Day 27: Homeward bound

To combat jetlag, we planned to sleep in as long as possible. I didn't rise until around 930, just short of my 10am goal, but Addy was up rather early. We had to check out by 11 so once we were up we packed our bags and headed down to reception. There wasn't enough time to leave our bags at the hotel, so we took them with us (back down the 4 flights of stairs) to a cafe down on the waterfront where we stopped for a coffee and a pastrie for breakfast. In usual form they were okay. I did some last minute souvenir shopping.

Getting to the airport wasn't a problem, we only needed to catch one S-Train around 10 stops. There was a little initial confusion on how to get a ticket as we were nearly out of all cash, and the machines wouldn't take card, but we scrounged around our pockets and scrapped together enough of our last euros.

Arriving at the airport, we found our check-in counter quickly, and lined up as the check-in hadn't opened. We only had to wait around 30 minutes before it did. We had a family of 6 in front of us (kill me - don't know how they could travel). With check in done in a breeze, I thought we were trending pretty well for time. Allowing for an excursion up to the McDonalds on the top floor which we thought was the security, we soon found it, marked by the massive queues.

Hamburg Airport were scanning every single person in the nudie-scanners (the ones that look through you close), which took far longer than the normal metal detectors. Safe and secure I'm sure, but it meant that the whole security process took far longer. The longest I think I've had at an airport. Thankfully we had arrived with so much spare time, I would hate to have been short on time; we even saw a few people sheepishly try and push to the front. The priority queue wasn't much better either.

Scanned and searched and with that all over, we went and found our gate, then got seated upstairs near the restaurants and got some lunch. Addy got us two pizzas which, while exxy (as they always are), were pretty good for an airport. We were a bit confused as to why no one was sitting upstairs near the restaurants. There were hundreds of empty seats around - although no charging spots...

Once we had our dinner, we headed back to the gate and checked in into it. The airport is used by both international and domestic flights, so passport control was before we got into the gate area. A bit different but I found it was clever.

It was a gloomy day on the ground, but once we boarded our plane and were off the ground we quickly were over the clouds and had a lovely view over all of Germany (most of the country had that low lying cloud). As it was so cold out, you could easily make out the jet trails of other aircraft, and at one point I counted 7 or 8 planes off in the distance - I'm sure there were more on the otherside!

Addy and I settled in for our flight back to Dubai (only 6 hrs long), and after dinner we watched the new Avengers. It quickly got dark, and as we moved further south the cloud over the ground disappeared, and was replaced with the lights of cities we passed over. Around an hour or two out from Dubai we started to see the big flames from oil wells in Iraq which I thought was pretty cool. On our descent into Dubai we took a big sweeping turn over the city.

Once we were off the plane we quickly found a transit board and saw that the gate for our next flight, C10, was apparently 26 minutes away! Uhoh! We hit the ground briskly walking, and kept following signs for C Gates. Eventually it took us all the way to the basement level to a small bus station and we were lucky to snag a bus ready to leave. I can only hypothesise that the train between terminals wasn't built yet or was being fixed? I'm not sure. The bus took us along the tarmac in front of countless A380s and B777s. At one point, we passed at Aston Martin which was strapped to a palate, ready to be loaded into an A380. Fancy! Between terminals we had to go underground and we we emerged on the other side at the next building I was quite relieved to see more Emirates planes.

I was worried we'd boarded the wrong bus or headed the wrong direction, so a quick check of the transit board once we arrived alleviated my worries - we had gone the right way. Checking through security again, we then went up to the gate and found it was quite nearby to where we'd been dropped. Excellent. We had around an hour to kill before the flight boarded so we headed down the end of the building and stopped at the Starbucks for the worlds most expensive coffee and two donuts. I think it was like $18AUD? Still, it was the last decent food we'd have for the next 14hrs!

