Hello Everyone,
For this excursion I flew from Liverpool, UK to Copenhagen, Denmark. It was a relatively short flight through Ryan Air for 24 Quid. Denmark will be discussed in a future post. I caught the Flixbus to Hamburg from Copenhagen. The bus is a big green bus that looks just like a Mega-bus but more comfortable and you have charging stations and free WiFi. Little did I know that the bus has to cross the ocean because Scandinavia is separated from the rest of Europe by the Baltic Sea. The bus rolled into this auto depot which I thought was a tunnel until the bus driver told everyone to get off the bus and leave their stuff. I was confused on what was happening. I asked and was told that we were on a boat and I was astonished like how the heck did we get on a boat from a bus. My true American side was showing that day since we do not really have public transit options like anywhere else in the world does. I did not realize that buses can drive onto the boat and park and people can walk up stairs and relax on the boat until the final destination is reached. This ferry was large and had food courts, game rooms, and a lot of other entertainment. I made a friend on the bus trip and he happen to be from Nepal and we were chatting about where we were travelling to and how did we end up in Europe. I think he was headed to Berlin and I was heading to Hamburg which is the most Northern City in Germany and is a hub for transit transfers. When I travel I usually half plan things I look up things to do in certain cities and just pick things that interest me. I was brushing up on my German and putting it to use.
http://www.triesteprima.it/cronaca/flixbus-start-up-autobus-verdi-sbarca-citta-trieste-napoli.html
While I was here Germany had another holiday which a lot of stores were closed for a day or two and I had the worse luck of travelling throughout Germany multiple times all on some holiday that I have never heard of. There was a hostel that I stayed in that was an old hospital and I remember feeling unsettling because I was thinking what if I was sleeping on a bed that someone died on. I do not trust a lot of hostels I have had some terrible experiences with a few and Frankfort was one of those cities that I was in the hostel from hell that I will talk about in the Frankfort/Western Germany post. I wandered around Hamburg and it has lots of old architectural masterpieces.
There was some questionable food that I ate in Germany. I tried this dish called Mettbrotchen which is raw pork on a bun essentially. It was organic no question about that but I will never eat that again. I did not even enjoy raw seafood when I was staying in Japan so I definitely do not enjoy raw meat. I tried another dish called Himmel und Aad which was black pudding on potato and apple sauce. The name means heaven and earth which I am not sure why it is called that but if I died and went to heaven I would not mind eating that there. It gave a tangy sweet and sour taste which I love but I am not a fan of black pudding. I also ate a lot of schnitzels, brotwurst and currywurst mit Brotchen which are just hot dogs with seasoning.
I love how Germany design their boulevards and shopping centers to prioritize pedestrians and banning cars in these shopping strips, instead of dedicating 25% of the land use for parking lots like what is done in America.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/154048539@N04/41425209674/in/dateposted-public/
https://www.flickr.com/photos/154048539@N04/41244156395/in/dateposted-public/
https://www.flickr.com/photos/154048539@N04/27274769547/in/dateposted-public/
Lastly for the Hamburg trip I went to this place called Miniatureworld. The title says it all it is a giant building with open space and pieces of the world is replicated in this place. They also change the locations and cities every year. This was the highlight of my Germany trip. If you are an Engineer or a parent with little kids you would have a great appreciation for a place like this. There are trains, planes, cars, and little human figures all over this exhibit and they had individual movements. The children can interact with the exhibit by pushing buttons and events would happen. The building had its own climate based on the time of day and would change. The sky would turn dark for night time and the lighting would turn on to represent day time. I could not fathom how much time and effort was put into creating this masterpiece. I spent 8 hours inside the exhibit eyeing every detail of the places. The place even had an airport that the planes would go from the terminals to the taxi ways then would takeoff the runway just a real airport. Even there were incoming planes that would land and exit a taxi way and then find its way to a terminal. I was mesmerized by the events happening in this exhibit.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/154048539@N04/27274731677/in/dateposted-public/
https://www.flickr.com/photos/154048539@N04/42145588751/in/dateposted-public/
Hamburg is an amazing city that I would want to visit again. I also would love to go back to Miniatureworld to see what they changed with the exhibit since they change the cities and countries presented annually. I would love to return with my other engineering friends who would appreciate all of the work put into this exhibit. I would love to bring my 2 year old niece because I believe she would have a ball pushing buttons. Here are some videos below of some of the exhibits.
https://www.facebook.com/DDawg94/videos/vb.1342664755/10212599977538045/?type=3
https://www.facebook.com/DDawg94/videos/vb.1342664755/10212599804973731/?type=3
https://www.facebook.com/DDawg94/videos/vb.1342664755/10212603439224585/?type=3
https://www.facebook.com/DDawg94/videos/vb.1342664755/10212609789583340/?type=3
https://www.facebook.com/DDawg94/videos/vb.1342664755/10212651459345058/?type=3
https://www.facebook.com/DDawg94/videos/vb.1342664755/10212651683990674/?type=3
https://www.facebook.com/DDawg94/videos/vb.1342664755/10212652839899571/?type=3
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