Hamburger Hafengeburtstag!

So many people...
So many BOATS!

This is now the third time I've been to Hamburg. I'm not sure the first time counts considering it was when I flew in. All I did was walk to the train from the airport and then go to Oldenburg.

The last time I came here we all went to the Hamburg dungeon and didn't get to see much of the city.
Now, there are still many things I want to see here, but we got a few more covered when we were here for the harbor's birthday. We took a long walk up and down part of the harbor. It was so crowded that we gave that up as soon as we had the chance.

But! Before I get into what we did when we left the harbor, I want to tell you something that makes me SO excited! I can hardly contain myself!

In our travel group we had two young Indian ladies who didn't speak German...or if they did, they didn't speak much. The tour guide tried to explain everything in English to them too, but she didn't know very much. Towards the end of our time as a whole group I had been picked to translate for them. With a little help from my American friends (wait, that's not how the song goes!) I was able to translate everything just fine.

Ty and I in front of a cool, German boat

I was SO proud of myself! I was able to understand German well enough to translate for these young ladies.

When my parents first told me they were going to visit me in Germany, the coolest thing to me was to translate for them when they got here. I don't know if it was just because I wanted to show off, or just to prove that I could do it. Either way, it was the one things that got me most excited about the prospect of them visiting.
Once I got to Germany I lost all of that excitement because I could hardly understand anyone.
But in Hamburg, translating for those girls and then trying my darndest to speak only German with Dominika,

Dominika, Anne and I with flowers I picked for us. :)

the polish girl, my confidance is back up again!

So after that happy thought...
We went to a nice park just outside of the harbor where I ended up picking flowers for the three of us girls in the group. It was beautiful there, with everything in bloom.
We found a cool statue of Bismark and from the top of his platform we could see the church. THE church. The one that is a symbol of Hamburg.

St. Michaelis Kirche rose stately out of the tree tops to the east. After fooling around and taking cool pictures on the top of Bismark's platform, we decided to head over to the church.

I know you want to see some of those photos I'm talking about. ;)

Jump, Ty! :D

Perfect representation of our relationship! 

When you first walk up to the church, the first thing you notice is a spiral staircase in the very top of the tower. I jokingly said that I was going to get up there, that I was going to climb it. Everyone just smiled and laughed, pictuing me climbing the building spiderman-syle to get to the top.
As you walk up to the church you get this view:


And you regret ever life choice you've ever made. Ever. But that's okay, when you're on your way up to the tower you can look our the window right behind him and see up his skirt. Makes it a little less scary....

And for a mere €4 you too can climb to the top of the tower, a grand 400 somethin' feet above Hamburg. I

think it was worth the money to climb up there. You got to see the inner workings and all the bells on your way up as well as the little restaurant they have right below the very top (I smell a date idea). Once up there, I couldn't help but face the wind and embrace the world.

It was so beautiful to stand there (in the frigid, raging wind) and watch the storm roll in over the harbor. I wish we could have stayed up there longer to see the sunset or even the fireworks later that night. Hm. Maybe some other time.
One thing about this spot though, we can get some really neat pictures from up there!

IT WAS REALLY WINDY!

Ty is the Wind God

Sadly, we were all too worn out to stay for the fireworks because that would have had us back in Oldenburg at about 2am. So we watched the sunset from the train home....well, those of us who were awake did at least.
It was a very fun day that, as always, ended with a vow to go back.
Maybe next time we'll get a reservation for the rooftop terrace at sunset? Sounds like a good plan to me!

Spring Has Sprung!

There are flowers EVERYWHERE!  

Being in Germany is weird.
Yes.
Weird.

When I got here from America, I had no problem with jet lag. The night I got here I walked around half of the city trying to find my building then proceeded to go to a party that was being held in my flat. I fell into a very exhausted sleep after that and my body changed time zones just fine.

However, the fact that I'm  writing this blog at almost 20:00 and the sun isn't actually going down yet, seriously throws me off. I'm just used to staying up a certian amount of time past sunset, and then all of the sudden I should be going to SLEEP AT SUNSET. Whoa bro.

Another odd thing is that Colorado has had three good snow storms since I put away my wool jacket. it's

not HOT here yet, but it is more than warm enough to pack my wool jacket away in the back of my closet. Don't get me wrong, I am very excited for the bright, warm days of summer, but I just miss how Colorado can change so much. Once you're bored with one thing, another weather patter is right around the corner for you.

One thing I love here though are the playgrounds. They have some of the coolest things here! Alex, Blake and I found zip lines. ZIP LINES! I think we had more fun on those than any kid near by, and we're all between the ages of 20 and 22. We're cool.