We returned to our gate and got ready to do a passport check and yet another security check. Security wouldn't let us take our waterbottles in so we surrendered them, although I realise we could have may emptied them and tried to fill them up. Addy was not happy! It just put a damper on the upcoming flight because we knew we'd have to keep asking for water. At least put a vending machine on the other side. Once inside the gate area, we realised we may have been early, it was packed and there was no where to sit, so we got setup in front of the wall.

It wasn't that long till we boarded, thankfully. Once we were on the plane and found our seats, we found a middle aged couple sitting in the middle and aisle. Addy and I had the window and the middle so we had to awkwardly figure out what had happened. Our boarding passes were right. Sounds like they got split up, with one of them on the aisle, and the other over the other side of the plane, whoops! They split and we got seated. After we took off, the man sitting in the aisle moved over to be with his wife, which freed up our aisle seat - SCORE! Addy and I could lounge out for the rest of the flight.

It was a relatively smooth flight, filled with lots of TV, Movies and a few games and some meals. (You know what it's like). Leaving Dubai at 2am, only a few hours into our flight we hit dawn. The flight attendants asked us to leave the window shades down, which I get; but after 8 hours people started opening them so we could get properly acclimatised to Brisbane time. We flew over India and just south of Indonesia before crossing the coast west of Darwin and arching down across Australia towards Brisbane.

Night descended once more (< 8 hours of daylight, woo!) and we were soon on the descent into Brisbane. We had to circle west of Toowoomba while we lost height, and we had to fly through some of the storms out there which was.... fun. But that only lasted around 10-15 minutes. Not long after that, we were on the ground - hooray! Back in Australia.

Europe has been an amazingly fun and interesting trip for us both. It's left us wanting so much more, and to explore more of each of the places we've been. Addy and I loved everywhere we went, and think we planned it very well. It's now time to exchange the four thick woolly layers for some boardies and a bikini and enjoy a week of rest in Brisbane for Christmas.

Thank you for reading. Until our next adventure...

Dylan and Adelaide

Day 26: The Last Full Day :(

Noooo! Our last full day of our trip :(

Says it all!

We headed out to the nearest cafe to our hotel for breakfast, and it turned out to be quite a hipster place. Cafe Johanna was a small hole in the wall, with only a few tables inside. The menu was mostly vegan and vego, but their coffee was pretty good. Addy opted to get the vego museli and fruit, and I got a panini with sun dried tomato and pesto. Turns out vegan brekkies are filling, and Addy got defeated by all the fruit and nuts in it, so I helped finish it off for her while my panini was a bit delayed. It was a pretty trendy place and it filled up once we arrived.

Addys' healthy bowl

Wanting to make the most of our day, we planned to go to the Hamburg Museum to learn more about the city, check out an ice rink on our way to Planten und Blumen, before going back through town and back out to the docks. Hamburg has a ring road which we had originally planned to follow the previous day but hadn't made it through; today we'd go the other way, in a sense.

The Hamburg Museum was only a few blocks away so after breakfast we were soon there. The Museum is built into an old building, and to be straight with you, it was probably the worst museum we'd been to on the trip. There are many different exhibits about Hamburg's history but there was no coherence or chronology between them. Addy and I thought we'd gone in the wrong place to start, but nope, it drops you in the 20th century and works you backwards throughout the century, before you get to medieval hamburg. Most of the information was dry and a fair amount was only in German (fair enough I guess). That said, we still learnt about the history of the area, it was just a jarring experience.

We passed a huge statue of Bismark

The museum had a lot of model ships

There was an exhibit on Judaism and Jews in Hamburg on the next floor but again, no real point to it. It didn't tie into WWII much (if at all), especially considering how much of Jewish history was removed during the war. Worse to come, there was meant to be another Miniature Railway on the top floor.

Unlike Miniatur Wonderland we'd been to the day before, this model railway only ran every few hours, and was much smaller in size than the other one. The model was a selling point and I believe that before Miniatur Wonderland came along, this place kept the model crown in Hamburg before it got out done.

