July 29th:
Our bus pulled into Berlin shortly before 6am. Since
we had about two hours before our train to Hamburg, we decided to take the
U–bahn and go see a few sites in Berlin. First we went and saw the
Brandenburg Gate. Since it was only 6am
we basically had the whole place to ourselves.
We then walked over to the Reichstag, which is the German parliament building. After that we walked a few blocks over to Potsdamer
Platz and saw a remaining portion of the Berlin Wall. Since our time was running short, we made our
way back to the train station and caught our train to Hamburg.
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| Brandenburg Gate |
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| Early morning visit in Berlin |
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| Reichstag |
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| Holocaust Memorial in Berlin |
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| Section of the Berlin Wall |
Once we were in Hamburg, we called Franca to find out what
train we needed catch to meet up with her.
After a bit of a struggle with the ticket machine, we made our way to
Buchholz, where we met Franca and her mom Ana at the train station. From there we took a train with them to
Bremen. We spent the afternoon looking
around the center of Bremen around the Rathaus (city hall) and then made our
way over to Schnoor neighborhood, which consists of very small alleys and old
houses. We stopped and got some
excellent ice cream. I had spaghetti ice
cream, which is ice cream made to look like a bowl of spaghetti (it was
delicious).
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| Hanging our with Franca and Ana in Bremen |
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| The four musicians of Bremen |
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| Roland |
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| Bremen |
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| Schnoor neighborhood |
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| Spaghetti ice cream |
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| Eating ice cream and playing cards |
After a long train ride back (there was construction on the
tracks), we made our way back to Franca’s house in Brackel. Once there the kids helped Franca feed their
sheep and then we had a very tasty barbeque dinner cooked by Ana and
Frank.
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| slicing bred to feed the sheep |
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| Feeding the sheep with Franca |
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| Franca's house |
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| Great dinner |
July 30th:
This morning we walked with Ana to the local bakery to
get some bread and sweets for breakfast (German bakeries are the best). After breakfast we went with Franca and Ana
to the Luneberger Heide, which are beautiful fields of purple heather on a
rolling countryside. We went for a hike
through the countryside to the top of a hill with a great view of the
surrounding area. The girls stopped and
picked and ate blueberries along the way.
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| Luneberger Heide |
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| Picking blueberries |
In the afternoon we went to
a local natural swimming area to go for a swim and relax on the grass. There were lots of families and kids hanging
out and swimming in the pools. In the
evening we went back to Franca’s house and had another excellent barbeque
dinner (Frank is an excellent griller) with her family on the patio outside. Franca and the kids stayed up and played
games outside until it got too dark.
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| View of Hamburg and the Dom from the Bunker |
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| On top of the Bunker with Lucy, Suzanne, and Jacob |
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| The Bunker |
After the bunker we spent some time looking around a flea
market and then made our way over to the Dom.
The girls went on a couple of rides and we ate some tasty food. In the evening we went back to Lucy’s family’s
apartment for dinner and to talk.
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| At the Dom |
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| Brats! |
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| Jacob, Jacob, and Lucy |
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| Ride the girls and Becky went on... over 200 feet tall! |
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| Going into Lucy's apartment building |
August 1st:
In the morning we went with Lucy to a thrift store
near her house. I found a neat rug that
I bought (just had to figure out how to shove it in my small backpack). We then went into downtown Hamburg and visited
St. Michael’s church, which has the tallest steeple in Hamburg. Lucy used to work there and sold tickets for
the top of the steeple. We then went over
to the Reeperbahn and went to the Beatles Platz, where there are silhouettes of
the Beatles. They spent some of their early years playing in clubs on the Reeperbahn
in Hamburg.
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| St. Michael's Church |
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| Beatles Platz on the Reeperbahn |
From there we walked over the Symphony Hall
and took some time looking out over Hamburg.
After that we went over to the tunnel under the Elbe River and met Lucy’s
parents. We then went back in the tunnel
and walked over to a large park and sat in a grassy area and watched a
beautiful water fountain display in a lake.
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| Hamburg Harbor |
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| Symphony Hall |
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| Inside the tunnel under the Elbe River |
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| Hamburg |
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| Relaxing with Lucy and her parents |
In the evening we went back
to Lucy’s neighborhood and ate dinner at a Portuguese restaurant with Lucy’s
whole family (her brother Alex joined us as well). Afterward we went back to their apartment and
hung out. Lucy’s brother Jacob was
showing our Jacob some night vision goggles and heat sensor that he
bought. They were scoping out the apartment
building across the way, which was pretty cool.
Lucy and her dad then drove us back to her dad’s shop (it was weird to
have Lucy drive us) for the night.
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| Portuguese dinner |
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| Jacob, Alex, Lucy, and Jacob |
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Jacob and Jacob with their gadgets
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August 2nd:
Lucy and her dad drove us this morning to the Hamburg
airport, where we briefly met up with Kati, another exchange student that
stayed with us for a few weeks back in 2020.
We then caught our two and a half hour flight from Hamburg to Bilbao,
Spain. |
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| Lucy and Kati |
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| Catching our flight to Bilbao, Spain |
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