Day 2 Hamburg, Germany

Well, from my last post things didn't go exactly as I like (my routine that is). The cheese pizza at the airport looked, well, not appetizing at all. And trust me, I'm not picky with my pizza - I love it all. So with only 40 minutes before we were to board the plane I opted for some nice thick French fries, which were good, but was already straying from my routine! When we finished up at the restaurant we had just enough time to use the potty one last time and get on. The plane was a 2-3-2 configuration and we set just about 3 rows behind first class. Lots of room for our legs to stretch out and to put our stuff. As the plane was taking off I already had my meds taken, area sanitized, seat prepped for a long nap and started blowing up my beach balls. With ear plugs in, I was in sleep mode before we reached our top altitude, however, the night didn't go as well as planned. I was tired, but I also suffer from restless leg syndrome. I call it "the Jimmie legs" and trust me, Jimmie was on the plane with me. Oh well. I still got some rest, I just fidgeted a lot. Besides an unusually painful headache upon descent, the ride wasn't bad at all.


We landed in Hamburg, Germany at 7am. No one was in the immigration lines and within 20 minutes or so we were in a cab headed for the hotel. Our cabbie was an older gentleman and was super friendly. We talked about my grandpa being German and Guy's grandparents both German and Sicilian. The cabbie went on to say that his best friend is Italian and quite the jokester. When his friend gets wound up he calls himself Mussolinii and the cabbie Hitler. Apparently they are a bit too old to be PC, but we got a kick out of the way he was telling the story. He asked if we had any friends in Hamburg and we said no. He said "That's too bad, it's more fun when you have someone to show you around". Guy said "we know YOU!". He laughed and said he was too old and too expensive. Guess we are on our own.

At the hotel, which is lovely, our room was ready (note: it's only 8am). What a blessing. We got to our room, showered and after setting an alarm took a 3 hour nap. Neither one of us wanted to get up, but we knew we had to or we'd never get acclimated. After getting moving we walked toward the train station where we planned to catch the hop on hop off bus. Immediately we saw a Vodafone store where I needed to get a european SIM card and the young man in the store was super and got me all hooked up. Weird tho...when I walked in I was the only customer and I said to the employee "Do you speak English?" He seemed offended and he answered "Of course". I've got to figure out the best way to ask. I don't want to just walk in and assume people speak English, but nearly everyone does. Especially the young people. But I don't to be the "ugly American" and seem like the world owes me. Ya know? I should have asked my German friend Mark Stoffel the most polite way to go about addressing people because I don't ever want to come across unkind.

So back to the hop on hop off bus...Guy had purchased the tickets at the hotel because the bus people usually only take cash and we don't have an excess of Euros on us yet. So when we got on the bus and it started off it had a narrator instead of the headsets you plug In and choose a language. Well, he talked mostly in German and when he did say something in English we either couldn't quite get it or we were already past the area. After awhile, Guy inquire about headsets and the narrator told us that there are two buses in their group that have the headsets and one would be by in about 40 minutes. Being about half way through we decided to hop off and have lunch. We ate at the restaurant recommended to us by the young lady at the hotel called Brauhaus Joh. Albrecht. I ordered the Joh. Albrecht schnitzel with potatoes and slaw, while Guy ordered fish and chips. We did the "splity splity" so we could taste a little bit of everything. I don't think it was so delicious because we were starving...it was just straight up delicious! Good choice.

After lunch we walked back to catch the hop on bus again and we let several go by waiting for the one that we could hear the narration in English. Finally one of the drivers said that only two do the route in English and usually only for half a day. It is almost 4pm, so we are thinking we'd just better get on and enjoy the scenery even if we didn't know what it was. Well, this narrator was a character and had the crowd in stitches. Somehow this just made it worse...not only were the people learning about what they were seeing...the guy was a comedian, too!  Bummed. So we started to hop off at one point and see if we could find at least someone who narrated in both languages. But as we exited, the funny guy said "OH! I didn't know I needed to speak in English as well". So we got back on and were pumped we were going to get in on the fun. Not so much. He would speak mostly in German and then quickly say something like "to the left are some warehouses" and then go back to his German jokes. Oh well. At least we got to see around the city, which is the second largest in Germany, but you wouldn't know it (compared to Berlin) as it is very green with trees, lakes and waterways everywhere. It's quite lovely for a big city.

As we walked back to the hotel we stopped at a couple of bakeries and we got some snacks. We knew we'd be too tired to go out for dinner, so we nibbled on the amazing sweets (I didn't get a picture!!) and I had a coffee and Guy had a Coke as we sat in the 9th floor bar and overlooked the lake. I can't think of a better spot to sit and blog. It really is beautiful. It's now 8pm and time to call it a night. Fingers crossed Jimmie doesn't come to visit me tonight and we can get a solid night of sleep.