Bleh. After that we left the Museum and started to walk through the park adjoining the museum. There is a string of parks next to the ring road called Planten un Blumen which have a lovely assortment of open spaces, flowers, trees and fountains, although in Winter it was all grey, dead and probably didn't look as spectacular as it would in Summer. Eventually we made our way to the Ice-rink in the middle. This rink was much larger than the one we skated at in Bruges, but we felt skated out so just spent a few minutes watching everyone else go round and round.

Realising that Platen un Blumen wasn't going to get much different the further we went, we deviated off and headed back into town. It had also started to rain so we stopped off at a pub. We weren't sure if we were hungry enough for lunch yet, Addy was still full from her healthy breakfast, so we just had a beer and to rest our legs.

A building near Planten un Blumen

Once recuperated, we continued through town. By the time we hit the Mega-Christmas market, we were now hungry enough and I decided to have my last Lango. Unfortunately this one was much thinner and crispier than the one I had in Berlin; disappointingly so. Addy had a weird garlic, sour cream bagel thing.

Spotto! Finally. Second one of the trip.

The shopping in town didn't really interest us much and so we continued over towards the docks. We stopped off for another beer at a place that advertised craft beer but it turned out to be another beer hall. Over our brew, we made the decision to go to Naval Museum next, rather than the once again too busy Chocolate Factory. To be honest, we'd exhausted most things we'd wanted to do.

The Naval Museum wasn't too far from the Miniatur Wonderland, and was in a huge ten story warehouse which had been gentrified into a gallery (as much of the factories in that district had been). The security guard at the entrance recommended we work top down instead, and we heeded his advice. Level 10 was all about model boats and dioramas (they love them here, don't they?). The subsequent levels covered topics like fishing, freight liners, military - including submarines, aircraft carriers, destroyers, old and new - costumes and awards and sailing. On one of the floors near the bottom there was a big room dedicated to a freight ship simulator which sounds more exciting than it was, seeing as you max out at 20 knots. The Naval Museum was obvious quite detailed and after our museum experience from earlier in the day we were thoroughly filled with information.

Leaving in the dark, we decided to go back to the hotel for a short break before we went out for dinner. The walk took around 45 minutes and was a bit further than we would have liked. It took us past the marina, where there was an active lighthouse.

A blog post and a quick search for dinner later, and we headed back out bound for dinner. We wanted our last proper dinner to be something good, but also didn't want to hype it up too much and get let down. We decided we would backtrack to a street we'd seen numerous restaurants on, about a 10/15 minute walk from the hotel.

When we arrived we didn't need to window shop, the first place we stopped at looked great. Thamers had an English Pub feel to it, and they did burgs and a few other things. Addy went the chicken burger and I got the Thamer Classic. When the burgers came out we were pretty impressed. They were number 1s, but they were definitely top 5s. Surprisingly enough they also weren't too filling, so we were able to fit in dessert! Chocolate mousse and a cheesecake in a jar, delicious! We were serenaded by a man playing a trumpet and there was a small dog who suddenly appear out from underneath some chairs - plenty of entertainment! Thamers was a perfect last dinner for our trip.

No pictures of the burgs, but the desserts were great!

Tomorrow we are back off to Australia. See you all soon!
D+A

Day 25: Everything is better at 1:1250

Today was our day to explore Hamburg! We set off from the hotel and walked along the wharf towards our first destination: Miniatur Wunderland. It was only a short walk away, but we were a little dubious. How good could it be?

It was in a lovely part of Hamburg that reminded me of the Melbourne Docklands. On the way along the docks we spotted a place for breakfast. It was a bakery with a diner feel, and they had filter coffee. Praise be. We got some black coffee, and I ordered a bagel while Dylan went for the classic croissant breakfast. The coffee would be classified as 'pretty good', but boy, we're keen to return home to our beloved filter machine.

Fully awake now after two cups, we continued down the promenade through the docklands. There was a tourist map that directed us towards the Miniatur Wunderland. It was along the docks past a few other shops and attractions.

My skepticism about this place only grew when we got to the entrance (there was a little line), and the entry was 15 euros. It had better be awesome.

