1. I left the horse in the barn today and took the city by foot. That is, I left my motorcycle in the parking lot and grabbed a subway into downtown Hamburg.
2. Residents of Hamburg are called "Hamburgers," no joke.
3. Really good news. German women find solace at the bottom of pints of Ben & Jerry's ice cream too! I've seen three separate incidents in the last 2 days and am relieved to think that "Vermonsters" aren't too far out of the question...
4. I got off the subway today just outside Hamburg city center, and before too long an older woman approached me looking lost. For all intents and purposes, she could have been a long lost aunt or something. Nothing strange about her appearance, perfectly normal older woman. She asked me in broken English if I knew where "the dollhouses" were. "Miniatur Wunderland," the world's largest train set, runs through a miniature replication of Hamburg and had popped up in a few of the guide books I had skimmed. So, follow my logic here..."dollhouses," "Miniatur Wunderland," miniature houses, dolls are probably involved somehow, right?...I threw it out there. "Oh, you mean the miniature train set? That's down by the..." She interuppted me. "No, no, no! The sex shop!!" Of course...
That's when I realized that I had just turned onto Reeperbahn, the main street running through the second largest red light district in Europe. So I spent the next few hours searching for love, going from one fine establishment to the next, remembering only too late that true love can't be bought...
Kidddding, Ginge!
Enjoy the pics! Hamburg is beautiful, even if it is cold, wet, and windy...
Rathaus (City Hall) to the left, and cafes to the right
A lot of "new world" butting right up against "old world"
Buildings along one of the major canals
Church of St. Nikolai, or what was left of it after WWII bombing raids
Cloudy/sunny/cloudy/sunny...churches and the Elb
The warehouses of Speicherstadt, in recently gentrified Hafen (Harbor) City
Speicherstadt warehouses again, going and going and going
Also, notice the droplets of water on the lens..not that much fun
Also, notice the droplets of water on the lens..not that much fun
And lastly, the new Elbphilharmonie (on the Elb river)
By architecture heavyweights Herzog & de Meuron
Slated as the next "Sydney Opera House"....still a ways to go, but even now it's impressive
Pete, this herzog & de meuron looks awesome. Just working my way chronologically through your adventure right now--brouwer alerted me to it. I can see you're living well!
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