Hamburg - we think we love you! Anarchists and all...

A couple weekends ago (Sept 3 - 6) we went to Hamburg, Germany to visit our friends Miriam and James! You may remember them from many of our Zurich posts on hiking, oktoberfest, Zurich Street Parade, skiing, and more.  We actually saw The Hangover (for the first time) in a cinema in Zurich with them, and I would definitely consider them part of our "pack". :)  



It has taken me forever to write this post, because I thought I lost the cable that gets the pictures out of my camera and onto my computer and a post without pictures would be lame - right?!  Anyway, found it this weekend as we were cleaning/packing up our Finnish apartment to move home!  YeAh!

We arrived pretty early on Friday, so we had the whole day to sight see and hang out - boy were they lucky that they had to entertain us for 4 WHOLE days:)!  We started off our day by walking from their place, past Alster lake, down Mönckebergstrasse (shopping street!), to the Rathaus, and then to get a beer/lunch on the water.  I could already tell by the first 4 hours of being in Hamburg why they loved it so much.  Hamburg is a beautiful city with a LOT going on!

View of the Alster from lunch

Nathan was at a different table on a conference call... it doesn't look like it was going that well.:)

Miriam's work building had a paternoster - a perpetual elevator with no door that you just "hop on/hop off" when you get to your floor.  No way in HELL you would find one of these in a building in the States.  I'm sure some idiot would try to jump out too late, hurt themselves, and sue.

We did a little shopping at Becker's Jewelers and I got some special German Trollbeads!

The weekend we were there, there were three street festivals going on!  The first night we met up with some of their friends (all Americans no less:)) at the Alstervergnügen - a festival that was around Alster Lake (where we had been most of the day).  Typical fair food (lots of fried stuff - mmmmm), lots of sausages (hello - we are in Germany!), bands, games and one of my favorite parts - beer and Caprihinias!  They definitely don't sell alcohol at the NC State Fair - that's for sure!   Around 10 pm there was an International Fireworks Show, after which we hung out and watched a band sing well known German songs (poor Miriam was sitting with a bunch of Americans and had no one to sing with:( - I'm going to have to learn some of these songs for her!)

German sausages - mmmmmmmm!  Somehow we never got one though:(

Saturday morning Miriam and I woke up and went to the Goldbek Market - a street market near her house where one can buy cheese, meat, local vegetables, etc.  We had a market similar to this near our place in Oerlikon, but this one was awesome because of all the handmade items - like jewelry, knitted items, and jewelry:).  I wish there were more of these in the States.  I know we have some streets fairs like this, but they are usually once a year - this one is every weekend!   And if you guys are thinking "well we have farmer's markets in Raleigh" - it isn't really like that either - you would have to go to one to see what I mean - just a different feel and atmosphere than that.  This is something I will definitely miss when we move back State side.

After this we met back up with the boys and headed down to the Schanzenfest - by day the largest unorganized flea market in the world (okay - I just made that up - I'm not sure if it is the largest - but it seemed like it) and by night an Anarchist riot.  Yes riot.  In 2009, once it turned dark, 1000 masked anarchist threw bottles, stones, fireworks and even torched a police car (you can read an article about it here).  Although we went during the day, Nathan said he wanted to stay until dark to "see what happens".  Ummm - yeah - riiiiiiiight.

There were a lot of people selling and shopping at Schanzenfest.  My favorite were the people with no shoes on, that hadn't taken a shower in at least a month, that were selling homemade food.  Uh yeah - I don't think so...not even one of those brownies.

There was a lot of street music and other cool stuff mixed in with the clothes and food.

The street festival takes place in a trendy neighborhood called Schanzenviertel.  The area was super cute with all its boutiques, restaurants, and pubs.  However, the main thing that sticks out in the area is the Rote Flora - a building that was taken over by squatters in 1989 and is a place for left wing activists to meet.  The boys wanted to try to get inside this building (yeah, I don't think so), but they dragged us around the side/back of the building to see what was going on (I'll admit I was a little scared).  Thank God we couldn't get in - there was a guying guarding the door - and I'm pretty sure they weren't letting guys with Polos on inside!:)

Rote Flora

I translated this on google to mean - "bulls in the blood rushing" - not sure what that means but obviously it is a police man with blood on him.  I guess they don't like the police:)

Although it seemed like a free spirited street fest, you could actually feel the tension.  We read in the paper the next day that riots had broken out that night.

From here we moved on to another street fest called STAMP in the Altona district.  STAMP stands for Street Art Festival.   At first I wasn't sure what "street art" was, but then I had the ahh-ha moment. "Street art" is street music and street dancing (think guys breaking dancing on the corner in the '80s) :).  Performance groups traveled to Hamburg from around the globe and it was cool to see all the different types of  street art. Once it turned dark, there was a carnival like parade of all the performers - and you know we LOVE a parade!:)

About to watch a breaking dancing "dance off"!  I have video but was too lazy to upload it - sorry!:)

If I ever have to been in a parade I want to wear THIS!  It's probably really heavy but it looks so cool!

Miriam and James have made some great friends in Hamburg!

