Day 3: Day Trip by Train to Hamburg

Friday, July 7, 2006 12:03 AM

Today I went on a day trip to Hamburg to see the sights and visit with fff.net's very own Agatsu, who hails from that very fine city.

First, I just want to say that countries with public transit systems rock my world. Granted, the ticket to Hamburg was approx $113 dollars, but the trains have dining cars and clean bathrooms and they're faster than driving. And trains also have really big windows.

I had to leave the apartment by 7:15 to make it to the train station. Poor Stephen was kind enough to accompany me, since getting there involved oh, timliness instead of tardiness, which I can never guarantee when I'm attempting to navigate and figure out German words and purchase bus tix. You get the idea.

Since it was a bit of a rush, I treated myself to an on-train breakfast type meal. I think I had mentioned before that Germans could not survive without mustard and salt. I would now like to add butter to that list of survival items. My meal consisted of 6 large pieces of bread (I kid you not: 2 rolls, 2 slices of rye bread, one whole wheat croissant, one regular croissant), two 1x2x0.25 slabs of butter, six slices of different types of meat in various stages of preservation using the salt method, and a large slice of cheese that tasted like a cross between mozzarella and brie. It was the best damn breakfast I've had in a long time. The urge to eat did not return, my hand to god, until over 9 hours later. These folks know how to make their money go further. The other cool thing was that I sat over this breakfast for more than an hour, and no one seemed put out by my taking up of space. Very cool!

Getting off the train, I puttered my way down to the older part of the city, near the city council, or Rathaus. Did the tour of that building, taking a lot of pictures since I had missed the last English speaking tour of the day, and had no clue what the tour guide was saying. She was in the stairwell:



http://fhh.hamburg.de/stadt/Aktuell/senat/rathaus/start.html

Next I wandered around looking for the older cathedral I had seen from the train, only to discover that it was a shell of a cathedral that had not been rebuilt after it was bombed during the 2nd WW. Currently, the shell of the Church of St. Nicholas (Nikolaikirche) is protected as a memorial to all victims of war and persecution, 1933 - 1945. For 2 euros I took the elevator to the top of the steeple tower, the only part still left standing. It appears the elevator shaft helps support the heavily damaged spire. The views of the city were awesome from the top, and I got some close-up looks at the gargoyles.

<http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/St.-Nikolai-Kirche_(Hamburg)>

On the square of the Rathaus was this huge temporary building housing a visitor centre that was put in place to help with all the extra tourists for the World Cup. This building was staffed by about 15 folks, and walking into it was like walking into an oven, there being no AC and no shade to speak of. I would hazard a guess that the temp was hovering around 100. The folks were cool calm and collected and very very knowledgable. I was not. I think I went in there 6 times to ask questions, and they were all so darn cheerful. They must have been drunk. It's the only explanation I can come up with.

After 4 tries, I found the proper underground platform and settled down for some more awesome public transit. This particular route (the yellow line) started out underground, but then traveled above-ground past the harbor on a sort of elevated track that looked like it was built out of wrought iron. Very pretty. I told Agatsu I would meet up with him at the Plantetarium in the stadtpark, but fate would have me running 40 minutes late, and getting caught in a thunderstorm, and hiking through the park in the mud. Clapping eyes on each other for the first time was pretty funny, being all disheveled and all. I really did feel like I was going through all sorts of trials and tribulations for the honor of meeting a

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