Goodbye Hamburg

Ohlsdorf Cemetery 

The past few days in Hamburg have been fairly nice. Thursday, I spent the majority of my day in the
Ohlsdorf Cemetery, the largest public cemetery in Germany. It was beautiful! Much like the last cemetery I visited, graves were decorated with shrubs, trees, and flowers, but this cemetery was huge! I didn’t even cover half of it even though I had been walking around for five hours. The sculptures were also impressive! This morning, I went to the Botanical Gardens in Klein Flottbek. There definitely were some beautiful spots

Organ pipes at St. Michael's church 

(took notes for my future garden), but I think the university is working on expanding it. So apparently, I spent most of the week trying to surround myself with nature. This is typical of me because nature calms me down quite a bit. I’m not a huge city girl, but the harbor was nice, and I loved St. Michael’s Church. Going up into the tower of the church was amazing too. It’s a toss-up between St. Michael’s Church and Ohlsdorf Cemetery for which was my favorite tourist attraction.

Klein Flottbek Botanical Gardens

Yesterday, I had some wonderful conversations on my long train ride to the Ohlsdorf Cemetery. Some kids (I presume they were around 9-years-old) sat across from me. The little girl was completely spying on my journal, so I called her out on it. “Das ist Englisch (This is English),” I said. “Du sprichst Englisch?(You speak English?),” she asked. “Natuerlich. Ich bin Amerikanerin (Naturally. I am an American.),” I replied. They were floored! I had impressed them. Now, to test my English, the little girl asked, “What is your name?” Of course, I responded. We had a small conversation about why I was in Germany and then they left. It was great! My first full German conversation (meaning more than just asking for directions or how much something cost). On the returning train ride, I met a band from Liverpool and a French college student who was pretty fluent in English. I talked with him for about thirty minutes. We discussed France, our college education, America, and how we both don’t know a lot of German. It was comforting to know I’m not the only one.

Claudia's Farewell Lunch

My last night in Hamburg was lovely. From my bedroom, I heard the familiar soundtrack of Downton Abbey, one of my current favorite shows. My hostess did not know what it was and alas! I told her we had to watch it. We split a bottle of French red wine and watched the first three episodes of the first season. Before I left for the botanical gardens, my hostess, Claudia, made us a “farewell” lunch. It consisted of a fried egg over this corned beef and potato mixture (what is basically like corned beef hash in America), super salty fish from the North Sea, and pickled beets. For dessert, it was a vanilla crème and a berry mixture in some sort of jelly. Overall, it was too much food for me, but it was pretty good. I did not like the fish…at all. With every bite, I felt my blood pressure rising so I just gave up on it. We hugged and I told her I’d keep her informed of my Germany adventures.

First Class on the ICE train

       I am now in Braunschweig, and will visit the Schimmel factory on Tuesday. I was supposed to tour the Grotrian factory tomorrow, but someone is sick so they've cancelled it. (Hoping for them to reschedule it) I'm only here for a week...and I hear there's a small castle, botanical gardens, and a large lake nearby! I had a lovely conversation (mostly in German, mind you) with a couple downstairs. They were so nice!

Braunschweig bedroom 

Cultural Differences to Note:
      So it got pretty warm today (around mid-70s) and people were still wearing coats, long-sleeves, and sweaters! While I was roasting in my tank-top and skinny jeans, the stocky fellow to my right had on a hoodie and seemed fine. I don't get it! Maybe they're really conservative... (will do more research)

Unrelated Story:
       I bought a bottle of water from McDonald's (one is in almost every train station), and this man just walked by and stole a woman's nugget! Like right off her tray, and he even said thank you, but clearly stole it. The lady looked flabbergasted and her friend just laughed, while I'm sitting there thinking Is this normal?? Nobody did anything and I guess there really wasn't anything to do. So just a fair warning to anyone planning on going to a McDonald's in Germany...guard your nuggets, people!