This weekend, I went to Hamburg - a northern German city. This trip to Hamburg was part of a study tour through my University. About 80 students went on this tour.
On Friday morning, I took a train from Berlin Hauptbahnhof to Hamburg Bahnhof. The train ride was a nice journey, just under two hours. We arrived in Hamburg and had two hours before we could check into our hostel. My friend and I went to two different cafes, ate pastries, and just relaxed.
We were staying in a hostel right outside of the Hauptbahnhof. I was not at all happy about this. I always stay away from hostels because they are just huge rooms with a bunch of beds. Thankfully my Uni booked rooms that would only have students from our Uni in them. I was in a six bed-room and there were only three of us in this room, thankfully. The bathroom was honestly smaller than an airplane bathroom. I could not even bend over in the shower. The hostel was filled with people from the UK and Ireland. Loud, obnoxious, and drunk. Overall, I was not satisfied with the accommodation. Out of the three study tours (Dresden, Wroclaw, and Hamburg), Hamburg had the worst breakfast too.
After checking into our hostel, I met up with my tour group to head over to the Kunsthalle. The tour that I chose was about the transition of Bauhaus to Instagram photography. We had a guided tour through the exhibition. The tour was interesting but was a bit boring at some points. Most of us ventured off on our own to explore the exhibition. I did really enjoy that the museum was quite interactive. The inside of the museum was kind of like a maze. My favorite room in the museum was this cafe. Apparently it is one of the most famous attractions in the museum but I did not see any information about it.
After the museum, I relaxed in my hostel and then headed to the restaurant that our group would be meeting at for dinner. Unlike the breakfast, this dinner was my favorite out of all three dinners that I had on a study tour. I had a wonderful schnitzel and potatoes as well as some Apfel Streudel. I was extremely happy with dinner and was so content to finally have a nice German Schnitzel Dinner. I took the U-Bahn back to the hostel and fell asleep right away
On Saturday morning, I had breakfast at the hostel and then went on a historical walking tour of the city. Now the weather was extremely horrible on Saturday: very cold, nonstop rain, and quite windy. Only three students showed up for the tour including myself. There were three CIEE employees and three students so it was a very nice small tour. The tour guide was great. I usually get bored on city tours but she kept my interest. I cannot tell you how many times my umbrella flipped inside out because of the strong winds.
My favorite building in the city was the Rathaus where we began our tour. This is their city hall. They are also setting up a large Christmas market right in front of the hall. I cannot wait to explore the Christmas markets in Germany.
Some of the cool facts that I learned on the tour were that Hamburg has the fifth highest church in the world, the third largest port in Europe, citizens of Hamburg are called Hamburgians, "Moin" means Hello/Good morning, a fire destroyed the city in 1842, the vikings tried multiple times to burn the city down in attempts to convert the citizens to Christianity, and there is a red light district in the city.
I also learned about the Franzbrötchen, which is the signature pastry of Hamburg. It is basically a crushed croissant with cinnamon inside. Very very delicious.
As we departed from the tour, I happened to be going back to the same U-Bahn that the tour guide was going to. We had some time to talk in German and she mentioned that my German was perfect and that she could not tell that I was from the United States. She said that she could tell that I was not from Germany but maybe from the Netherlands because of my accent. This was quite a proud moment for me. I like to think that I represent the United States well with my language skills. The stereotype with Americans is that they are dumb and can only speak English. I am proving them wrong.
The highlight of my trip to Hamburg was the Miniatur Wunderland. This is the top rated attraction in Hamburg. Since 2000, this exhibition has been being constructed. Minatur Wunderland is a museum of interactive models. The museum begins with Italy, then goes into Switzerland, Bayern, Knuffigen Airport, America, Hamburg and finally Scandinavia. The models are completely scaled correctly and are so detailed. There are trains and cars buzzing around everywhere. Every 15 minutes, there is sunset, where the lights dim down in the whole museum and you can see all of the models light up. Some of my favorite highlights of the museum were the airport and Switzerland. The airport was simply incredible. I felt like I was actually at an airport. They had buses and trucks zooming around the runway, planes lining up to take off, and they even have planes landing and taking off from the runway. The planes look like exact replicas too. Switzerland had a tiny chocolate factory. It was actually kind of hidden and I would not have noticed it if I did not hear two German children saying "Schokolade." When you press a button, a tiny piece of chocolate is wrapped in a factory and then dispensed for you to eat. The chocolate was some of the best chocolate that I have ever had. The total cost of all building materials adds up to 35 million Euros. They are currently working on Monaco and this will open in 2023. In the museum, you can see the engineers with all of their computer screens, controlling the action of the models. Simply an amazing museum and I recommend anyone visiting Hamburg to visit.
To end the night, I had a pizza dinner with my friend, went back to the hostel and fell asleep at 9:00.
Sunday morning consisted of a quick breakfast at the hostel and a trip to the American Embassy. Some of my friends went on a Friday tour to the American Embassy and they said that the building was gorgeous. They were not wrong. It is a mini White House. The embassy is huge. Back during the Cold War, there were over 200 employees there. Now there are only about 20. The weather was actually beautiful, of course when we were about to leave. There were so many people running. I was shocked how many I saw.
My German friends have always ranted about Hamburg but I did not honestly see what the hype is all about. I had an ok time in Hamburg and would probably not go back if I had the chance.