Hamburg is wet, Berlin was hot, both are amazing.

For the heck of it I’m giving this post a try on my WordPress app for my Lumia (so WP for WP) because after great initial promise I just cannot get the hang of the keyboard on my iPad mini. For iPHONE apps it’s brilliant because it gives you this exploded view of an iPhone screen and the keys are massive. Anybody with an iPad knows what I mean. For iPAD apps you get this comparatively tiny keyboard that’s really shaped for a full sized iPad and not the mini. Anyway relatively speaking even though the Lumia keyboard is smaller it’s also easier to type on and so here we are.

Where we are is also the free and Hanseatic city of Hamburg of course. My trip is now more than 2/3 over and it’s been outstanding. I say this in spite of the weather, which has been rainy the last three days–with hard, pelting rain for a good twelve hours straight starting late yesterday afternoon–and cold, and before that almost uncomfortably hot in Berlin. Right now though I can see blue sky as the day ends (8:36p on Wednesday, May 26 right this second) and it’s blustery and cold and I’m under a comforter having just turned the rads on and I’m very happy. In fact I absolutely love everything about right now.

Anyway some highlights since I returned from København: one would absolutely be my visits to two astonishingly interesting museums, the Ballin Stadt Emigration Museum and the Museum für Hamburgerische Geschichte, aka Hamburg History Museum or as it’s branded, Hamburg Museum. The first is a sort of a flip side of Ellis Island as Hamburg was the port of departure for millions of European immigrants including my mother’s ancestors (and mine from her side; my dad’s came through Naples) and the exhibits did an admirable job of describing their plights, with many sample biographies and such. It also, I was delighted to see, did not only focus on America as the immigrants’ destination but also had plenty of info on Canada and Latin America. Great, amazingly evocative space built exactly where these hopeful, desperate people were. I loved it.

The Hamburg Museum was today’s destination which I settled on in an ad hoc decision to do something not requiring me to get horribly wet. I hadn’t planned this as I had Ballin Stadt and didn’t even know this museum existed. But I wondered about it since Köln has such a great one and goodness knows that Hamburg has its history. And I found it, right in lovely Planten un Blomen Park which I knew from my 2010 visit. I was really mostly–okay, only–interested in the prewar/war/postwar years but there was plenty more that was really engaging. Even the exhibit about fashion through the centuries was fascinating. But the Nazi and war bits… Completely mesmerizing. I spent almost three hours at this relatively small museum and could have spent more if I hadn’t become really hungry as I was subsiding on a cup of coffee and a soft pretzel until almost 4 in the afternoon. Gotta remember to fuel up for these museums. Anyway, the experience was certainly depressing in a lot of ways; you can’t see a picture of a 12-year-old girl who was hanged by the SS without feeling sick. But it was also honest and comprehensive and despite the horrors in and out of Hamburg it managed to make me like the city even more.

Back on the iPad. Much easier to type in landscape mode and on a desk.

I’ve otherwise been walking a huge amount here. My weekly step totals have been staggering: around 140,000. I was anticipating and hoping this and it’s great to see how much healthier I can actually be on vacation. I’ve eaten lots and eaten well, perhaps moreso in Berlin than here in Hamburg, but this idea that one HAS to gain weight on vacation absolutely doesn’t hold water. Anyway, one area I’ve spent a lot of time traipsing around is the Altona and Ottensee area. It has its own very nice Fußgängerzone and I find it more pleasant than downtown Hamburg proper. I was also at the Hafensgeburtstag on the 12th and took some pics and posted some videos to YouTube. I’ll post my whole gallery to Google+ or maybe Flickr since I do have an unexploited account there and they’ve improved their site and storage options recently. Look for those after I’m home on June 1 if you aren’t a Facebook friend who’s already seen some of them. Even if you are…more to come.