You know what? It was. It was the best thing ever. If you ever go to Germany, go to Hamburg. Go to the Miniatur Wunderland. You will not be sorry. Dylan took many photos, but basically there were three levels of amazingly detailed, complex, and large representations of Switzerland, Germany, Hamburg, the US and Italy. They are in the process of building Monaco.

Dylan's favourite part was the Hamburg aitport - there were multiple planes that took off and landed on an actual schedule, as well as a sneaky Millenium Falcon.

The Wonderland, as that is what it is, holds the world's largest model train network. The trains run through each model and through the building along a huge line of railways. ALL of it is controlled by a team of people who direct the trains and the rails. There are also light cycles so that night time comes over every 10 minutes or so to give you the LED magic. My favourite part was probably Mt Vesuvius.

(Dylan: I apologise for the huge amount of photos but there was just so much to see)

A model stadium. The singer on stage moved and the screens had a movie playing

Rome

Most of the cars had headlights, some had interior lights, and all the emergency vehicles had lights and sirens

St Marcs Square in Venice

The mountains were massive - two floors in fact!

And with cable cars

A mini festival. So many mini-people, each all painted and detailed.

In a cave between cities they had a 'evil lair'

Disasters and bad luck was a common occurrence in the Minatur Wunderland

People for scale

The airport was modelled off Hamburg Airport

The terminal at night

There were all kinds of planes from all different carriers

There were a lot of hidey holes so that staff could get in a clean or fix any derails (none we saw)

The Control Room. Over 50 computers. Hobbyist's dream.

Forest Fire. The firefighters were pumping water from a nearby river

The stadium in Hamburg. It's lights matched the day/night cycle and would turn on and off

Las Vegas. American was much more condensed, and included the desert.

They had a model studio

An RC model cruise ship departed out to sea behind the landscape.

There was also a small snowy section

Anyway, Miniatur Wunderland - worth the money and the time.

The only problem now, of course, was that no other tourist destination could ever live up to that awesomeness. We had also planned to go to the chocolate museum, but there was limited availability, so we decided to give it a miss. We were hungry by this point, having spent a few hours marveling at tiny versions of things. Dylan had a squizz at the old Google Maps and found a Middle Eastern place nearby that looked good. We've decided that Middle Eastern is quite possibly our favourite cuisine. My heart was crying out for my favourite Sydney breakfast at Shenkin, so we thought this place would be a good destination.

It was. We ended up ordering pides, partly because they looked delicious, and partly because the menu was in German so the rest of it was mostly a mystery. I ordered a pide with vegetables and hummus, and Dylan had one with Turkish pepperoni and cheese. They were an impressive size (almost a mistake), and were absolutely delicious. I would happily eat this pide every day for the rest of my life. We accompanied them with some interesting Turkish drinks flavoured with rhubarb and elderflower. 

Now full as googs, we took a wander through the main malls in the area. Here we stumbled upon another Christmas market. Who would have thought? This was only the first of many that afternoon. I'm talking upwards of five or six separate markets. We ducked into some shops along the way and had a look at the markets. We couldn't possibly fit anything in (yet), so were mostly just browsing the foods. I had a look at some shoes, but restrained myself.

We kept finding more and more markets as we turned each corner. So many. After a little while, Dylan classified himself as now hungry enough for a crepe, so he stopped for a banana nutella fix. By this point it was starting to get dark. We'd spent a couple of hours wandering around. The final set of markets were all in white tents along the river. We got a hot wine and looked out over the water. It was a paltry 6 degrees out (practically Australian heat). Finally, I was also ready for a crepe.

It was beginning to near dinner time, but we were still completely stuffed from our pides and crepes, and decided that dinner wasn't necessary. We went back to the hotel early and settled in for a movie.

Germans love to park anywhere. This guy chose the middle of a roundabout

Only one more full day left! Dylan misses the sun, but we'll be sad to leave. Hamburg has been a wonderful place to end on.

Tchuss!
A+D