Hamburg, Germany

Arriving at Hamburg in the morning we strolled around town doing what we do in every town, running through it to see as much of it we can see. Since we liked the boat tour of Copenhagen so much we decided to go on one in Hamburg. The only one that was available during the time of day we wanted to go was a tour in German. We got on and found that it was pretty fun, but not as pretty as the one in Denmark. So I ended up dozing off a bit.

Since we were in Hamburg, we of course needed to get a hamburger! It was very good, one of the better ones Ive had. We had it along with sauerkraut and fries.

Beer Bike, people sit on bar stools and pedal while they drink and the car gs while one sober person steers it

 

Carmen has a friend who lives close to Hamburg that was kind enough to stop by the town and walk with us through a park and see some of the major sights. He was very friendly and easy to get along with. He even accompanied us to our couch surfers for the evening. Jullian was having his birthday gathering that night and we were among the guest list of his friends. We sat at their house involved with many separate conversations and playing games. At about 3.00am they asked if we wanted to see the Red Light district of Hamburg. Apparently it was very famous. When in Rome… or I guess Hamburg… we set out for the dirty part of town. It was still filled with people, police, trash, prostitutes and of course KFC. I remarked that it looked a lot like Las Vegas’s ugly little sister. There were bright lights everywhere and a lot of commotion. We walked back to their house and got some much needed sleep.

In the afternoon our hosts made us some amazing food. I forget what it was called but man it was good. It was a sort of pasta dish. After dining we headed out of their flat for the train station and then Munich, Germany.

Copenhagen, Denmark

The train ride to Denmark was very nice. The train was one of the nicest I had been on. I used the opportunity to sew my sock back together. I had worn a hole in the toe. Copenhagen is on an island and the train actally had to go on a ferry! I had no idea you could put a train on a boat. When the boat docked the train got off just as fast as it got on, and we continued down the track toward Copenhagen. When the train was on the boat all the passengers needed to go above to the deck of the ferry. We didnt know this and I had left Carmen on the train to sleep, once I found out about this little rule, I ran back on the train to find her missing and a few Germans escorting people off the train. Turning back around the the exit I got yelled at, HEY! AUS! As I was heading for the exit I got a little peaved by them yelling at me and kept walking away from them while they were yelling at me in German. I had just woken up and wasnt about to head down toward the yelling. Once they saw I was in fact getting off, the smiled at me and realized they were jerk pants.

Copenhagen was beautiful! The city was filled with brightly colored buildings along the waterfront. We meanered through the city streets trying to find a place to eat. We ran into a shop selling fairly cheap sandwiches, donner Kebap style. After food we headed toward the water and jumped on a boat doing tours through the channels. This was really cool! Seeing Copenhagen from the boat perspective was beautiful. We got to see the main sights of Copenhagen in about an hour including the famous Mermaid whos head apparently had been sawed off a few times.

This was on a bridge, as you can see someone put a binky in its mouth

That evening after seeing almost all of Copenhagen we decided that since our train didnt leave until 2 am we would catch a movie. We saw Public Enimies in a very nice theatre pictured above. The seats were assigned, very comfortable but it was so hot in the theatre, at one or two points in the movie we both fell asleep for a bit. The movie was very good. I really enjoyed watching it.

We went back to the train station and waited for our train back to Hamburg, Germany.

Berlin, Germany

 

We arrived in Berlin in the morning via the strange train from Poland. Berlin was beautiful. As I got off the train I realized that my bag lock was stuck again! If you remember from India I had a lock for my bag that I had to bust open with a can opener. Carmen brought me my sisters old lock (identical to the one I was using earlier) after several days it too became stuck. So, being skilled at breaking apart locks with a can opener, I reached into my bag and pulled it out, starting to pry it apart on a bench in Berlin. I was successful at breaking into it and destroying the lock.

I was very impressed by Germany, it was very clreean and organized as I figured it would be. We caught the S – Bahn into town, (S – Bahn stands for Schnell Bahn, or Fast Train). We wandered around for a bit and then found the Berlin Wall.

Their was a historical marker with some information about the wall and the division of Germany, and about the art along the wall. They had hired twenty some artists from other countries to paint on the wall. Some of the spaces were very interesting, some cute and some confusing. My favorites were of course the ones with Batman on them.

and who could forget Mr. Potato Head!

The area where the wall is the longest and has the paintings is called the East Side Gallery

After the wall, we basically explored Berlin for the rest of the day. It was beautiful. We saw the gates at one end of the city, many of the historical buildings and sights. Along our way of exploring we decided to try to get some German food at a local resturant. We were reading a menu in German doing quite well and about to order when the waitress realized we wernt from around these parts.She asked if we  wanted to trysome Berlin food, we said of course and give us whatya got. The drink below is Beer. Green Beer, very tasty with a hint of lemon lime in it. The food we got was a giant piece of pig. I say pig and not pork because it still had the skin and some of the hair on it! She warned us that it would look disgusting but taste… Amazing! She was right on both things.

We could not find any couch surfers that could host us in Berlin, as they were all either out of town or busy with other people. We tried looking for hostels but found that they were about 20 € a head which would have been about the price of a hotel room, very expensive. So, I had a crazy idea, why not take a night train someplace and sleep on the train see the place for a day and then come back to Hamburg Germany. So, the next train to Copenhagen Denmark was our decision, however it was overbooked so we had to wait until the train at 5.17AM, we slept in the train station…

and woke up at 5.15am and then ran to the train, which left right as we got up to it. CRAP! We missed our train! No worries, we got on the one that left about an hour later…

We were then on our way to Denmark!