Hamburg T2D2: Boats, Towers and Glühwein

Today has been rather hectic.

After a gentle start, and a latte near the Rathaus I set out in search for Dialogue im Dunkel – an entirely blind experience and adventure. Finding the place took about 3 attempts, each time returning near enough back to where I started. When I eventually found the place they had no availability for today, I booked for Sunday and had to spell my nachnamer, not easy when it begins with ‘W’.

My place booked, I headed for the nearby Maritime Museum. It is a massive building spanning nine floors and covering every detail of maritime history, from Art History to construction, merchant shipping to warfare, models and uniforms. I could write a whole blog post about this museum I spent 2.5 hours there but I could easily have spent much longer, they use ipods for audio-guides, they’re really into multi-media exhibition spaces and even the ‘boring’ cases of objects have been turned into books. The other brilliant thing was the provision of integrated spaces within the museum for education and group tours. The downside to this museum was definitely the price, entry plus audio guide cost 15€; that said if I’d stayed all afternoon, as I easily could have, I’d say that was money well spent.

(sorry it is sideways!)

I’m in Hamburg for a conference held at a church in West Hamburg. Whilst waiting for registration to open I paid a visit to a more historic church. The church of St Michaelis has both a tower and a crypt to visit, the current building was constructed in the 50’s – as you can imagine I greatly relished the opportunity to visit both for just 7€. The tower was, er, tall and offers a lift service for those for whom 10 floors represents too tall a staircase. The view from St Michaelis Tower was impressive and good value for money. The crypt is the final resting place of many Regency  burials – evidence of lavish coffins covered in velvet and gold trim were in evidence when the crypt was excavated. The crypt is also the final resting place of one of the Bachs, I know not which one.

After conference I met some friends for dinner and we went to this nice Syrian joint. The sausages were great and I was so full by the end. From dinner we stumbled across this Nacht der Jugend festival at the Rathaus. All we knew was there was loud music coming from the Rathaus but was an opportunity for us to visit for free! Further investigation uncovered that this was a festival to remember Kristallnacht and encouraged young people to think about politics – one stand even asked ‘is Swing Dancing political?’ Sitting in the main chamber listening to a young man rap at great volumes was a once in a lifetime oddity.

Subsequently we had great fun getting lost in one of the big underground stations in the centre of town but made it to the Winter Dom fireworks just in time. After the firework display we made the most of the little stalls; eating würst, drinking glühwein, climbing aboard tractors! So much fun was had we lost track of time and by the time I returned to my dorm it was 1 am, and unlike last night, there were three sleeping bodies all disturbed by my bedtime routine. Oops.