Finally we headed to the Reeperbahn in the St. Pauli area which is the "red light" district in Hamburg.  Call me sheltered, but I had no idea that this was one of the largest red light district in the world!  Sex shops, prostitutes, drag queens - you want it - they've got it!  Surprisingly it wasn't that seedy though.  Okay - it was seedy, but I didn't feel grossed out.  Sure there were prostitutes on ever corner soliciting Nathan and James, but the atmosphere of the area was more of a wild party!  Although I wouldn't think of a red light district so much as a tourist attraction - that is exactly what it was.  We saw everyone from 80 year old grandmas to bachelorette parties living it up!  A must see in Hamburg for sure!

I didn't take one picture in the Reeperbahn - what's up with that?!  I guess I was too busy taking it all in (and keeping the prostitutes off my man:))! I stole this pic off the internet - it is the entrance to Herbertstrasse.  Only men over 18 are allowed behind the wall,l so I'm not sure exactly what it looked like and Nathan's not saying:).  All I know is they were behind it for a while.... 

Sunday morning we all woke up at a reasonable hour (which was a shock considering all the ridiculously big beers we drank the night before) and actually made it to the Sandeman Free Walking Tour at 11 am.  Nathan and I love a walking tour and feel it is a great way to learn more about the history of the city.   Although our tour guide was a bit of a goober, we all learned alot about Hamburg (even Miriam and James said they learned stuff they didn't know)!

The tour started at the Rathaus (Town Hall)

Chilehaus - it was designed to resemble the front of a ship

St. Nikolai Church - it was bombed during WWII and never rebuilt as a reminder to the people the perils of war.

Deichstrasse - origin of the Great Fire of 1842

Binnenhafen - the inner harbor

The tour ended in Hafencity (Harbor City) where we continued to walk around look at all the amazing architecture.  Wow!  You have to go to really appreciate it, but I could see us living there (after we earned a couple million of course:)).

Hafencity

In the distance you can see the Elbe Philharmonic Hall that is still being built.  I want to come back when it is finished and see a performance there - it looks really cool!

At the end of the tour Nathan and I were drafted to be part of the reenactment of the death of the infamous Pirate Klaus Störtebeker

That night Miriam made us another amazing dinner (thank you Miriam!) and we just chilled after a fun filled weekend filled with lots of German beer, street festivals, and walking!  Although it felt like we covered the whole city - apparently there are even more areas to see - I guess we are just going to have to go back! ;) 

Thank you Miriam and James - we had an amazing time!  Can't wait for you to come visit us in North Carolina!:) 

p.s. - You can check out the rest of our Hamburg photos here!

p.p.s. - I hope I got all the facts right and if not - Miriam please let me know!

Munchen

We arrived in Munchen (so much more fun to say than Munich don't you think?) around 4 pm and headed straight to Oktoberfest! I mean - HELLO! What would you do - right?

So the one thing I didn't know is that Oktoberfest is basically like a State Fair - well a real cool State Fair that has huge BEER tents that seat 8500+ people, but still a State Fair. Rides and everything. My question is - who rides rides after drinking several 1 liter beers? Okay, so say there ARE a couple crazy drunk people (guys I'm sure) who ride the rides. Do they puke? Are there huge puke buckets at each ride? Sorry so crude - but seriously these were the questions that were going threw my head, so basically we just stayed really far away from the rides!:)

The beer tents at Oktoberfest hold the "Big Six" Breweries. If you want to find out more about them go here. I think the history behind their origins is very interesting.

The first tent we came upon was Paulaner - but when we saw the white table clothes we thought - NO WAY - we need craziness and dancing on tables:) So we just walked around their tent and on to the next. But it was beautiful - see:

Paulaner

The next tent was J.W. Augustiner. We REALLY wanted a beer but were told that you had to have a seat to be able to get one. Of course there were no open seats, so I asked a waitress if we might be able to "get a beer". She said "Vate right here". She then continued to smoke two cigarettes and I was like "what the hell is going on" but I wasn't about to ask again in fear that she might say no - so we "vated".

Then she started yelling something at another woman - went away for about 5 minutes and then came back with our 4 beers and pulled us over to a table. We were on the "outside" of the fence and there were lots of signs that said "YOU CAN NOT STAND HERE" in big letters and NO ONE else was standing there - but hey the waitress said we could - so no questions from us!

The 1 liter beers at the Oktoberfest were going for 8.50 Euro, but the waitresses pretty much expected 10 Euro. A lot of them take unpaid leave from their "real" jobs to waitress at the Oktoberfest because it is so lucrative! Our waitress was really nice, and we ended up finding out a bunch of information from her. If you want a reservation for a table you basically have to make it ONE YEAR in advance, because that is how quickly they fill up. And when you make the reservation it is for 2 beers and a chicken:) I thought that was a fun tidbit:)

So here she is -our waitress - who Nathan now fondly refers to as "His Girlfriend" - don't they look cute together? She could carry about 12 of those 1 liter beers at one time! It was amazing! I tried to get a picture, but was never at the right angle, and I thought she might kill me if I stopped her while she was carrying all that and said "Can I take your picture?":) And yes, my husband has a Miller "Champagne of Beers" hat on at Oktoberfest!:)

So that tent was a lot of fun - we made some friends, ate some BIG pretzels, drank some beer but it was time to move on - next up Hofbrauhaus!

