Day 3 in Hamburg

Trip Start May 08, 2009
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Trip End May 13, 2009


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Wednesday, May 13, 2009

Today again began with the Kuder 7-layer breakfast. After that, Hauke took off to study and I eventually headed out to explore some more of Hamburg. Hauke had suggested that I take a walk around Lake Alster, so that's where I headed. Except, I got a little lost on the way, so I ended up taking the scenic route. But not to worry - that's why I carry a GPS! Eventually I did reach the northern end of the lake, and continued on around the east side. Apparently it's 7 km around it, and I did an even bigger loop, due to the roundabout way that I got there. Again, the weather was beautiful - sunny and in the low 60's. Just a great day to be outside. Of course, in typical fashion, most of the locals were wearing long-sleeves, coats, and the like, while I was there in a short sleeve shirt! If Hauke is any indication, Germans don't like the cold that much - he was still wearing a scarf during the evenings, in May!

The walk around the lake was nice. There are many amazing houses surrounding it, which certainly costs millions. All of the lawns are immaculately kept. Very impressive. In fact, it seems that most of Hamburg is high-end housing, and everything is super clean. Hauke assures me that there are some ghtetto areas, but not many. Even the area where he lives, which is fairly near the university, is incredibly nice, clean, green, and just conveys that safe feeling.

For lunch, I found a hole-in-the-wall joint selling basic German fare. I got the usual - a bratwurst and fries. A nice deal for E4 - it would be hard to get something that good, cooked to order, for $5 in the US. After lunch, I continued to wander some more, did a quick bit of shopping, and then headed back. I wanted to take Hauke out to dinner to thank him for housing me, and we were meeting at 6. And of course, I wanted a quick nap first.

We went to dinner near the university at a bistro type place that I had walked by during one of my jaunts. It was rather large, at least by the standards of the area, and was good. I got wiener schnitzel, mostly just to make Amy jealous! Haha. Afterwards, Hauke saw some of his law-school friends on the street, and we went out for drinks with them. (Hamburg has a population of 1.7M, and I sear that Hauke knows at least half of them! Everywhere we go, be it downtown, the waterfront, the university, etc, he is always saying hi to people he knows!) So we went to a small bar, where I got a milkshake for dessert. His friends spoke some English, but not so much. Hauke explained that they hadn't actually lived in an English speaking country, so this was just their 'school English'. Now of course, their 'school English' was better than my 'school French' by probably an order of magnitude. But Hauke's English, from living for a year in the US along with several visits, was an order of magnitude better than theirs! Very interesting.

Given that I was getting up at 4AM to catch the train to the airport for my flight, it was soon time to go home and sleep
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