Hallo! Nick and I have been very busy the past week! After a fun weekend in Hamburg last weekend (see the previous post!) we hosted our friend Max (from Georgia Tech) for a few days. It was so much fun showing Max around Hamburg and seeing a familiar face over here. Max has been in Croatia being a skipper on yacht week so it was nice for him to see some friends as well. We made him eat a lot of traditional German food (sausages + sauerkraut + liters of beer!): he's most likely sick of this type of food by now, haha! On Tuesday, we went to Miniatur Wunderland, which is essentially a mini-replica of cities around the world. The main piece is Germany of course, including Hamburg and other major areas, but they also have a republic of America & of Switzerland. It is pretty amusing to see other people's interpretation of the most important aspects of the US... which basically were Las Vegas, SeaWorld, and Miami beach! I've included a ton of pictures below. The most interesting part to me was the replica of the Hamburg airport. They literally had small planes flying in & out. Pretty insane: the Germans are SO meticulous and really put a lot of thought into this museum. It's the most visited museum in Germany! On Max's last night, we went to a rooftop bar (last picture below!) and it was a spectacular view of Hamburg!
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| typical German hefeweizen in a liter! |
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| Seaworld.... |
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| VEGAS! |
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| Amazing view from rooftop of a Hamburg building! |
On Thursday, Nick and I caught up with another friend I had made on my German exchange program in high school. Alina and her boyfriend Boris were so much fun to hang out with. We grabbed drinks at a restaurant on the water then had Italian food. It was so great to see another familiar face even though it had been TEN years. I cannot wait to continue to hang out with them!
On Friday afternoon, Nick and I headed to Köln for the weekend (or Cologne as you spell it in English). It's a city in the Western part of Germany more South of Hamburg and it is located on the Rhine river. It is actually very close to where I studied abroad in high school. It's a beautiful and fun city that is surrounded by culture. The most prominent thing being the Cathedral (which literally took 600 years to build!) We rode the Hamburg-Köln Express train down there and it went pretty seamlessly, which was good. We had to go to a typical restaurant (called Peters Brauhaus) that served Kölsch (which is the prominent beer in the area) right when we arrived. Turns out it was a popular restaurant for locals so we enjoyed interacting some with them and just the experience as a whole. We then walked around the river for awhile and Nick scoped out where he wanted to take pictures the following days. We turned in at a decent hour since we knew we had a full day on Saturday!
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| Arriving in Köln at the HBF station! |
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| Nick's traditional German "meat dish" - way too much for me! |
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| bridge with the love-locks |
Saturday was packed full of activities but I'm so glad we had nice weather and were able to really see Köln! We had a brunch right next to the Cathedral (which consisted of bread, more bread, some meat, and quark aka the Germans version of a healthy sour cream) then went in to do some exploring. The Cathedral is beyond beautiful. We got to climb the tower (~500 steps) and get a view of the entire city / Rhine River from the top. Simply breathtaking. Nick dragged me to the Roman-Germanic Museum which ended up being all in German so basically me trying to interpret everything which took way too much brain power for a weekend activity, haha! We then went and grabbed another typical German lunch with more Kölsch beer :) followed by an actual tour (in English!!) of the cathedral. I thought our tour guide was really good and appreciated everything about the cathedral. It was a very good experience. After the tour, we grabbed a coffee at a cafe on the river (totally European thing to do!) and headed to the Schokolade Museum. The museum turned out to be super informative and not for kids which really surprised us, haha. Got to test out some good chocolate and see the weirdest flavors I have EVER seen, aka "Spaghetti" flavored chocolate. Nick found a Mediterranean place close-by so we headed there for dinner. It was very good! Nick got his lamb fix in so that is all that matters! Afterwards, it was already 9pm so we just went by one more Brauhaus before turning in for the night - we knew Sunday would be full of walking and some hiking, although we had no idea what type of hiking it would be..
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| Yummy place we had brunch by the Dom |
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| andddd Germany has weird flavors like THIS. |
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| enjoying a Kölsch over the Rhine!! |
Sunday, Nick got up to take some pictures at sunrise...and...I slept! We caught the train to Bonn and had an amazing all-you-can-eat brunch on the Rhine River. We then walked around for a bit and caught another train to Königswinter (a small town a bit more south on the Rhine). Lo & behold, the weather was actually NICE. Like no 15 mph winds and above 65 degrees. I think I sweat for the first time since I moved here (small victories, people!) The initial enjoyment of the weather turned into distaste 20 minutes later when we were not even halfway through our hike and I realized how much I missed my Nike gym shorts. Needless to say, the hair was up in a sweaty ponytail before I reached Schloss Drachenburg (the palace that was build in the late 19th century). Oh did I mention that we were hiking with our backpacks that had everything for the weekend in them... and Nick never really mentioned how far / steep the hike was...although to his credit I'm not sure he knew either! We couldn't do much about it at this point and we persevered. Luckily, once the hair was up and I bought a water nothing much could stop me. It was a beautiful palace! We continued to hike up and see the Dragonfels (ruins from a fortress). Nick was busy taking pictures and I was trying to remember how to breathe. All in all though, glad we made the day trip and it was very picturesque to see a panoramic view of the Rhine River! After hiking back down, we took train on train on train (three trains to be exact) to get back to Hamburg in once piece by sun down.
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| exploring Bonn before heading to our hike! |
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| Nice panorama Nick took of me ha. |
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| About to start the hike.... DO NOT WEAR GRAY SHIRTS EVER! |
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| #SELFIE at the top of Dragonfel.... disregard the double chin & sweatiness |
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| Mr. Slug himself! |
It was a great weekend checking out the country we are living in. Nick has done Berlin a few times but we definitely have a lot more traveling just in Germany. We are so blessed to have this experience and especially at this point in our lives. We will be spending July 4th in
Krakow, Poland then we will see where our adventures take us after that. There is some talk of a potential trip to Edinburgh for the British Open in three weeks...we shall see! Until next time...or as the Germans would say...
tschüss! xo
note: I just wanted to thank everyone who has read this far / is reading my blog on a regular basis. It makes me feel like I'm getting to entertain people hopefully! I also hope this helps anyone who is looking to travel to the cities that Nick and I are getting to go to. I'm always available if you have any questions at all about these destinations!
