Germany
This post will attempt
to cover the six days we spent in four cities in Germany. Its a fair bit of
material, but we were so busy that I postponed blogging until
we were back on a long train ride. I am going to attempt to weave the pictures
into the text more, so please bear with me.
When we got on the train
in Copenhagen, we knew it was taking us to Hamburg. However, the maps showed
the train driving straight over the Fehmarn Belt with no mention of a
bridge. We were surprised and confused when we approached a ferry,
and were not asked to leave the train. The train drove directly onto the ferry.
It is hard to tell, but
the train is actually fully in the ferry
The sister of the ferry
we were on. Andy described the opening of the bow to let the train out as
"like and alligator opening its mouth!"
We saw this beauty from the ferry
We were
pleasantly surprised when we reached Hamburg Central Station and
Kyle, Nick, and Dale (All Webb 2012) were waiting for us on the platform,
holding a hand made sign that said "Webbies". It was a very happy reunion
all around.
Kyle, Nick, and Dale are
all contracted to work with Blomm and Voss on the restoration of an FPSO. They
and many of their colleagues live in a hotel very close to the
shipyard, so we got to meet a few other naval architects. We had a nice dinner
out at a traditional German place, and then slept. They had to go to
work in the morning, so we set out to explore the city.
We learned that Hamburg
has a really nice bike rental program, and so we took advantage of it. By
riding the bikes from one rental station to another, we could use them from
only 5 euro per year.
So we leapfrogged from station to station, making our way
north along the lake towards a park we heard was good. Along the way, we lost
Chris. He took a different turn, and we stopped and waited for him to come
back, but he never did. We continued to make our way to the park on foot,
hoping Chris would meet us there.
We must have walked slowly because when we
reached the park two hours later Chris was waiting faithfully. He had already
toured the park, and took us right to the part of the park we wanted to
see, the playground.
The Zipline
We road the bikes all
the way back, and then had a nice doner dinner not far from the
hotel.
We started out early the
next morning, 7:00 am breakfast with the naval architects, and then we
trained to Berlin. We weren't staying the night in Berlin, so we had six hours
to explore the city before making the train that would get us back to Hamburg
in time for a nice dinner out. We planned a walking and biking tour, and headed
to see the most touristy sites.
Reichstag
Brandenburg Gate
Checkpoint Charlie
From checkpoint charlie
we road bikes along the streets, following the double row of laid stones that
show where the wall used to stand. After a few extra turns, we found the
section of the Berlin Wall that is now a giant piece of artwork. It was really
quite amazing.
Our last quest in Berlin
was to find a Berliner (jelly donut). We searched and searched, but found only
things labeled 'donut'. Eventually we tried them, and found that they
probably were 'berliners' just not called that. They were really delicious.
Soft, fluffy dough, a light sprinkling of white sugar on the outside, and
filled completely with a rich but mildly sweet apple
butter. Worth all the searching!
We also saw some cool
and really old museums and churches and such.
The highlight of our
time with Kyle, Dale, and Nick was our last dinner at Groeninger's. Dean
Neilson highly recommended it, and we are grateful. I'm not sure I have ever
eaten as much food in my life. We ordered the meat platter, and out came pounds
and pounds of smoked pork, sausages and bacon. A traditional mustard and brown
bread were also available, along with garlic and bacon mashed potatoes. We
ate and ate and ate.
It was sad to leave
Hamburg, but great to have gotten to see Kyle, Nick and Dale. They seem to be
having a great time, and making plenty of friends. We are ever grateful for
sharing their rooms and breakfasts with us, not to mention the fun times.
We left on the morning
train, headed for Cologne and Dusseldorf. Andy got off the train in Dusseldorf to
set up our hotel, while we continued on to Cologne. We found some pretty great
things in our exploration of the city,
A huge cathedral
Noah's Ark-On a barge
Chris the aid to navigation
The most
dangerous children's playground ever
A tram with a
great aerial view of the city
We hopped the 20 min
train back to Dusseldorf, and ended up waiting while they did something to the
train that extended our ride for an extra hour. But we made it to the hotel
eventually, and all was good.
We set about exploring
Dusseldorf the next day, and using there public transit system to its full
advantage. We made it into the city, and saw a bunch of awesome statues and
buildings. We grabbed a really cheap breakfast of great baked goods, and walked
down to the Rhine.
After eating a meal of
hamburgers and nachos, we decided we wanted to see a movie. We found the main
theater, but they had only movies in German. So on a whim we headed all the way across the city looking for a theater that apparently shows movies in English. We found it, but by the time we got there the only movie left in English was either a little kids movie, or a horror movie. (we couldn't understand enough German to tell which). We ended up watching the new Bourne movie, and understanding none of it. But it was worth it!
So now it is our second day in the Netherlands, we had a wonderful meal with the Webbies here, but more on that next post.
Miss you all
Satchel
