Hamburg, Germany
Day
One:
Since
almost everyone in my normal travel group had field programs, I ended up going
with a completely different set of people: Lindsay, Tori, Mary Kate and her
brother Connor. To get a feel for the city, we grabbed tickets to a Hop-on,
Hop-off bus tour. It took us all around the city, showing us the major churches
and all around Alster Lake. The first difference we noticed from St. Petersburg
was that people actually smiled here. It automatically seemed like a much more
open and friendly city. It didn’t matter that we couldn’t speak German, the few
words that we did seem to know helped immensely. Once they knew we were
Americans, everyone we met would get super excited and switch to any English
they had. It was a much more pleasant experience than in St. Petersburg.
On
the bus, there was a young woman translating for us and it was great getting
the perspective of someone our own age. We passed through Reeperbahn, Hamburg’s
famous red light district. The tour guide explained how prostitution is a
completely legal and dignified profession in the city. It’s interesting to see the
differences between each city, especially in regards to taboo subjects like
prostitution.
Post
bus tour, we wandered the streets a little near the Rathaus and ended up in
this unbelievable bakery. We had asked the translator to write down her
favorite pastries, and let me tell you, if I could live my life on this
cinnamon pastry we had, I would. It was heaven in sugary, baked good-form. I
could have died happy in that bakery. Next door was a shop filled to every
corner and crevice with antique jewelry and trinkets. I had a field day just
looking at everything. After zooming around all day, the group met back up with
Lauren and a few others back at the ship for dinner.
That
night, we decided that we couldn’t go all the way to Hamburg and not experience
the Reeperbahn at least once. It was definitely an experience. People in
Germany know how to have a good time, that’s for sure. I heard from others who
stayed up most of the night that the locals don’t start getting ready to go out
until around 2 am, and they’re still out going strong around 5 am. Definitely
not something I could do.
Out
in Reeperbahn, I noticed that much like St. Petersburg, there aren’t any public
open container laws. People freely roamed the streets, in and out of various
clubs, with bottles of beer and wine in hand. Even the small convenience store
we’d stopped at, people were all over the streets shouting and laughing. Lauren
and I ended up breaking off from the large group we were with and finding a
small bar to grab a glass of wine before heading back to the ship. While it may
be some people’s goals to get drunk every night in port, I’d much rather have
one glass with a close friend, and actually enjoy the city. I mean to get more
out of this experience than that.
Day
Two:
The
more I see of Hamburg, the more I want to stay forever and never leave. I’ve
mildly considered running off with a random German man just so I can stay—sorry
Mom! Today, I managed to oversleep but Lauren, Emily and I still made it off
the ship in time for our New Europe tour. We met up with the large group to
discover some of the deans, professors, and resident directors were on the tour
with us so that made it more entertaining. We stopped at the St. Peter’s and
St. James Cathedrals, and it’s so interesting to make the comparison between
the cathedrals in Hamburg and those in St. Petersburg. The churches in Hamburg
have a much cleaner, lighter feel to them. I wish we could have spent more time
in them but we had all of Hamburg to see! My favorite part about the New Europe
tours is that we hear about the history of the places we’re seeing as well as
all the little stories they get to share. I hadn’t realized how devastated
Hamburg was during the great fire of 1842, which burned down half the town, and
then again during WWII. Our tour lasted about three and a half hours, but we
covered so much ground in Hamburg that it gave me a real feel for the city.
At the end of the tour, our guide took us to the oldest
street in Hamburg and to this amazing restaurant. They were fantastic about
getting Lauren a meal she could actually eat and it ended up being one of the
best meals we’ve had so far. The best part was seeing Dean Eddie and the other
RDs getting pub crawl tickets for that night! After lunch we decided to walk
all the way out to Alster Lake. Alster Lake is approximately 7 km around, and
it was filled with about a hundred sailboats. The goal was to find bikes or
paddle boats to go out onto the lake since it was absolutely beautiful out, but
we couldn’t find them. Anywhere. We walked around about half of the lake before
giving up and walking back.
On our way back to the ship,
we found ourselves in the plaza of the Town Hall, Rathaus, in the middle of a
three-day rock festival, Rock Spektakel. There were vendors lining the outside
of the square, selling things from crepes to candied nuts to wine. It was
definitely a different side of Hamburg than I’d seen before: people who weren’t
wearing shoes and multicolored hair. We hung around for a few songs before
moving on. After dinner on the ship, the three of us went to a small bar
underneath the metro line. We split a bottle of German white—easily the best
white wine I’ve ever had. As we sat there, hoards of people were heading in the
direction of Reeperbahn but we had no desire to be there again. A few glasses
of wine between friends, sitting along the Hamburg Harbor was absolutely
perfect.
Day Three:
I honestly
don’t have the words to describe the day I’ve had, to describe what I’m feeling
right now. For someone who likes to talk as much as I do, to be at a loss for
words is disconcerting. Today I went to the Neuengamme Concentration Camp. It
wasn’t an extermination camp but a work camp. I guess the only way to describe
this feeling is piece by piece.
Sombering.
