“Why exactly do you want to see it?”

We decided to go to Hamburg one day. We persuaded Tedi and Alex to go with us. You know the reduced-fare ticket. So early in the morning,/yes, waking up at 8:00 is early for me/ we caught a train to Hamburg. Ok not directly, we had to change trains once. Coming to Hamburg we had a long discussion how to do the sightseeing. In the end I and Anna decided to walk and the Bulgarians took a bus around.

I found a booklet with some sightseeing points you just must see and we planned the trip. I found a building called Chile house. It was in the booklet, so why not to find it. Well it is easier said than done. We got a map and started. Because I am not a friend of maps and I could say Anna is their enemy:), we got lost. Only a little. So I asked one nice older man, where the house is. He looked at me, I could see he was surprised a lot and after a few seconds he asked: “Why exactly do you want to see it?”

I started to laugh and showed him the booklet. He told us really importantly to follow him, because he was going the same way. So for the next 15 minutes he was waiving at us so that we wouldn’t get lost.

When we saw it, we started to laugh. We never found out, why it was so important, or why it was in the booklet. To be honest, we never tried to. After that we walked around town a little and found the church with the highest tower in Hamburg. I had a wonderful idea to go up to the top of the tower. It was more than 1200 of steps. And every time I thought we are done, I saw another couple of stairs. During the tower climbing I realized that I am awfully out of shape. It took us about 90 minutes to go up and down again. It was worth it though. The view was perfect. In the end I even forgot I almost died going up:).

The Rathaus was quite big and nice, we saw another war destroyed church. I especially liked the old harbour. I really loved the old houses and bridges and boats and stuff like that.
We even found some congress halls and old park and the oldest bridge in Hamburg. I spent 15 minutes watching swans, ducks and some other poor water birds. This was pretty funny for Anna, because she couldn’t understand why the birds are so interesting for me.
In the end we did a little/understand a looooot of shopping/ and went home totally tired.

Ulla even got a blanket

I really really appreciate the work of the international office at Hochschule Wismar. They did a pretty good job to entertain us. One of their tries was so called „TIKO thing“. I gave it the name thing,mostly because we couldn’t imagine what it is going to be like.

Only a few of us went there, perhaps the title of the activity wasn’t so good sounding. The title was interactive Wismar map. What was written there was, that they/we didn’t know who – we imagined some kind of Don Corleone:)/ would show us good places to go and bad places, we shouldn’t even see. So it was only me and Anna/as usually/, the finish guys and our Ulla and Russian girls. We came to a really really special house, which is called the alternative house. We met a few people, who started to talk with us in a mixture of german, english and russian.

After a few minutes/understand 45:)))))/ we finally got it. They want US to do the map. What a shock. We tried to explain them, that we only came to have a little fun, not to participate in an alternative project, but somehow the communication gap was too big. Better to say ultimate gap. So we ended with a task we didn’t want and didn’t quite understand…

Fortunately we had another meeting. And because we got an email about the meeting number 2, we actually knew about what we are going to do. We should have had a Kneippe night. That information persuaded the rest of the finish girls to go with us.

But as one of my best friends often says:”Shit happens :)” And indeed it does. Happen I mean. We met with our TIKO people, who told us, let’s do the shop round. And someone almost cried: “What about the pubs!!!!” And the girl/her name is unwriteable /my Microsoft word doesn’t like this word:)/ …some kind of cool alternative nickname told us a speech. A grand speech about responsibility and promises and bla bla bla…. What surprised us a little. After that Speech we told her really kindly / ok we weren’t that kind/,that if we had known about the responsibility, no one would have come to the meeting number one. Which didn’t make her angry / big surprise for me:)/ But it made her disappointed in us. Which in turn made us promise / again :)/ that we in fact would do it. After this heartbreaking promise we could go to a pub finally. This made everyone happy and we had a nice evening in Schlauch.

The meeting number 3 was a few days latter… We tried to persuade everyone to join the pub tour again, but they told us: “hey we remember the last Kneippe Tour.” It is good to remark, that THIS time we actually had a pub tour. But only me, Anna, Sami and Ulla remained from the team.

First we went to Bar Kai, which is a legend among students. It is a Mekka for designers. And what is even better, the waiters are pretty handsome. Just that you know. Like I said, the bar is pretty popular, so we didn’t have any seats inside. The terrace was still quite empty. In a few minutes we understood why. It was freezing outside. Well it is not a really wise idea to sit outside during October nights. I should say, that Kai is really nice place. I had my first beer in Germany there. And like Ulla said: “We have to give them many good points, they even got me a blanket:)”

The second bar was the posh:) bar New Orleans. New Orleans is good for eating and cocktails. It is pretty expensive, but still many people go there. Maybe because they have burgers :).
Only one thing made me a little nervous. They serve lobsters and stuff like that as well. The lobsters live in a nice aquarium. What I didn’t know is the lobsters in the aquarium are to be cooked. Ok I knew they had them, I just thought the ones in the tank were something like pets. So I was quite, well TOTALLY surprised when a man came to the tank and showed one of them, the poor things. In a few minutes/ I honestly have no idea how much it takes to cook that thing/ the waiter came with a nice and steaming lobster. And I asked horrified: “ They cooked it???” Sami told me: “I certainly hope so.” I hope he is happy somewhere in a lobster heaven.