Okay, Berlin: I’d been to Berlin three times, in 1981, and for something like nine days in each of October 2007 and February 2009 for a conference. I like the city, I might even love it, but with Brian there (I arrived on Monday the 13th and he flew in two days later) it just let me see the city in a new light and experience it on a new level. The weather was fantastic if too hot (workers in the courtyard right outside our windows forced us to not only be awake at 7 am whether we liked it or not but also to have to keep the windows closed in a vain attempt to reduce that noise) but few besides me would think to complain especially after what was, I’ve heard, a rough winter in parts of Germany. We walked all over the place in addition to getting to know the M4 Straßenbahn really well (I’d never ridden one ever before). Alexanderplatz became like a second home because we’d always have to get there to transfer to the S Bahn lines. We got to see the usual tourist places like the Brandenburger Tor and Holocaust Memorial but also cafes and side streets and wine bars in Prenzlauer Berg and Kreuzberg and one highlight near Museum Insel was none of the usual suspects but rather the AMAZING Ramones Museum, maybe 1000 square feet of wonders, to the north of there near the old Synagogue. Brian took incredibly well to the whole time there, and if anything loved it more than I did. Having a new city for us to share and spending our first time together in Europe was really magical. We’ll both cherish those four days.

Trip update coming soon.

I promise. Having a hard time working with the ipad WP app. Lots of good times here. Hamburg is wet but wonderful and Berlin was like some sort of lovely dream. Spent six days there, four with Brian, and it was the first time we’ve shared this continent. It was a magical time and it reminded me of how much I love him and how good we are for one another.

More to come. Soon.

København

That’s “Copenhagen,” but you already knew that. I’m composing this post on a just-departed ICE train back to Hamburg. It’s overcast and was absolutely pissing rain much of the morning, with lightning and thunder even, so I’m okay with focussing on this iPad screen and keyboard and not so much on the passing scenery. Mostly.

The trip here was pretty much perfect. The flight from Calgary left and arrived exactly on schedule, a little early in fact, and aside from some–okay, a lot–of turbulence that awoke me and had me in a cold sweat when I’d rather have been sleeping in my flat-bed business class seat that I paid A LOT for, it was a very good experience as it often is on Air Canada. After having to go through customs again in Frankfurt, a rather hectic experience, my Lufthansa flight was super comfortable, very quick and I sat in an empty row. Perhaps the early high point to this trip was then my arrival in Hamburg airport. Very nice!! One of the most pleasant airports I’ve ever been in, especially as compared to the bustle of Frankfurt. A 55-minute S Bahn ride from there and I arrived in the lovely suburb of Blankenese and my AirBnB rental. Huge relief there: it’s really nice, cozy and with an excellent bed and really nice hosts. Pics to come, of course. There’s also at least one superb coffee place, cafe and roaster, called Carroux Caffee (yes, “Caffee” which corresponds with no language’s rendering of “coffee” or “cafe”) and I made it there twice on full day 1, Friday the 3rd. I walked up and down many steps to and from the Elbe and can happily report that staying in Blankenese was an excellent decision.

I departed the next day for Copenhagen. It’s a long ride, about 5 hours, and comprises what was a complete surprise for me, a 45 minute ferry ride during which the entire train (only four cars, not the normal ICE 13, which should have clued me in to something being different about this trip) enters the belly of the ferry and you leave and sample the deck and the rest of the ship. COOL AS HELL. I loved that. Anyway, Copenhagen greets you with a train station that’s a bit of a disappointment compared to the unbelievable number of food options at big German ones. They LOVE 7-11 there, they’re everywhere and there are two in the station selling donuts and uninspiring pastries and hot dogs. It’s not remotely close to what I saw, and will partake of for dinner this afternoon, in Hamburg. Otherwise I was very happy with my hotel and settled in fine. Night one I got together with my high school debate and Facebook chum Mike Klein, who splits his time between Amsterdam and Copenhagen these days. We had Chinese that was quite decent and a beer afterwards that was also decent but I was disgusted to find the bar smoke-filled. Very unhappy me. After that we walked he length of Copenhagen’s massive pedestrian zone and after a struggle I found my way back to my hotel and went to sleep.