Upsetting. Intense. Horrific. I’ve been
studying the Holocaust and learning about concentration camps in every single
history class I’ve ever taken. But reading and studying it is a lot different
than seeing it in person. Approximately 42,900 people died at this particular
camp, and it wasn’t even an extermination camp. I still have such a hard time
wrapping my head around the fact that people reduced other human beings to
piles of skin and bones. I can’t get the images and videos of people dragging
bodies into mass graves or the haunted looks on the prisoners’ faces out of my
head.
We’ve
been traveling for three weeks now in these bustling cities, never a moment
where we aren’t moving. But the concentration camp was out on the outskirts of
Hamburg. For the first time in three weeks, I stepped off the bus to absolute
silence. In a way, the site of the camp was the most beautiful place I’ve ever
seen. There were cornfields and you could see the wind turbines in the
distance. But then you remember the pain and horror and hell these people felt
every day and it just because an eerie silence.
But
even more than that, was that in between their suffering, the hope these people
had was unbelievable. The hope that some people still carried inside of them
haunts me. There was a poem salvaged from the camp, in Italian, “…vedo i corpi
umani a quella maniera, mi avvicino un pò di più, vado là, li tocco, li muovo
mi pizzico, stillo, rido […] questo è l’inferno, sarà il purgatorio, l’inferno,
io sono morto, ma quando sono morto?”
Despite everything, these people
kept fighting. I have never respected anyone more than the survivors of the
concentration camps.
We
went and looked at the buildings where they built clay and bricks, their
dormitories, and the canals they worked in. We heard stories about how if a
prisoner dropped a brick in the canal, they had to dive until they found it
again. And if they couldn’t, and drowned, another prisoner had to go and get
the body. We heard stories of the evacuation marches, and of the 20 children
they experimented on before murdering them. Seeing their pictures broke my
heart.
I’m
always going to struggle with how someone could do this to another person.
People with names and families and stories of their own. People from across
cultures and countries. They were tortured and starved and reduced to nothing,
and they kept going.
I will never forget the things I saw today. I don’t want to forget.
I don’t know if I’ll ever understand, or even process the things I saw, but I
will never forget.
I
am glad that Lauren was there, just to have someone else feeling exactly the
same things that I am. Since it was such an emotional day, we decided to go out
for dinner with Emily. One thing led to another, and we ended up with a larger
group: Lauren, Emily, Meredith, Talal, John, and I. A very strange group, but
entertaining nonetheless. We ended up at the little Italian restaurant we’d
walked by the first day. Lauren was thrilled, because the restaurant people
didn’t speak a word of English, so she got to translate the entire meal. Three
of us split red wine, Lauren’s favorite, a Montepulciano, and two of the group
split a Venice white. All in all, it was a fantastic night and sort of
refreshing after the long day we’d had. We ended up swinging by the rock
festival again – just so Lauren could get another batch of candied nuts.
Day
Four:
We
knew we wanted to be up early to get to the fish market before it closed, so
Lauren, Meredith, Emily, Kait and I miraculously made it off the ship by about
7:30. By the time we got there, the Hamburg Fischmarkt was absolutely packed
with people. At first when you walk up, you’re a little underwhelmed, with a
few stalls of clothing and souvenirs, but then you really walk into the market.
You’re hit instantly with smells and voices and color. No matter which way you
turn, there is someone selling fresh flowers or plants, fresh fruit, and fresh
fish. Every single one of the fish guys were shouting back and forth across the
aisle at each other. There were a few stalls selling large baskets full of
every type of fruit you can imagine. As Lauren and I ventured deeper into the
market, we came across people selling fruit and cheese. I managed to get my
hands on another one of the heavenly cinnamon pastries while Lauren got some
Gouda. I could have walked through that market for hours, just to look at
everything. For whatever reason, we’ve managed to have spectacular market-luck
in each country.
I’ve
noticed that I have a special love for markets, gardens, and churches—and
Hamburg delivered on all three, with a bonus lake too! After we left the
Fischmarkt, we wanted desperately to try and complete our quest of biking
around Alster Lake. Everywhere you turn in Hamburg, there are bike rental stops
underneath the metros and along the streets. On sidewalks, there are dignified
bike lanes. I was almost more afraid of the bikers than I was the drivers in
Russia.
No
matter where we looked, however, we couldn’t find more than two bikes for the
four of us. Since it had been Emily’s idea, Lauren and I headed back to the
ship and let her and Meredith take the bikes up towards the lake area. On our
way back, we came across St. Michael’s Cathedral. Although it was a Sunday,
they were still running service up to the tower. You bet we climbed it. All 452
steps. The cool thing about climbing the tower is that the staircase runs
parallel to the bells, and by the time we got all the way to the top, it had
reached the hour mark. There’s nothing like having a panoramic view of Hamburg
and the harbor while the bells of the church are going off. It was absolutely
stunning.
I
absolutely adored Hamburg, Germany. I wish there had been time to also go to
Berlin, but that’ll just have to be a different trip. This city just had such a
different feel than St. Petersburg, and it just makes me that much more excited
for our next couple of ports: Belgium/France and then Ireland!