First stop of the weekend: the Alster. It's one of the rivers that flow through Hamburg, and! it actually froze this year, so we thought we'd check and see if skating there was possible. It wasn't. There was so much snow there, you couldn't even see the ice! So instead of skating, we wandered around with the hundreds of other people there.
However, we had brought our skates with us, and it seemed a little silly to carry them around all day and not skate, so we headed to a nearby outdoor rink. Unfortunately it was ridiculously crowed and the line didn't seem to be moving. So we opted to find yet another rink to skate on. It was a lot of fun when we actually got out onto the ice, but I had one teensy tiny itty bitty problem...
You see, in European sizes I wear a woman's 41 (that's a woman's 10 back home). But the skates we'd borrowed for me were a men's 43... Needless to say, they were HUGE! But better too big, than too small. I still had fun.
I also really enjoyed the people skating around in costumes - it was Carnival in Cologne last weekend and the people just love to dress up. I think my favourite was the super tough looking hockey player that was skating around in a pink tutu. :)
Hamburg is also a harbour town. I'm fairly sure it's one of the biggest ports in Germany - or at least very important in the shipping world over here. I must admit, I was not expecting the harbour to be pretty - all those giant metal containers, ships, cranes... But when we walked by after the sun had set, it was really pretty. Take a look yourself:
Karla and I also checked out the tunnel running under the Elbe (another river in Hamburg). Here we are right in the middle - 21 meters under the surface of the river.
I just thought this was really pretty.
The next day we went to check out city hall - I 'd been told it's one of the prettiest around. And I agree. It vaguely reminded me of our parliament buildings back home in Ottawa.
It was a short trip, but a fun one :)
Sandy
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