A Few Hours in Hamburg

When we woke up in the morning, we were looking forward to spending a few hours in Hamburg.  This is the city where Braden did him 6 month study abroad junior year, so he was going to be able to show me all of the main stuff really fast.  Before we could get excited about that though, our train pulled onto a boat.  No joke, the train tracks brought us directly onto a boat and we had to get off of the train and cross the water between Denmark and Germany!

Ummm....it was VERY cool.  It had a shop without taxes and a little cafe and a sun deck.  I had a blast.  When we got back into the train and onto the tracks again, though, I had my sights set on Hamburg.  It's the 2nd largest city in Germany and I was excited to see all the places Braden had been talking about all year!

We got into the city and dropped off our bags in a locker and off we were.  Already in the Hauptbahnhof Braden was pointing out his favorite places and what had changed, etc.  He brought us out onto the street and I took out some money and he was just clearly in heaven.  He brought me (again) to the harbor and I loved it.  We also saw one of the quintessential German places, the Hamburger Rathaus (city hall).  It's large and in charge and even on the new German 2 Euro coin.

After that, we hopped onto an S-bahn and went to St. Pauli and saw the new Hard Rock that was still being built.  The Rock Shop was open, though and we were able to get a Hurricane glass!  We then just walked around a little bit and then went back to the Hauptbahnhof and killed some more time.  Braden wanted me to buy him a magazine because he is scared to, but I didn't.  He's a big boy.  From there we got onto the train, went to Berlin and then back home for a break for a few days.  It was magical.