Thu, 13 Nov 2003

author Tim	location Hornchurch, Essex, England
posted 13:17 GMT 18/11/2003	section Europe2002/Europe/Deutschland/Deutschland 4 ( all photos )

Farewell to Hamburg and Seb and Jessi ( )
We awoke with not too much to do for the day, besides pack up and head off.
Sebastian invited us to meet him for lunch at his Uni, which we thought a great plan as it was across the other side of the city. It was a nice walk up there, the locals suprised that we had chosen to use our feet rather than pay for the trains. To be honest our feet wanted to walk again, they are so used to it now!
We found the Uni up to the north of the city, and then the Mensa building and Philosopher's Tower where we were to meet. Seb came out a little later and we wandered with a friend of his into the food hall.
It was so weird to be back in a Uni after so long - the posters and flyers might have been in Deutsch, but their messages were the ones shared by students world wide - don't increase our prices and don't reduce the quality of our education. The sad fact is that in Germany, education is still free, whereas Liz and I (and everyone else in Australian Unis, of course) paid huge sums of money via HECS, and still had to face price rises and quality cuts as these people were here.
After an amazingly cheap student lunch, we walked out, grabbing on the way a sample bag each from a magazine company, filled with toiletries and things, which we could use, and of course a newspaper and magazine, which we could try to read. Great for the bus.
Not far up the road, we bid Sebastian farewell until next year some time when he aims to come and study in Australia for six months (must be a great place if he is considering changing from paying nothing to paying huge fees just to study out in Oz!). Once again they were suprised when Liz and I elected not to get public transport to the Hauptbahnhof where our bus was leaving from, instead just having a nice walk in the awful weather.
Our one remaining task for Deutschland was to find a fridge magnet to complete our collection, but it seems that Hamburg just isn't touristy enough to warrant decent tourist garbage shops, and the closest we could find was a keyring. Not what we were after, so we will have to try and find one online when we get home.
We found our way to the bus station, where our bus was already waiting, and climbed aboard nice and early to get a seat this time, happy to be together instead of strewn across the bus. It didn't look like we would get to sleep, but since it was only 2pm that didn't really bother us too much.
Leaving on time, bus eventually found its way across the border back into The Netherlands.

author Tim	location Hamburg, Deutschland
posted 10:07 CET 13/11/2003	section Europe2002/Europe/Deutschland/Deutschland 4 ( all photos )

Lazing Around ( )
It's been a while since we had one, but we did pretty much nothing this day. Lazing around in bed, catching up with journal, making use of the internet connection, and cooking ourselves some wurst for lunch.
In the evening we chatted as usual on various topics with Seb and Jessi, before we went out with Seb to a pub for some drinks. It was cocktail happy hour, and we made good use of this fact. Ollie, the drummer from his band Mindcuffed also turned up, who's interesting claim to fame is that he plans to wear a G-string to their forthcoming gig.
An animated cab driver got us home in the small hours, and eventually it was all over.

author Tim	location Hamburg, Deutschland
posted 16:54 CET 12/11/2003	section Europe2002/Europe/Deutschland/Deutschland 4 ( all photos )

Back to Hamburg ( )
(Continued from The Netherlands 3)
At the border crossing into Deutschland for our fourth and final time, we had by far the most thorough border check. At about 3am, we were awoken from half-sleep by an announcement that passport control was coming onboard the bus. Strange, considering that due to the Schengen agreement there isn't supposed to be any between these two countries.
After the one border guard spent ages going through the entire bus, going very thoroughly over the suprisingly huge variety of passports being offered for inspection (Liz and I had no dramas at all for a change), the huge rude guy next to Liz was given a second visit. He spoke little of either English or Deutsch, so another person was brought on, but the big guy wasn't giving them an easy time. Another person towards the back of the bus was taken off, including their luggage - perhaps this was the reason for the unusually thorough border checks.
The remainder of the trip passed uncomfortably, but at least we were able to sit together after Bremen. Not much sleep came though, and by the time we arrived at Hamburg Bahnhof I had totalled about two hours and Liz closer to two minutes. And, despite running close to two hours late due to the late start and the border check, the bus driver actually got us into Hamburg ten minutes early!!! Making good use of the Autobahns, I guess. Pretty scary ride at the front of the bus up top though.
As we got off, we spotted Daniel who we had met in Brugge! We had a few quick words but weren't in the mood for socialising, so we parted ways - he off to find his hostel and us in search of coffee. This took us to a dingy little place where we lack of sleep made my rusty Deutsch even worse, but we obtained what we were after. I'm not sure how the only other customer there was managing beer at 7am, but he was.
By 8am, we moved to McDonalds to waste some more time, and eat some grease to keep us going. We over-stayed our welcome there for a while, with me using the translation dictionary to work at a snail's pace through a magazine, before deciding that it was time to move towards the city.
The rest of the morning was spent at a café which suprisingly had free wireless internet where we read books and purchased just enough drinks to keep the waiters happy, before we went for a walk around part of the Aussenalster, Hamburg's large outer lake. The weather was notably colder than the last time we were in this city, making an interesting contrast.
We ambled back into town about 2pm, grabbing some local 'cuisine' in the form of a wurst or two, before walking the couple of kilometres to Sebastian's house. He was working until 2pm, and aimed to be home by 3pm. We passed a bit of time in a funky café up the road and then walked down and said hello.
It was a little funny returning to the place where we have spent time both with them and on our own. A week or two ago Jessi had a tangle with a car on her bike, she is ok but her knee is pretty sore. No permanent damage and it could have been much worse.
Liz and I were very tired, so we anti-socially crashed asleep while Jessi studied and Seb went to his final band rehersal before their first gig next week. When he came back we sat awake for a while, drinking and chatting about various things, which ended up with just Seb and I discussing quantum mechanics while mostly asleep. With that, we called it quits for the day!

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