Category: vacation

08/09/16 12:04 - ID#60572

Tschuss Hamburg, Hallo Leipzig

The next day we left Hamburg. Once again we didn't know where we were going or staying but we decided we'd figure it out on the train east.

Other random things about Hamburg:

• Everywhere is very smoky
• Every gay bar has a maze inside
• It's impossible to find public recycling bins
• It's the most diverse city I've seen besides Toronto

We took the ICE between Hamburg and Berlin. 300km/h and the train nerd in me pretty much died. It was amazing. I can't remember exactly but I think we were in an ICE 3.

We considered stopping in Berlin on the way there, but it looked too big when we were coming in. I'm sure it's awesome but maybe another time. When we got out of the train in the Berlin Hauptbahnhof, we had 60 seconds to decide, and got in the InterCity train to Leipzig. I'm glad we did.

The country side is covered in windmills and solar panels.


We got into the Leipzig Hauptbahnhof in the afternoon. It's huge. It turns out it's the biggest train station in Europe.



Leipzig was an East German city only 26 years ago but it's full tilt capitalism in the train station now. There is a three story mall, and in the front is a KFC, Pizza Hut, McDonalds and a Burger King. You can never escape fast food, depressing.





We didn't have a place to stay so we walked around the altstadt for a while, right across from the train station. Most of the streets are bikes and pedestrians only, and the buildings are awesome. It's a weird mix
of 300+ year old buildings and a few modern DDR buildings.














We walked around forever trying to figure out where to stay. We ended up staying 2.5km away from the center in the Nordic hotel which was really cheap. Not before overeating pierogies at a restaurant called Wodkeria.

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Category: vacation

08/08/16 11:56 - ID#60571

Red Light Reeperbahn

After the afternoon at the Miniatur Wunderland we started heading back towards Altona. While we were doing that we walked down the Reeperbahn which is the red light district.

Have you ever hear a promoter outside a five story pink building offer you freshly washed escorts? Because we did. We even could all share for the same price!

The street was commercial in the craziest way. Everything was a sex shop, or a bar or a club. The old-time Hamburger the night before told us this is where tourists and British bachelor parties come to throw up.

I think Terry and had some 11% elephant beers that night but thankfully we didn't throw up. (or enter a brothel)

One of the gay streets between the Hauptbahnhof and St. Pauli, where the Reeperbahn is.




We ended up in a couple gay bars again. I can't remember how but we met a Polish guy named Marcus from Leipzig, his German friend and another girl who joined us at a couple bars. It was a pretty crazy night for a Wednesday.

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Category: vacation

08/07/16 02:41 - ID#60568

Miniatur Wunderland

I had seen Miniatur Wunderland in a documentary online before. It's close to the most German thing you can image. A old shipping warehouse on the docks with three stories of model trains and landscapes in amazing detail.

There were different scenes in each area (we saw Mittel Deutschland, Italy, US, Switzerland, Hamburg, Flughafen Hamburg, and Scandinavia).

You could probably spend all day looking at one scene and not find everything. Look in the woods and you'd see two model people doing it. Watch the cars drive around the road for a while and you'll see an accident with smoke, that police cars and and ambulance rush over to. The airport was a full model of the Hamburg airport with the actual flight schedules, and planes that took off, landed and taxiied to the terminal. I've never seen anything like it.


The said sexers
x


I nerded out over the model ICE 3 trains

And here is a floof bahn for (e:robert).


Bro-butt








The american scene was mostly trucks on highways in the desert (they modeled Los Vegas)


Hamburg itself

We spent about 5 hours in the whole museum and didn't even see everything.

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08/07/16 01:34 - ID#60567

Volkspark Altona

Olmsted you ain't got shit.

" >(MAP TO: )

This volkspark was had more manicured parts then Flensburg, it even had a botanical garden.

It still had miles and miles of paths through forests. You could walk for miles in a forest in the middle of a city, right on an S-Bahn line. I wonder if anyone ever camps in it. And if you look on the map only 10 minutes away in one direction were farms.

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08/07/16 01:21 - ID#60566

Landungsbrucke and Hamburg Rathaus

Some pictures from walking around the Hamburg Landungsbrucke and altstadt. The Landungsbrucke is like canalside times a million with more actual shipping traffic.





