A late morning was necessary, as we both wanted to sleep in.
I was impressed by how efficiently the space in the hotel room was used – it
was a tiny room, but it felt normal. Yet somehow the bathroom was as big as the
room itself. Remember this when I get to the Berlin hotel room.
We didn’t have any specific plans beyond what the guy had
told us on the train the night before, so we decided to wander to downtown –
usually a safe bet. When we seemed confused for a moment, a nice lady offered
to show us how to get downtown. I really noticed that Hamburgers (that word
never ever gets old) have a distinct pride about their city. It’s not in your
face – they just love the place and want to make sure you enjoy it, too!
So after she bid us farewell, we walked towards the Rathaus,
complete with obligatory Christmas Market. We were hungry, so we walked around
for a bit, found nothing, and then ended up at a different Christmas market,
where we enjoyed German pizza (the name escapes me – super flat crispy dough),
sautéed mushrooms, garlic bread, pommes frites, and washed it down with warm
drinks at a nearby café (and warmed up – I thought Prague was cold. Hah.)
Caramel white hot chocolate!!!:
We walked off the calories with a stroll around the lake,
and had a nice view of the town. Note the Christmas tree in the center of the lake:
We then decided to take the ferry to nowhere
in particular, as we were told we’d get nice views. The views were nice, saw
some cool riverside mansions, but nothing especially memorable. We got off at a
different stop to walk back to the hotel so we could research dinner and I
could get an extra layer of clothing.
We decided to check out one seafood place, but it was the
farthest restaurant away on a stretch of seafood restaurants, so we tried just
about every place before it as well, due to the fact that was well below
freezing. To our annoyance, almost every restaurant was closed for a private party. What the heck?! Totally not used to that in the states…
Cold and hungry, we’d almost forgotten about the original
place. We decided it’d be our last shot. Sure enough, it was open, and we had a
table within minutes. Our waiter was fun, and he recommended the
Northern-German specialty of boiled haddock. I usually only eat raw fish, but I
wanted to give cooked fish another try. It was cooked perfectly, though it was
served with bones, which made it hard for a cooked-fish-n00b like me to eat.
That said, the fish had nice flavor, and was juicy, and it had a nice mustard
sauce with it. I’m not sure I’m completely sold on cooked seafood; that said,
I’m going to try to start cooking a bit of it at home…
Hamburg has a festival called DOM 3 times a year – we knew
in advance that Dom was going on while we were in town. It’s identical to a
county fair. Gluhwein was essential, and it gave us some warmth to walk around
a lot. During said walk, we saw some priceless stereotypes (I thought Americans
stereotyped a lot, then I went to Germany):
People said to check out Reeperbahn, and DOM was right next
to it, so we cruised through. Don’t see what the fuss is about, it’s just
another “red light” district. But then again, I’m not much into strip clubs,
and everything reeked of cigarette smoke. Seemed pretty generic, though. Shockingly, this is not a strip club:
We did want drinks though; conveniently, Felix had looked up
a local hangout called the Red Lounge. In fact, the entire room was lit with
red lights. Our waitress spazzed and served us pilsner instead of hefe, and
Felix was slightly irked. I was a bit entertained as he tried to reason with
the waitress, who spoke little English. Felix was obviously right, though, and
we had new beers served. After, I had an “Absinthe Dream”, and Felix had a Long
Island. I’m not a huge absinthe fan, per se, but it was used just right in this
concoction, which had pineapple juice, and some other stuff (I can’t remember).
I caught him up on the state of Scrabble, and we enjoyed a not-so-crazy late night.
We wandered home around 2.
Our train the next day was not until 3:30, so we had some
time to see more of Hamburg. Of course, we slept in again – go figure. Felix
was craving a burger; I really wanted to have a burger in Hamburg just for
shits and giggles. I’d spotted that Curry Papa had burgers the day before, so
we had lunch there. French fries (pommes frites in Germany, lolz) are done so
well in Germany, and they went great with my massive cheeseburger. Nom!
We walked through the town to Saint Michael’s Cathedral,
which had one of the most epic organs I’ve ever seen.
On the way back was the
bombed-out Saint Nicholas Cathedral. It’s a pretty chilling scene – a picture
says 1000 words, here. They build a viewing platform in what remained of the
tower, so we took the elevator up, and got a foggy, but nice view of Hamburg.
It was interesting when the monument spoke about the history of the church,
that it spent 75% of the time apologizing for Hitler…
The ruined cathedral:
Then it was time to get the train back to Berlin, our next
stop. We were only in Hamburg for less than two days, but honestly it didn’t
feel like there was all that much to do. A nice place, though.
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