A terrible ending to a wonderful weekend

Moin Moin! Which is hello if you're a northern German.

(Dr. Wasser please consider this to be from the weekend of July 17-19)

On Friday when at the Hauptbahnhof in Hannover I made my first big split from the group as a whole. While all 14 of my fellow students went to Prague for the weekend I took a pleasant one hour and 4o minute train ride north to Hamburg. You may wonder why I decided to venture to this city, which is (strangely) not well known in the United States. Hamburg, aside from being the second largest city in Germany and a port city renowned for its fish and nightlife, is also where two of my friends from high school live.

The weekend and Hamburg itself were wonderful, I was so blessed to have my two friends to stay with and to see the city with. We went clubbing until 4 am together (that's early by Hamburger standards) wandered around the city sights, and woke up super early on Sunday to see the fish market, which had some of the best fresh fish available than I've had since my Uncle gave us some fresh walleye in May.

Sunday afternoon it was time to go and my friend Ellen, who I'd stayed with, brought me to the train station and waited with me until my train came in. This is where the weekend took a turn for the worse: I had reserved seats on both my train to and from Hamburg on Monday when I'd still been in Bonn and it had worked wonderfully on the way there. When I tried to look up my car on the handy train guide at the gate I couldn't find it. I figured that they'd probably just switched the trains and it didn't really matter if I my reservation was messed up I would just find one of the unreserved seats to sit in. Unfortunately when the train arrived it was all compartments. If you've never been on a train with compartments, imagine the Hogwarts express from HP but not scarlet or magical. This means that every single seat was reserved so I basically spent the first two hours of my 4 hour train ride to Koeln siting in the aisle of the train. Finally a seat opened up when someone got off at Muenster, so I snatched it and was li=uckily able to spend the rest of the ride sleeping in a chair.

Of course this was probably all a little my fault, I could've done a few things to fix it:
1. I could've tried to ask someone if they knew what was happening or what to do. I've had good luck asking people for help on trains before.

2. I could've tried asking the woman who checked my ticket.

3. There was a woman who I think had a similar problem (she was speaking German so I'm not sure) and I could've asked her if she was having the same issue and for help.

4. I could have looked up and down the train for an open seat after the first couple stops.

Of course I was too chicken to do any of these things, but at least there were a few things that made the whole experience better:

1. The first hour I got to sit next to this really cute German boy until he got off at some B named city.

2. Right as the Cute German boy started leaving I found the super wonderful candied almonds Ellen and I had bough at the fish market and I snacked on them along with our 8 euro supply of candy.

3. I was able to catch up on some of my daily Bible reading.

4. I was able to see some really cute little German children when people watching.

So all in all it wasn't totally terrible. I'll leave you with a bit of advice:

1. Visit Hamburg

2. Eat Franzbroetchen and quarkballs when in Hamburg.

Ciao!

Caitlin

Weekend 2

I am really looking forward to Hamburg. I heard that the fishmarket holds hoards of red-light distric party goers until the wee morning hours! That is the kind of thing you can't see in the states! I love how we can spend 20 Euros on a room in a major city, too. I spent last weekend in Brussels, and that too was an interesting experience. We were totally lost with only a map to guide us. We didn't even know where to visit in particular! I think that kind of ignorance is exciting, but perhaps I will plan some more for the Hamburg trip.

Yesterday's trip to the Cologne Dom was remarkable! I have seen tall buildings, but cathedrals reserve a special presence. The droves of tourists stared upwards at the rising towers that seemed to go on forever! The design of the cathedral led the eye upward toward the sky, a proper design for a church, I suppose. That has been my favorite landmark so far. I was especially surprised when we were led to gallery through these creeping little tunnels. The view was beautiful. The room smelled like incense and the choir began as we left. How perfect! I wanted to stay longer, but I knew the magic of the place would run out eventually. It's best to leave on a high note. That is my mantra for this trip!