Rain and "Brothels"

Trip to Muenster

     After gorging ourselves for the last time on the breakfast buffet at Holiday Inn Express Essen, we hit the road north for Hamburg. But, of course, since no one wants to drive for a solid four hours, we decided to make a quick jaunt to the town of Joern's dad's alma mater, the Westfaelische Wilhelms-Universitaet in Muenster. 

     My first impression of this college town was all of the bikes. Even for Europe, the amount of bikes and dedicated bike lanes was quite overwhelming. To go along with the pedestrian-oriented theme, there is also a promenade around the Innenstadt (old/inner city) reserved for pedestrians and bicycles. I really liked it because it felt like a big wrap-around park. 

the pedestrian way and bicycle way side by side (naturally the bikes get the bigger path)

After visiting Joern's dad's old apartment and going to the "beste Baeckerei Muensters", we made our way into the Innenstadt. The Innenstadt is famous for it's Arkaden over the walkways to shelter the entrances to the elegant boutiques

 For lack of a better word, I guess you could call the Arkaden awnings, but I wasn't quite sure. 

     After gawking at expensive clothes and things that hopefully I will one day be able to buy and going into yet another slew of churches, we piled into the Multivan and finished our trek to Hamburg. 

     For dinner I had Hamburger Labskaus mit Rollmops

A red beet, ground beef and potato patty with an egg on top (Labskaus) and herring rolled pickles (Rollmops)

with a house-brewed pilsner, of course. 

Rain, Rain, Go Away

     We woke the next day to a windy, rainy, cold day in Hamburg. Typical, so I'm told. After riding the bus past the countless brick buildings so common in northern Germany, we arrived at our first stop.

Like most of our tourism, this was yet another snap-and-go destination. It is a brick building (naturally) built in the shape of a ship to commemorate Hamburg's history, and present status as a major port city. 

     From there we walked to the old harbor district that is now home of a bunch of museums and other popular tourist destinations that aren't important. Then we crossed the Elbe on one of the 2,500 of the city's bridges to make our way to the Elbphilharmonie, a new famous theater that cost a whopping 789 million euros to build

A picture from the boat ride we took

     From there we took refuge from the Scheiss Wetter on a boat ride that took us up the Elbe and then back down (about an hour). It was very interesting to see the contrast between the city-side of the Elbe with all of the fancy buildings to the other side, with all of the cranes and modern port-related things. After the boat ride and a bit more walking, we took refuge yet again in yet another church, but this time the church was a different style, which I found refreshing. Instead of it being the typical medieval style of church (like the Koelner Dom), this church was more renaissance themed and felt a bit like the architecture of Washington D.C. 

     After seeing the Hauptkirche St. Michaelis, we took the U-bahn (subway) the the city's main shopping district. There, we checked out the cool apple store with it's badass glass staircase and mediocre product (my and Joern's opinion). But, nonetheless, I got to touch a red iPhone 7 which made me feel pretty cool. 

     When we were finished gawking (once again) at things that we will one day buy, we gave up our fight against the weather and headed back to the hotel. Just when everything was almost dry, we headed out to find something to eat for dinner. I wasn't in the mood to try anything too outrageous so I ended up getting Haenchenbrust Schnitzel over some kind of pasta that smelled like snot, but tasted good

with a beer, of course. I got an Alsterwasser which is a 50/50 mix of lemonade and pilsner (I think)  that is called Radler everywhere else in Germany except Hamburg, so I guess it's kind of special, but only because it has a different name. 

Day Two

     On our second day, I woke to discover that the sky had not permanently become grey, but is still the blue that I once remembered it. It was very refreshing, but there still was the occasional shower that would blow through during the day, so there really was no escape from the rain. 

     The weather aside, we decided to make a tour of the city's main sights that we had missed the day before. We started out taking the train out of the city a ways, up the Elbe and to an old "poor" fisherman's village. I say poor because it once was poor, but no more. There, we got to see an original reed-roofed house 

 and a cluster of charming "poor peoples'" homes on a hill

from there we walked back towards Hamburg along the Elbe for a few kilometers. I found some cool broken red brick pieces to keep as a cool souvenir and I got to touch the Elbe

I was very disappointed that I didn't get to touch the Rhein when we were in Duesseldorf and Koeln, but I'm pretty sure it could matter less XD.  Anyways, after our walk along the Elbe and seeing the Airbus factory on the other side, we took a bus back into the city where we walked through the old tunnel that leads to the other side of the Elbe. But not only is this tunnel for pedestrians and tourism, cars can also pass through for a mere two euros which was a little bit annoying at times.