Copenhagen is a city that prioritizes cycles above all else, which made walking a bit of a challenge….the unbearably wide streets, reminiscent of trying to cross Kingsway in Vancouver, were also a shock and a challenge, but sea level and flat ground (and fabulous weather) combined to see me topping 25000 steps on both Sunday and Monday. I was thrilled about that. I was also thrilled by the evident coffee culture there and had magnificent espressos at three places: Estate Coffee, Kents Kaffe Laboratorium, and Coffee Collective. That last one was at the location at the unbelievably cool Torvelhallerne, which is a bit like St Lawrence Market in Toronto and was where I spent lots of time on this trip. I had amazing coffee there of course but also stunningly good vegetarian sandwiches, with potato frikadelle and lovely greens and hummus, at a a place called Smag and just outstanding fish and chips and this “pastry” that was like a dense rye scone with chocolate chips. Blew me away.

So I did a huge amount of walking got some good eats. I did some touristy things of course, like walking to espy the Little Mermaid, an underwhelming couple of hours at Tivoli, and a fantastic walk up the Round Tower, or Rundetårn. But unfortunately the strongest impression I got of Copenhagen was how EXPENSIVE it was. I paid 165kr, about $30, for extremely average basil pork and shrimp chips at a Thai place near my hotel. I paid even more for fish and chips at a trendy looking place near the Little Mermaid. $5 for a soft serve ice cream. Maybe more than $5, now that I figure it, for each of those espressos (this morning’s at Estate was 28kr, at 5.9kr to the C$, which is way more than I’d pay at the very best coffee houses in NA, more than double in fact than American ones). Now I’m sure there are deals to be had and the sandwiches I picked up for this train ride were just 35 each, which is perhaps not more than I’d pay at home, and I’m hoping they’re good but we shall see. (Postscript: they were bad.)

Maybe the worst example of how pricey CPH is was Tivoli. I was close enough to it from my hotel that I could hear the screams, and it is damn beautiful and endearing to experience an amusement park in a city centre, not surrounded by parking lots, and a very pretty one to boot. But the price of a visit is ridiculous. Admission was 95 which by itself is not that bad at all. But the food is very pricey with lots of proper restaurants, tons in fact, selling what appear to be rather fine lunches for maybe 150. I got a mediocre soft serve for 25 and it seemed to be the single cheapest thing at the park. Rides were insanely pricey: 3 tickets for most grownup rides = 75kr, so around $14 for one go at the roller coaster. I was told that I should have just got an all access ride pass but that is something like 260 ON TOP OF admission. So maybe $70. Nuts.

I loved much of Copenhagen but it makes me realize one huge reason I lover Germany. It’s not only interesting and a delight to visit on its own terms but it’s a bargain as well. I’ll close in the thinking positive spirit with an absolute highlight shot, from my visit to Rundetårn.

Off to Germany and Denmark

19 months can go by in the blink of an eye. It was 19 months ago that I was composing a blog post about my then-imminent trip to Germany (mostly Dresden-Leipzig-Cologne) and from the moment I got back I knew that I’d want to fit in a trip back that way after a reasonably long gap, and May 2013 seemed like a good time to shoot for. May is usually a month with few commitments for me; we’d spent it (well May 6-June 6) in Chile and Argentina two years ago and it seemed to be pretty nondisruptive, so for the time being I’ve earmarked May as one slot for me to travel. It’s bumper season so things are cheap-ish (in Europe and by European standards, which vary hugely in expense I should note- Germany is a massive bargain as far as that goes, but Denmark, for example, seems to be expensive always) and the weather can be gorgeous. I hope that’s the case anyway. My 2010 trip was late April to mid-May and it rained a lot.