It's starting to get realy nice here too. Just last week I relized that I only packed a few skirts and two pairs of shorts...
Well, I guess it's time to learn how to make cut-off jeans! That and it was time for a trip to the store.
I love going shopping with people for the most part... as long as they don't take too long. But this time was different. I was shopping for myself. I, sadly, dropped €100 on clothes for the summer. Granted, I got a lot and I won't need any more at all, but it was still very painful.
Silly thing though.... I walk into a German clothing store and I walk out with clothes like this:

You can take the girl out of Colorado...

Following Footsteps

One of the many excursions this semester was to Bremerhaven to see the emigration center there. I thought it

was going to be another museum that was only slightly interesting when you're tired from traveling there, but it turned out to be far more than that. If you ever find yourself in Northern Germany, I suggest you go here. It's fairly spiffy.

Not let me take the rest of the blog telling you why it was so spiffy.

Our tour was all in German because we're all here to learn that language, but you can request someone to talk to you about the exhibit in English. You even get a little card that activates little phone things around the museum and you can listen to accounts of specific travelers.
Even if I can't always understand everything they say, I always try with these things. Maybe I'll be able to understand them by the time they leave. We'll see.

It's not like a regular museum though, you seriously follow the footsteps of the people through the whole

Sorry for the blur, it was a little too dark to
take good pictures. 

journey. You start out boarding a boat with all sorts of wax figures. They also hat luggage set up so you could see what they would have brought with them. Most people had a few odds and ends, but all had clothes. Just a few changes of clothes.
Can you imagine leaving for a whole new country, whose language you don't really speak, with only a change of clothes and a picture of your family?

After that we entered a room where they had stats of all the people who went, where they went, how many went in what years. I looked around at some of the specific people, but I enlisted Alex to help me look for Popkens or Holzheimers. Sadly, we didn't find any, but that's fine. I'm fairly sure both sides of my family left from Hamburg, so I'll just have to check there.

After that goose chase, we got to board to the boat we saw from the view of the wax figures. In the boat they have recreations of the different time period and then different class quarters. It all seemed so crowded and miserable. Even the first class people seemed to be crawling all over each other in their quarters.

After that experience, we got to get more information about where they all went. They built a mini Grand

I may have started singing the national
anthem at this point.... maybe....

Central Station to represent the HUGE amount of people who went to America. It was an odd feeling to walk from one room that was very much in Germany to another that felt very much like home.

After that I found my way to a "research center" to look up my family and see if they came through here.

Sadly, their entire room was just computers with Ancestry.com pulled up.
For those of you who don't know, I already have an account there and have found as much as I could. That's how I know WHEN Peter Popken and Andrew Holzheimer left Germany and even which port they left from.

I'll keep looking, however. I would LOVE to find family in Germany. :)

Erster Mai

In Germany, the first of May is a holiday where everyone goes out to a park and grills and has a good time in

the sun. The Americans didn't get this memo. The memo we got simply stated we didn't have school that Wednesday. Instead of being like regular Germans and just go to the park to celebrate their Labor Day, our group decided it wanted to class things up. Because....why not?
We buffed out shoes (oh yeah, speaking of shoes....never wear high heals around cobblestones. Blake had to nicely un-wedge my heal from between two stones at one point) aired out the jackets and donned the skirts to try and be as fancy as we could.

We went to a nice place to eat in die Innenstadt.

I hope at this point in my blog/facebook updates you understand when I type out "die" I'm not requesting you to kick the bucket but am referring the feminine German article. 

At dinner we had very few mishaps during the ordering section. I guess I don't know how to say "Berliner weisse" yet....working on that. Speaking of that drink, it's a very interesting concoction I found in Berlin. The drink is comprised of a beer that's so light and tasteless that they add a shot of flavoring. You can add either

 raspberry (which makes the red drink I had in Berlin) or "waldmeister" which translates into "forest master". We don't have that flavor in the US so the translation sounds odd.

But never fear!

That's what I'm here for.

Für deutsche Dinge erklären!
(Okay, so that might not be right)

If you ever go to Germany (mostly northern Germany) and order a green Berliner Weisse you will get a slightly alcoholic drink that tastes like those

watermelon Jolly Ranchers back home. Not bad, but not a beer. Also, the come in these rather large (in diameter) glasses that make you feel like you're drinking a magical potion.

*Insert evil witch cackle here*

It's really helpful having our token German in the group, but she's the worst of all of us when it comes to actually speaking German.
That night every time Rebecca started talking in English again, Blake would just lean over and say "Wie bitte?" which pretty much translates to "Huh? Say that again?" until she spoke in German.

It was quite a fun night, especially when Anne happily (in a very evil manner) ate the smiley face off the top of her coffee foam.

And this is why we love her!