Hamburg

Still no science-y stuff yet…. That starts Monday, but…
Today I toured Hamburg, started with the free (before tips) New Hamburg Tour. Our Dutch tour guide Peggy was great. In the group for this free English tour, I was the only American… Where is everyone? Ian the South African was there, two months into his grand 13 month round the world tour. Julie was also there, continuing her European search for meaning punctuated by work to support her quest. All in all it was a very interesting crowd and we all enjoyed checking out the mostly modern (between fires and some of the heaviest Allied bombings in WWII it’s a surprise anything survived) city.
After the tour, I wanted my cliché student-tourist picnic of bread and cheese outside of the Rathaus (City Hall – it survived WWII!! Wooo!).
After barely 20 hours in Hamburg, I set my sights on Berlin. As it turns out, my sister’s boyfriend’s best friend lives there, and is/was extremely helpful and accommodating. She arranged for me to get on a mitfahrgelegenheit (ride share), which ended up costing a fraction of what the train would have been. As on previous occasions, the ride share dropped us off at a different spot from what my Berlin host was originally told, so a kind stranger also on the mitfahrgelegenheit let me use her cellular (yay for strangers!). Now at my friend’s apartment, I’m super excited to explore.