Hamburg

After over four years, I finally returned to Hamburg to visit Katja. Friday was a national holiday; the reunification of Germany is always on October 3rd and since this year that fell on a Friday, I had a nice long weekend. Unlike my transportation adventure to Munich, my transportation to Hamburg was smooth. Everything was on time to and from! I arrive in the afternoon and went straight to Katja's new apartment. It is a wonderful walk up apartment (although I am sure that is all you can find in Germany). The rooms have all been freshly painted with warm colors which makes it very welcoming. Both Till and Kaya were home so we caught up on life. I also got to meet the random roommate whom I liked very much. Katja made a wonderful vegetarian pasta dish which I ate seconds and thirds of. As you read on you will learn that she is a wonderful cook! After dinner we all went ins Kino to see The Baader Meinhoff Complex - a movie about the RAF terrorist group in Germany during the late 70s. While it was quite graphic, I truely enjoyed the movie and was a little ashamed that I had never heard of RAF before. Once I had seen all that they had done, it seemed impossible that I could have not know about them. The movie was all in German which I also really enjoyed. I obviously missed out on some details but it was still entertaining.

On Saturday, while Katja was working, Kaya took me into Hamburg to enjoy the city. I did some shopping (Danielle and Lauren, your Christmas gifts have already been purchased!). We also went to the harbor to enjoy the Bundeslaender festival. Every state had their own tent that displayed their own culture (so each tent was selling beer of course). I got to see the new harbor city which is still in the making. I have never seen so many cranes in my life. There must have been two dozen standing behind the buildings that had already been constructed. As it is Hamburg, the weather quickly changed from beautiful to horrible so we ran (literally) back to the train and headed home. Once Katja arrived back to the apartment we prepared a vegetarian feast for six (only two of which (Katja and I) are vegetarians). It took most of the afternoon but it was totally worth it! We ate and ate and ate. After dinner, all the girls got ready to go out. We went dancing all night, so much that I was sore the next day!

On Sunday we slept. We went to Katja's parents house (the house I stayed at when I was last in Hamburg) for coffee and cake. The cake was fantastic! The apples were from a tree in the garden which made me love it even more. It was nice to see her parents and her brother again. It was a really nice visit. Once we got home Katja and I jumped into bed and just watched two movies. We were too cold and tired to do anything else! Plus, we had to get up early to make sure I caught my train. Overall, :)