I  also found it really cool (everyone else thought I was crazy) that the place where you have to take the elevator down, felt exactly like the pit-prison from The Dark Knight Rises

it was kind of hard to get into one picture, but it felt pretty cool to climb out of the pit (or at least a similar one) that Batman did. From there we got Fischbroetchen because we were dying of hunger

It's pretty much what it looks like, fish on a bun. I think mine was herring. From there we walked to the shopping district again where we saw the town hall and other cool-looking government buildings and also saw a few different shops that we didn't the day before. While walking we saw more things that I will one day have such as watches that cost 315.900 euros

From there we took the subway to Hafencity which is this really cool district completely built on artificial land into the Elbe. They're still building many of the buildings, but much of it is also complete. For example, there are many apartments that are built and available around the Elbphilharmonie, but as you go farther east, the buildings become newer and newer and you see more and more construction. We came out of one of the new subway stations to find ourselves in the middle of all of this construction. It was very interesting to find such a big and fancy subway station and so few people, but I guess they built it to be prepared for the future. 

"Brothels" 

    From the very fancy and soon-to-be upscale district of Hafencity, we walked (just a short ways) to the district of St. Pauli which contains Hamburg's renowned red light district. And inside of the red light district, one can find the Herberstrasse which is famous for it's many whorehouses (or Brothel, so I'm told the politically correct word is) And no, we didn't go in because there was a gate and a  sign that very clearly stated that to enter you must be 1) at least 18 and 2) a male (which I found very sexist), but just from walking around the rest of the red light district, we got the idea of what the renowned Herberstrasse contained. 

     Hamburg is a city of contrast when it comes to it's many districts. Just next to the graffitied streets of the red light district, right across the street in fact, one could see the very nice and well kept streets of the Bavarian Quarter with all of it's nice buildings and expensive hotels. I found it fascinating to find such contrast so close. 

     From our little jaunt in the not so family friendly red light district, we headed back to our hotel (which was also in St. Pauli, mind you) to take a short break (Pause, so the German word is) before dinner. For dinner I got some kind of flat fish with bacon on top. But nevermind what I got because Joern got trout. And being a vegetarian (pescatarian, rather), he had to decapitate his own fish and sort out the bones himself

Which was hilarious. I; however, being the team player I am gladly took the head and removed the eyeballs for myself as a yummy treat. Joern's mom was totally grossed out I could tell, but didn't say anything. 

     The next day was black Friday (Good Friday, oops) and I tried the whole not eating meat thing for the day. We had breakfast in the hotel, packed our bags, and hit the road for Nieheim. 

Nieheim

     Yesterday we arrived in the tiny and lonely village of Nieheim to visit Joern's grandparents. I soon found out that Nieheim is the home of all of the cousins, aunts, uncles, and exes of those aunts and uncles as well as Oma and Opa Nieheim. It turns out that Joern's parents are the only ones on this side of the family to not be divorced. Anyhow, the whole family came over last night to go for a walk and ended up staying for dinner. Now I know who got who's nose. 

     Today Fastenzeit (Lent) is over and I can finally drink tea again. I hope I don't overdose. I started the day out with going to my first Aldi Nord (North) with Joern's dad to stock up on groceries to get us through the next few days

Aldi Nord is different than the Aldi Sued. Aldi Sued is what we have in America and Baden-Wuertenburg and, in most peoples' opinions, it is much better. After finally going into an Aldi Nord, I can finally say for myself that Aldi Sued is better. After unloading the groceries from the car, I took another trip into the city (one could call it) with Joern's grandpa to get beer in a Tante Emma Laden (Auntie Emma Shop). Not as common in Germany anymore, Tante Emma Laden are supposed to be tiny stores where you can buy everything. And, as with Aldi Nord, after seeing one for myself, I now know that you can buy everything in a Tante Emma Laden.

     After an in-car tour of the village with Joern's grandpa, we came home to have Mittagsbrot (light lunch) as we will have a big dinner tonight. Then, this afternoon I piled into the car with Joern's mom, aunt, Cousinen (girl-cousins), and Inga to go to a slightly larger village that has a Kino (Cinema) of it's own. While the cousins and Inga all watched Bibi & Tina, me and the ladies hit the streets to do some shopping.

     Now that we're all back home and Fastenzeit is over, the family cracked open a bottle of Sekt (German Champagne) to break the alcohol fast. Dinner is almost ready and I think we're going to be having venison. I'm told it's so good that even Joern and Lars eat it, so we'll have to see.

Today is 15 April 2017

Nat