Hamburg

       A few weeks ago the other exchange student in my city, Leandro, asked me if I wanted to go to Hamburg for the day with him and his sister Micaela who was visiting from Argentina.  Two out of my three classes had been cancelled on that day anyways so my host parents said it would be okay for me to trade in a math class for the cultural experience of visiting Germany's second largest city.  Leandro has been here for 6 months because he's on the winter schedule so I let him handle the German train ticket and before I knew it, I was off to Hamburg on a thankfully sunny Wednesday morning.  The train ride was about 2 hours with a stop over in Bremen.  The official reason for our visit was for Leandro to visit the Argentinian consulate there and I was just tagging along.
       Once the consulate opened and they had talked to some people in rapid Spanish, the three of us walked to a park and it was decided that I could take off to look around the city while Lea and Micaela worked at the consulate because we didn't know how long it might take.  With my camera slung round my neck and my walking sandals on, I headed off toward the city center in true tourist fasion.  A pleasant 30 minute walk along the lake led me straight into the main square of Hamburg.  I snapped plenty of photos along the way and had to restrain myself when I hit the city from taking a picture of every single building I came across.  Wandering around chasing after the glimpse of a church steeple over bridges that spanned the cities many canals, I felt truly contented and fully European.  I even successfully ordered a Döner from a cart without the man switching into English on me! (Granted I think German was his second language too, but it's a start).  I left the cart man and sauntered off with my Döner and new found confidence to a nice spot on the steps leading down to the main canal.   There I enjoyed my giant "Turkey meets Germany gyro sandwich" while watching people feed the swans and thinking about how cool my life is.
       Shortly after I finished, I got the call to meet my friends at the park in half an hour.  With only a slight detour made to find an ice cream cone, I returned along the same trail that had brought me into the city.  We had to go to a rotary dinner ice cream eating (apparently thats a thing here, just to have ice cream meetings.  I'm not complaining, I just wish I had realized it before showing up with an empty stomach...) that night so we had to take the next train back to Bremen.  In the train station we had half an hour extra in which I was able to meet with a friend who used to go to my school in America.  He is in Germany with the CBYX scholarship program and had a few weeks in Hamburg for language school before he relocates to the south of Germany for the rest of the year.  It was strange to see someone from home who I knew just one month earlier had been in my same town and one year from now would be back there!  After our hasty catching up, I said goodbye to Austin and hopped on my train back to Bremerhaven.  I slept most of the way home too, luckily Lea woke me up in time for my stops! (I've learned I'm really good at sleeping on trains)
       
Over all it was a very fun day, I can't wait for another oppurtunity to get back to Hamburg!

And here's a quick photo tour, you can find all the rest on my facebook.

We made it!

Crest of Hamburg

Yay for public transportation systems!

First views of the city beyound the lake

Hamburg Rathaus

Döner <3

Mini Northville reunion in the Hauptbahnhof.  Good luck with those crazy southerners Austin!

 Look for posts on last weekends rotary orientation and the German school system next!

~M