Anyway, time flies as it always does as we grow older and my long-awaited trip commences tomorrow. I fly out at 18:25 on AC 844, arriving at Frankfurt around noon and am then off on a short (70 minutes timetabled but I can’t imagine more than 30 minutes in the air) flight to Hamburg. It was a tough decision to fly; I made it to save money (C$150 round-trip to and from Hamburg May 1 and May 31; that’s at least $75 less than the train) and time since it’s around a 4-hour train from Frankfurt to Hamburg. I would be getting in to my rental (AirBnB again) later, probably, but we’ll see how much time this actually saves since I’m arriving at HAM instead of the Hauptbahnhof and thus have a longer train ride to my apartment in a beautiful (judging from web pics, at least) suburb called Blankenese. Anyway I’m staying in a studio apartment on the top floor of a house at Blankeneser Landstraße 82 and it looks nice in a beautiful neighbourhood and is, I hope, peaceful. I’ll be exploring lots in and around Hamburg including inspecting records (I hope this works out) concerning my mother’s family at the Ballin Stadt Emigration Museum, which I discovered too late my last visit, and to check out the Beatles memorabilia in the red light district which I also screwed up in 2010. So I do have some unfinished business there.

I’m only in Blankenese for two days before I depart on the 4th for Copenhagen, where I’ll be for four nights, staying at the Clarion Hotel Mayfair right in the centre of town. The Mayfair looks like a typical three-star tourist hotel but with the interesting feature of having both breakfast and “light evening” buffets. I have no idea what the latter entails but am curious. I don’t have an agenda in Copenhagen but I’m sure I’ll find one.

Back in Hamburg the 8th-13th including the weekend of a huge Harbour celebration, which I’m sure will feature drunken crowds but sometimes it’s great to be part of that sort of spectacle. Then it’s off to BERLIN May 13-19; another AirBnB rental in Prenzlauer Berg, hipster world capital, on Hufelandstraße a short walk from what looks like an incredible coffeehouse called Godshot. Lots of coffee exploring during that visit. Brian will be accompanying me for 4 of my days there and I really look forward to taking him to Dresden, a great day trip. Or maybe Leipzig. Anyway, Berlin awaits.

Hamburg again the 19-24 and then three nights in Stralsund on the Baltic Coast near the Polish border. Hotel Hafenresidenz- check out the pics and sorry for the cheesy music. Stralsund is a UNESCO world heritage site end-to-end and I’ve wanted to go that direction for years after seeing an incredible photo thread from many cities along that coast at skyscrapercity.com.  Too much beauty.

After three more nights in Blankenese I fly to Frankfurt for one last night at a hotel near the airport- 10:30a departure meant that making the connection in the morning from Hamburg would be very hard and I’m happy to have a day to explore the airport, really. It’s a fascinating place.

Looking at this itinerary it looks (to me) as if I’ve banked too many days in Hamburg, but there’s lots to see there and it’s a chill place with tons of great walking and good coffeehouses and such. There are also additional day trips possible- Lübeck, Hannover, Buxtehude.

I’ll be taking pics with my Canon 100S and transferring images to my iPad with an SD card to lightning adapter I recently bought; as I should have ample wi-fi (Or “wi-lan” as they say in Germany) options I hope to share many (maybe all) of these to my Google+ (aka Picasa) and Facebook pages. I’ll be using my phone with, initially, my Wind SIM since Wind has (by Canadian standards) an excellent European roaming add-on: For $8/mo I get $1/mb data and $0.15 per minute calls in Europe and to and and from Canada, which is incredible, and, I believe, the same price for texts. That’s very good, but I might also get a card from Vodafone or wherever and may in fact carry two phones. That’ll do for tech.

Okay, now to try to sleep as late as possible tomorrow. How bizarre.

Next post from Germany! Tschüß!

Poppy Plaza

The “Poppy Plaza” project is a public space that’s been under construction for a couple of years now at the Louise Bridge where 10 Street NW and Memorial Drive meet on the north bank of the Bow River, across from downtown Calgary. It’s a public space with a war memorial theme (hence Poppy Plaza- echoing “In Flanders Fields,” which is reproduced at the memorial as you can see in the video below) and it’s pretty beautiful, though we’ll get a better sense of it when it’s totally completed. As of now, the parts adjacent to the bridge are done and the west side is the bigger one. I checked it out today; here’s a video I took there.