Now this is where it got interesting! The Hofbrauhaus is obviously the party tent! We tried the same trick with asking a waitress and it worked again! We were outside the "rail" but so were lots of people and obviously the Hofbrauhaus didn't care about fire safety!:)

We found out that this tent was set up a little different - so they still had the tables you could reserve a year in advance, but they also had standing tables in the back that were first come first serve. We started talking to the people on the "other side" of the rail at the tables - they were US Marines stationed in Germany and we had a lot of fun with them! They ended up giving us their place when they left by helping us climb the railing!:)

Here are some pics from the Hofbrauhaus - definitely my favorite tent! Unfortunately my camera ran out of batteries around 8 pm so I don't have any of the late night craziness (it definitely got crazier by the hour). I'm also really bummed that I don't have a picture of the two Russians that Nathan gave his phone number to and told them to come visit us in the States when we get back - good times!:)

One liter beers are fun!!!!!

Most people were dressed up in the traditional Bavarain outfits of Lederhosen and Dirndls - these guys.... not so much:)

It was definitely a party atmosphere! People were singing with the band, dancing, and just having a good time. They played a lot of american songs - I think here it was Sweet Home Alabama:)

I'm not exactly sure how Nathan and I had the sense to get ourselves back to our hotel but we did! I say this b/c apparently I ate a huge plate of fried potatoes and honestly have no recollection at ALL of doing that:)

So needless to say Nathan and I were hurting a little the next morning (my parents were a little more sensible with the amount of beer they drank), but we rallied and went on the Sandeman FREE Walking Tour of Munich (Nathan had done one of these in Prague and really enjoyed it!) The tour is technically free, but they ask you to tip for what you think it was worth at the end.

The walking tour was 3 hours long and highlighted many of the significant city landmarks made infamous by the Third Reich. I thought our tour guide was very knowledgeable and I would recommend doing this if you are in Munich. Munich has so much history - I can't possibly recap it for you here - but if you are in Germany I think it should be on your list of "must visit" cities (even without Oktoberfest:)) Unfortunately, I don't have many pictures to show you either b/c I was a little hungover and didn't take my camera out much:(

Dodger's Alley Tribute - This is the gold line painted in the road as a memorial to all who refused to salute the Nazi plaque on the wall in the main street and went down this alley instead.

The New Town Hall in Marienplatz - home of the famous Glockenspiel - rated #2 on Most Overated Tourist Attractions in Europe:)

We spent the rest of the day revisiting some of the spots on the tour (you don't get to spend that much time at each place), checking out the market, and finally walking through the English Gardens.

We stumbled across something REALLY cool at the English Gardens - Surfing! What?! Yes - surfing! So cool! So there are a bunch of streams running through the garden, but at this one bridge (I think it was on Prinzregenstrasse) there were waves (I'm not sure how there were waves but there were). Check out the video:

That night we ate at the Ratskeller - a traditional cellar restaurant in the Rathaus (city hall) basement. The Rathaus is the beautiful building with all the flowers in Marienplatz. I was worried it would be hard to get a table because there were tons of people in Munich but the place was so huge that it wasn't a problem at all. The food was really good and I would recommend it if you were visiting Munich.

The next morning we went to Dachau, the site of Germany's first concentration camp under the Hitler regime. Now it is a memorial to those who died under the Nazis. Some 200,000 prisoners passed through Dachau's gates between 1933 and 1945, of whom 32,000 lost their lives from disease, starvation, torture, execution, slave labor, and medical experiments. The museum with all the pictures of the horrors of the Holocaust, stories from survivors, and detailed explanations as to how such atrocities came to pass was a very sobering experience. We were at Dachau for about 3 hours, and still didn't get to read all the information in the museum. Visiting Dachau and walking through the gas chambers and crematorium gave us a creepy feeling that is hard to describe. How could people be so evil? There was a plaque near the museum exit that said "those who forget the past are destined to repeat it". This was the main statement throughout the memorial and the reason they are still educating people on the Holocaust today. If you are in Munich, I would definitely recommend this day tour. The memorial is free, but we purchased the audio tour. I enjoyed the audio tour, but the memorial is so well documented (in English) that it wasn't absolutely necessary.

The Gate at Dachau Translated to "Work will set you free", this sign hung over the entryway to all camps.

The "Roll Call" Area Everyday the tired and sick were forced to take roll call at attention, a long and painful process that was part of the torture

The Living Quarters - the camp was originally built to hold 6,000 prisoners but at its height it held 30,000

The Crematorium

Now back to the train station to head home to Zurich:( Why is it that when you are on vacation the time flies by, but when you are working sometimes the days seem to drag on?:) So not fair!

Well that was the end of our adventures for a while. Back to "normal" life. But what I want to know is "Hey Nathan, where are we going next?!"

Love to Everyone! Mandy

More pictures from Munich.