We also saw the Hamburg city hall, which was ridiculously big. It looks it was built in the same style as the city hall we saw a month before in Philly. I wonder if they were trying to copy the Hamburg one.


A fountain in the middle of the city hall had this statue of a lady stomping on a dragon.











The city is so capitalistic even the churches have stores and restaurants attached.

After walking around we went to some of the gay bars around the Hauptbahnhof. They were mostly terrible and smoky, but at one we ended up chatting with a old-time Hamburger who gave us some recommendations.

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08/07/16 12:44 - ID#60565

Hamburg Altona

After Flensburg it was back to Hamburg. We took the regional express back, through Tarp (Yvonne's town), and Neumuenster.


On the way there I managed to book another AirBnb there (no we don't plan ahead for anything). It was in a neighborhood called Altona on the west side of Hamburg.

We stayed on this street called Gaußstraße, right across from this crusty punk encampment of trailers. " >(MAP TO: )
When we got there, there was a girl with a pack of like 9 dogs following her out of the alley it was in.

(e:paul) was having a small-time meltdown when we got there. I think he was stressed out by big city life after being in Flensburg. So we walked around to get some food, and ended up at this amazing Vietnamese place called Green Papaya.

On the same street (e:paul) got pulled into some film project where he sat in a taxi and answered questions about religion, music and politics. I'm glad I didn't get picked because I wouldn't have been able to answer fast enough.

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Category: pics

07/30/16 03:07 - ID#60561

Thanks e:terry

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Category: vacation

07/20/16 12:41 - ID#60560

Fussball in Flensburg

From the Volkspark hill we heard a bunch of people cheering and yelling to music down by the way. We thought it might have been a concert. It turns out it was a outdoor viewing of the euromeister. I don't like soccer but it was fun with some elephant beer (10%) and erdnuss flips (peanut puffs) beforehand.

Everyone at the event was a giant. I felt average height at least.

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07/20/16 12:40 - ID#60559

Flensburger Volkspark

On Sunday the 12th we were back by ourselves. So we grabbed our brötchens and started wandering around the town again.
We ate at a vegan cafe called "Molly und Alf"

The food was alright, I think I had a seitan parm type panini. I don't think I ever had vegan cheese before - I barely noticed the difference it was so mild.

There was a band playing music in the sudermarkt and everyone was watching.



Paul wanted to rest before we walked to his old school, so we went back up the hill on the stairs to our wohnung. I got a few pictures of the cemetary and Terry imitating the Flensburger Löwe.





Later we walked around the fjord to where Paul's old school used to be.

Gangsta clothes.

Even on a cloudy day the water was nice. To get to the where the school was you had to walk all the way around the fjord, up the east side, and climb up through the volkspark. The folkspark was this huge forested hill right on the edge of the city. I don't think I've ever seen anything like it. You could live in it and nobody would ever find you.








They had a ton of excerise and balance equipment you could use. I'm not sure what was for the kinder and what wasn't but we tried it all.

By the time we got to Paul's old school it turns out they got rid of most of it when it merged into the city's university. His dorms may have still been there (?) but they were houses now.

Apparently Paul used to sit on some of these benches auf pilzen. I bet it was nice.

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Category: vacation

07/20/16 12:34 - ID#60556

First night in Flensburg

Our apartment was an AirBNB on Mathildestraße. It was right up the hill from the Südermarkt, which is one of the two squares in the town along the Fjord, the other being Nordermarkt.

I don't know how I didn't take many pictures. But the apartment was beautiful and huge on the fourth floor of a Treppenhaus. It had a balcony looking over the street and the yard in the back, plus it had amazing insulated windows that either tilt for ventilation or open all the way, depending on how you turn the handle.











After we settled in we walked around the city a little. We ended up at Cafe Central which had vegetarian options that Terry and I ordered... which turned out to be mostly potato. After (e:paul) had ordered a side of pommes frittes. Oops. It was still good.

It almost never gets dark near the peak of the summer - the sun didn't go down until 10, and it wasn't actually night until after midnight!

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