Hamburgers

Did

G you know that the people of Hamburg, Germany are called Hamburgers? It's true. Fun fact of the day. So I am slightly behind in blogging, it's difficult to keep up when you barely have time to sleep. I apologize for any typos as I am doing this from my phone in the cafe in the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam. 

I'm in Amsterdam now but I'll just write about my day in Hamburg in this post to not confuse myself and/or you guys in one long rambling blog post. 

We arrived in Hamburg and I had been feeling under the weather since Russia, just a cold though so I'm powering through. That's the thing about only having three days in port, you don't have the luxury of down time! 

My roommate Amber, Sumi, and myself all get off the boat around 10:30 and just start walking into the city. The harbour is very pretty and there is a long boardwalk with tons of food. The lion king theater is right across from where we are docked, very convenient. 

We stumble upon a delicious looking place to eat some breakfast and let me just say, yum. 

Bread palace, aka my heaven. 

We eat here and walk until we see stores, mostly pretty upscale and lots of restaurants. We keep walking and eventually we hit the main shopping center in Hamburg. It's just streets and streets of shopping! So far so good for me! 

Typical neighborhood

Shopping area/ central hamburg 

This was a lot of fun and we walked so much. Walking is the best way to get to know any city and we had a great time shopping and looking around. We found an urban outfitters and it was so crazy expensive, worse than at home. But I found some funny things. 

Almost bought this for Amelia, but it was like a million dollars for plastic. I could probably make this. 

Me in a month!! How scary 

We found a Starbucks and I finally got to talk to my daddy, phone tag is rough when you add in the fact that I need wifi and the time difference and the fact that he never has his phone anyways haha. 

I found a darling tea shop and bought some tea and a mug for the ship and we also stopped for some traditional German cuisine. 

Bratwurst and currywurst and beer, oh my! (Pretend that was funny)

I bought a scarf that my mom would be envious of and that's all for the day. Hamburg can certainly be pricey, there was a whole street with Chanel, Cartier, Hermes, More rich people stores. 

After our break for sausage we walked through Parken un Blomen, a huge park with just too many beautiful places to sit and enjoy the day. 

Flowers

Weird building

More prettiness 

Why can't The US just have parks like this?? I would live there. Tampa at least should maybe work on that.. 

We walked back to the ship to try and find discount tickets for the Lion King which my roommate was bent on seeing. I love musicals and Lion King so I was totally game. 

I only had one day in Hamburg because I chose to do an optional trip called a field program. The one I'm doing now in Amsterdam is two nights and I get back later on the fourth and last day in Hamburg. 

The show was amazing. We had to take a ferry to the theater and back. We ate more sausage. 

Did I mention the whole thing was in German? It was a lot of fun and still an amazing production. 

I love this blog because I can post selfies unashamedly!!

I don't think I have mentioned this yet, but I collect pins! I put them all on my backpack for school and I'm so excited to have a bunch of great pins from all over the world! I will post a picture of my backpack later. 

We got out of the show around 2300 and we decide to go straight out rather than back to the ship to change. 

I would normally be so over it by that time and go to bed but like I said I only had one day so I wanted to make the most of it. We head out to Reeperbahn, the city's party street and also red light district. As we were walking there we just saw women in the street aggressively offering their "services" to men passing by. 

We relax at a bar and get a couple beers and decide what we should do. Sumi left after the play and it was just me and Amber. 

Amber has this weird thing where boys flock to her, it's our joke on the ship and it's the funniest thing. She can just strike up a conversation with anyone and be best friends with them. Cue her making two friends on the street who we start hanging with. They introduce us to "mexicanas" which are some weird shots with tomato juice, pepper, some sort of liquor and hot sauce. Disgusting. But apparently they are the signature drink there?

The boys decide we are going clubbing so on the same street we get into Moon Doo and dance dance dance to the best throwback rap songs and the predictable newer ones. I had so much fun there! I love dancing anywhere and will keep at it no matter how stupid I look. 

I remember that I have to be back on the ship at 730 to meet the group leaving for Amsterdam andddddd it's 530 in the morning at that point. 

I'm like to we gotta wrap this up! We leave and get gyros on the way home, say goodbye to our friends and walk back to the ship with enough time to hop in the shower and pack (still maybe slightly intoxicated) and meet the group! 

A very successful day in Germany indeed! I loved all of Hamburg, I think it would make the perfect day trip for anyone. 

Ok so that's Hamburg I hope it was fun. I'll post again today possibly about my time in Amsterdam so far.