Day 24: I would like to buy an Hamburg-er!

We had booked a later train to Hamburg, but as we were catching up on sleep the morning quickly slipped away. We got up, finished packing our bags then headed to the station just across the road. It was a quick S-train, one stop to the Berlin-Hbf. There, we explored the concrete jungle and found a McDonalds to go and have breakfast at while we burned down the hour we had before our inter-city express train arrived. There are scarcely any public seats, and the few bakeries there didn't have much seating either.

German Maccas is disappointing. No hashbrowns, and their coffee is woeful, although that shouldn't have been a surprise to us. I had two sausage egg McMuffins, and opted to get a flat white and a long black because I wasn't sure what Adelaide would want - or what would be better. Addy went the flat white and that was the better choice. My long black wasn't really coffee... I just started calling it my 'black', because it tasted mostly like some kind of black water.

After that ordeal we headed to the platform to be ready and waiting to go. Addy decided to leave me with the bags and run upstairs and grab something from the bakery while we were waiting. We had 10 minutes, right? Of course, as soon as she disappeared up the escalator the train arrived at the station. This gave me great anxiety. Adelaide hit a line in the bakery which didn't help. Thankfully she got down with three minutes still to spare before the train was due to depart. We boarded the now busy train and battled our way down the carriage to our allocated seats in a six-seater box. We were sharing with four other people, and they had taken their seats (and all the bag space) by the time we arrived. I had to pace up and down the aisle to find a place to leave our bags and eventually got them down.

After we left Berlin Hbf, there was only one more stop at a suburban Berlin station before the next one was Hamburg, a bit over two hours away. We thundered through the country side and noticed it had received much more snow than the city had. The snow had also brought some fog so it was a whitewash outside.

Arriving in Hamburg Hbf, we had to get a S-train a handful of stops to Landungsbrucken. Our hotel is near the waterfront, up a large hill. We forgot the note about the large hill until we got out of the station and looked up the four flights of stairs. Ugh. The hotel, Hotel Hafen Hamburg, is quite a nice nautically themed establishment but the building itself is stupid. There are four entrances, all for something different. I was sure we had the right one but got promptly directed around to a different one.

We dumped our bags, and headed to the diner attached to the back of the hotel for lunch. We were in Hamburg and wanted Hamburgers! The burgs here weren't stellar but they definitely filled us up. Over lunch we planned to go and see the U-boat which is beached on the waterfront and do a lap of St. Pauli. Hamburg is Germany's biggest city near the ocean and as such it has rich naval history. It's not actually located near the ocean itself however, but there is a large river from it inland.

The foggy view of the harbour from our hotel

Ascending back down the mammoth flight of stairs out the front of our hotel, we walked along the water front for a bit until we got to the U-boat. The U-boat is a bit of a scam - it's actually Russian, was built in 1976 and was exxy to get in. That said, once we were on board, we were glad it wasn't from WWII because it was already sketchy enough. Adelaide and I are glad we are not submariners. The sub had been beached there for a number of years and just to add to the creep-factor they had left some mannequins in various poses which would sometimes give a good scare.

"Vladmir! It's banking to the right!"

Nope

The vessel wasn't actually too long, but by the time we reached the back stairs both Adelaide and I were feeling cramped enough. We were disembarking we thought we had seen some piles of snow in the nearby carpark but got duped, upon closer inspection they were the leftovers from fish or vegetable markets earlier in the day. Hamburg was much warmer than Berlin. Single digits meant we were very warm with our thermals on.

Continuing by foot around, we circled up and through the St. Pauli region. It's Hamburg's nightclub/red light district. I'm not sure why I hadn't put two and two together, but being a port town it had a large number of strip joints. It also had lots of theaters to boot too. It seemed like the kind of place that would go off at night. Of course, they had their own Christmas markets set up, although it was too early to check it out. As it was getting dark, we didn't feel like exploring further into town with low light, so headed back to our hotel for the remainder of the afternoon.

At 6pm we headed up to the Tower Bar for some cocktails. They had happy hour from 6-7, but when we arrived the place was dead quiet, we had free reign over seats. We chose a spot on the second floor which had complete 360 degree views. Addy ordered a Mojito while I started on a Pina Colada. While we were sipping out drinks we saw an unusually large police convoy drive through town but we couldn't figure out why. We think it was tests for G20 coming up. We finished our first round with 10 minutes to spare on happy hour so got a second round. Another Mojito for Addy, and I got a tequila sunrise. So good.

During our drinks Addy found our dinner. There was a small Italian place only a few blocks from the hotel. We took a bit of a roundabout route there because google maps tried to trick us. When we arrived, it was packed for a Monday but the waiters squished us in on a table for two. It wasn't a touristy place so all the menus were in German... and Italian. Despite Adelaide's previous quips that she'd never order pasta out, we ordered pasta out. I had the tortellini, while Addy got ravioli, and we washed it down with some house red (because figuring the wine out was just a bit too difficult).

The bread and breadstick biscuits came out but it wasn't long before our mains arrived, and boy was it good! It wasn't really the place to take pictures so you'll just have to imagine. Addy had some weird tasty nutty things (pistachios?) in hers and mine was just the right amount of cheesy. It was on the smaller side though, so after our delicious dinner we took a walk through the St Pauli Christmas market to see if we could find dessert, to no avail. It seems St Pauli's party atmosphere had made its way to the Christmas markets, and it was far boozier than the other ones we'd seen previously. With that, we retired to the hotel ready for our next day to fully take on Hamburg!

Tchuss!
D+A