Hamburg
Hamburg has all the best aspects of our previous trip destinations: some history, some crowds, some fun, and some good food. Okay, LOTS of good food.
When we first arrived, we headed to our hotel, the Adina. After we had settled in, we headed to the St. Nikolai Memorial. Hamburg was bombed by the Allies in World War Two, 1943. The shell of the church and its spire remain in ruins as a memorial. Because of the hot weather on the day of the air-raid, the bombing reached a whole new level of severity- a firestorm raged out of control and 42,600 people were killed. We visited the museum inside the vault below the church, which I found quite moving and informative. The museum had the objects that people had with them as they fled. Things like straw sandals, pie tins- even simple things like forks and cups. I found it very powerful that the curators of the museum were emphasizing that actual people had lived through this, with actual stories. For example, the pair of straw sandals had been gifted to a girl a few hours after she had run out of the city barefoot. We headed up to the top of the spire for amazing views. It seemed crazy that this city had once been 
in ruins after the bombing, but there we were, in the spire of the remains of the bombed-out church, looking down on the new city from inside a building that was a shell of what was left of the old city. When we got out, it was breezy like crazy and it had started to rain, so we headed for shelter at our hotel. As we walked down the only slightly crowded streets, I realized that Hamburg is a nice place to explore. Everywhere you look, you can see the attention to detail. Some lovely blue tiles here, beautiful brick building there. It’s pretty interesting that one of the main reasons the architecture is breathtaking is because, during the bombing, Hamburg was razed to the ground. The destruction was terrible, but because it was so devastating the city had to start from scratch and so there are a lot of amazing contemporary buildings all around. When the rain finally let up, we were starved. We just about ran to Vincent Vegan, a vegan fast-food burger place. The fact that it
is conveniently located in a very nice mall right near the city center also made the restaurant a good choice. But what made the restaurant stand out most of all was… the food! I’m not vegan, but the vegan burgers were amazing! My favorite part of the meal was the sweet potato french fries and garlic sauce. It was garlic-y, salty, and yummy! Even though we had to wrestle our way past the food court crowds, it was totally worth it! The fast-food made me wish I were vegan so that I could use it as an excuse to eat more of it! Since supermarkets are often in the basement of malls in Europe, we went to see if we could find one. Sure enough, we found the supermarket, which was enormous, and got some things to make breakfast in the morning with the kitchen in our hotel room.
The next day, we woke up super duper early to go to the fish market, a gathering of locals to sell fish- among other things. We had a nice homemade breakfast at our hotel and then headed out at around 7:30 AM. It was nice for the city to be almost empty. It was quiet and nearly deserted. I really love moments when I feel like we have a city to ourselves. When we reached the Fish Market, the quiet vanished and the scene changed as we were bombarded by deafening street sellers of all sorts. There were candies, fish, produce, and touristy knickknacks filling the booths. We got some delicious crêpes and snacked on them as we walked through the colorful stalls that smelled like (eww!) raw fish. When the market started to close up, we headed to the Old Elbe Tunnel — an underground tunnel that connects two sides of the land that the river Elbe passes through. The inside of the tunnel was cool, but it was hard not to think about the gushing water above our heads. On the other side of the water, we got great panoramic views from Bornsteinplatz. It’s a pretty great view of the city, and sitting there you can really take in the amazing architecture. I’d say that the Old Elbe Tunnel and view on the other side is definitely a not-to-miss attraction. I would have sat there all day if I didn’t have somewhere to be-
Chocoversum, a chocolate museum. We took a tour there, on which we learned things like how the chocolate is processed and how much of it is sugar (this part isn’t exactly reassuring, especially as you are sampling their chocolates). I found it very enjoyable, and one of the best chocolate experiences of our trip. Our guide was super nice, and we got to try chocolate in all stages of the chocolate-making process. We also got to make our own chocolate bars. I put tons of sprinkles in mine. When we were all chocolated out, we headed to Hafencity, the new part of Hamburg. We walked around the water and took a ferry 
to get even better views of Elbphilharmonie, a large music hall with some cool architecture. I would have wanted it to be a bit less reflective- it almost burned my eyes off! After that, we headed to dinner. We decided to eat at the fancy-schmancy Heldenplatz Restaurant, right across from our hotel. My brother and I split the sirloin steak and artichoke soup with duck. It’s supposed to be casual fine dining, which I can understand. The food was super fancy and the atmosphere wasn’t really that fancy. I thought that the food was good, and even though I don’t usually eat duck, it was great!
The next day, we woke up early to go to Miniatur Wunderland. It’s a series of rooms where there are miniature buildings, people, monuments- a person might be as small as your pinky’s fingernail! We found the US and many places in Europe. The mini-world features New York City, Paris, Munich, Heidelberg, Berlin, and tons of other famous places. It was pretty fun to look at it while listing where we had been and where we wanted to go. There were buttons that you can press to make things
happen, but the buttons that actually did anything cool were few and far between. It was super fun to trigger thunderstorms, steer boats and there was even a button to press that wrapped chocolate and you got to eat it! The world also turned from day to night every fifteen minutes by dimming the lights and turning on blue lights instead. There was also a very big airport. My brother waited fifteen minutes to see the Millennium Falcon head off for the death star. Josh said that the wait for the takeoff was worth it because, in the meantime, he could enjoy all the other takeoffs and landings, and seeing the Millennium Falcon itself went above and beyond- pun intended. When we’d seen the entire mini-world, we headed off to the real size town hall. We went inside and viewed the beautiful old architecture in contrast to the new Elbphilharmonie. It’s elegant, gothic, and was adorned with statues or carving anywhere you looked. From here, we walked to the Church of St. Michael. This great old church has quite beautiful 
architecture and an amazing organ. There is also a crypt that we could 
have gone into, but I didn’t because our last crypt experience had me spooked. What is it with crypts and Germany? Behind the church, there’s a small alley and in it, there are lots of old buildings, still preserved from 340 years ago- a great piece of history that was luckily spared from destruction in the bombing. It was pretty cool. It’s a big alley of old wooden buildings painted a range of brown to red almost toppling on top of each other. After walking among these buildings, we headed back to our hotel. We also got some groceries along the way so that we could make dinner. Visiting the grocery stores in other countries is great on so many levels. You get to look at the different foods- my favorites are the junk food selection- and try to navigate another language. It’s super fun! We made pasta with salad. My compliments to the chef! As we reached the end of our time in Hamburg and in Germany, I reflected on how Hamburg had provided so many opportunities to try to learn new things. Trying half processed chocolate and vegan burgers, experiencing a new mini-world, and even learning about the tragic bombing of Hamburg’s past. Hamburg has provided me with many new ways to look at the world as well, from seeing everything as if we live in a mini-world (if this is actually true, remember that you heard it from me first) and giving me the insight that if I was in Hamburg in 1943, I would most likely be dead. This all made me very happy to be alive and because of all this, I loved my journey in Hamburg.
STAY TUNED FOR MY NEXT JOURNEY… COPENHAGEN!
