta.

Where we waited for the tour guide

We then went on a tour of the city. I wanted to do a German tour, but there weren't enough people who could speak good enough German to take a tour in it. The tour guide was great regardless. He was very funny and very approachable. We learned all about the city, the fire, and more. We ended by some docks and then headed back to the youth hostel to check in.

After checking in, Varun and I wanted to collapse in bed, but Claire's endless energy compelled us to go out to visit Michael's church. This is a very famous church in Hamburg, but sadly it was closed when we tried to get in. Varun and I were about ready to collapse, so we got some food (and he got some coffee) before deciding what to do next. We wanted to watch the Germany game, but we didn't want to stand the whole time or it be really loud. We found a fun place in a plaza to watch, but it was very loud. In the end we went to a café on the side of the plaza to watch. It got really cold and we headed inside to another tv.

After the game (which ended in a tie) we went back to the hostel to sleep. Claire was planning on waking up at 6 am the next morning to explore the town but both Varun and I opted out of that one.

The Queen Mary II is a big ship

After a great breakfast at the hostel, we went on a boat tour of the harbor. This was very very cool because there were many HUGE container ships (which made me think of Captain Phillips) and even the Queen Mary II was in the harbor. This is just a massive ship building, and ship holding area, and it was fun to experience. We even got to watch tug boats maneuvering a ship through the harbor.

The big ship and me!

After a long bus ride home, in which we watched "Easy A" and then got to see the GPS on the TVs somewhat like in an airplane, I collapsed into bed. I got a little sick on that trip, but I have since mostly recovered and just have to blow my nose every once in a while.