Erstaunliche Abenteuer: A week in Northern Germany!

This is a long post so once again if you want to skip this and just look at pictures you can just click here. Once again blogger is freaking out and I can't get it to do what I want so sorry for the random highlighted text and the odd placements of pictures at the end.

Museum of a traditional house in Northern Germany

Heather and I spent a week up at my friend Julia's house. She lives in a town called Stade and it took us about 8 hours to get from Saarbrücken to her house. Our trip went pretty well except there was construction on the last train we took and so we stopped earlier than we were expecting and then we had to find a different way to get there. Once we figured out how to get the rest of the way, the train we wanted pulled away from the station....on a platform we couldn't get in time. But we made it safe and sound and without a too big of delay.

Tiny alleyway in Stade after the rain

We didn't do a whole lot the rest of that day. Julia's mom came back from a vacation in Great Britain, so we heard some of her stories and got to know her parents. The next day we stayed in Stade and Julia showed us all of what Stade had to offer. The weather was...well lets just say it was a little wet! When we first went out it was raining so hard we had to take shelter because our umbrellas weren't helping much. Julia showed us around the altstadt (old town). She told us that if there is a blue sign on the building than that means that building is a historical building and no one is allowed to destroy it or take away from its historical nature. In Stade there is also a museum that is an old house and it shows you how people lived way back when.

The next day we went to Hamburg. We drove to the outskirts of Hamburg and then took a ferry/ship to more of the downtown area. Most cities have buses and trams and subways....well Hamburg has all of that plus ships! It was cool because this way we got to come in through the harbor. When we got off the boat we walked to a church and we went up the tower and looked at Hamburg from the top! It was really windy and cold but the view was amazing. Then we went to the mall to get something to eat. The mall had a Hollister store but you had to wait in line just to get in and look around. Then we went to the Rathaus (town hall) and looked around. It was old and super nice like all of the Rathauses we have seen. Then we went to this place by the water and sat and enjoyed the sun for a while. After we were done sitting in the sun and then eating ice cream we went back to the harbor to take a Hafenrundfahrt (Harbor tour).

Said Cargo ship

We learned lots about the harbor and some of the ships. There was a cargo ship there that could carry 10,000 crates at a time. To load and unload the crates it takes only 90 seconds per crate to either load it onto the ship or to unload it. The ship can unload (and I think reload) in 72 hours and be gone again. Our tour guide also said that crates do fall off into the ocean all the time but no one ever goes to get time because the companies insure their crates for that reason. I guess that means if you were waiting for a new Mercedes coming from Germany and it falls off you will just have to wait for a new one because yours will be at the bottom of the ocean.

Hamburg Opera House

After our tour of the harbor we walked along the docks going into some of the shops and we went to the Elbtunnel which is a tunnel that goes underneath the Elbe river. At one end there is an elevator to take the cars back up to the surface. It was cool we got to jump in the elevator with the car and ride it back up to the surface. Then we went to the Speicherstadt which is a part of the harbor where all the buildings are made of bricks and it is where a lot of oriental rugs are sold. This day was also Julia's mom's birthday so we spent the evening at home getting to know her parents more.

Haus Am See in Bremervörde

The day after Hamburg we went to a small town called Bremervörde. According to my family tree book thing that my parents have, this is the town that my family immigrated from just before the 1900's. There wasn't a whole lot to do but there was a small lake that we walked around with a cool restaurant right by it. There was also a learning park place and it was pretty cool. I was entertained! Then we walked around the town for a little bit and then went back to Julia's. It was a pretty easy day.

My town!

On Sunday we went to the place, that was probably at the top of my list. We went to a town called Schnackenburg! It was a small little town and it probably only had one restaurant, a museum, church and several really old buildings. Schnackenburg is located on the Elbe river and used to be a border stop where East and West Germany met. It has a little harbor for boats that travel up and down the river. We walked around the harbor to the other side where there was a tower you could climb up and get a good view of Schnackenburg. Then we stopped to get something to eat at a restaurant. It took a while but it was really busy because of "Schutzenfest", I am not exactly sure what all that entails but it has to do with guns.

Boarder museum in Schnackenberg

After we got done eating we went to the museum and looked around. There was a bunch of old East Germany uniforms and there were diagrams of what the border looked like, as well as escape stories. The museum sold post cards which I was ecstatic about and I got one for everyone in my family! When we got done at the museum we walked through the town a little bit and sat up on the hill by the river and ate cherries. Then after our little break we made our way to the church and had a look inside. It wasn't anything spectacular like the church in Hamburg, but it was in good shape for how old it was. We ended our trip in Schnackenburg by my getting my picture taken in front of all of the signs!

Lüneburg

That same day, since there wasn't a whole lot to do in Schnackenburg, we made our way to Lüneburg which we passed on our way to Schnackenburg. We didn't do a whole lot we just walked around and looked at the city. Since it was a Sunday there wasn't anything open other than the Bahnhof and restaurants and it was getting later in the evening. So we just strolled through the streets and looked at the buildings.

On Monday we drove to the North Sea to a town called Cuxhaven. It was low tide when we go there and it is unique in Cuxhaven that at low tide you can walk about 6km (roughly 3 miles maybe) out from the shore and not be under hardly any water, barely enough to cover your feet. We only walked about 3km and then turned around and went back to shore. We decided that we would look through the shops that were there and get postcards and such. Heather and I collect a specific postcard from every town that we can and I think we are now up to 10 or so, maybe more. Then we went to the beach and laid in the sun for several hours until the tide got all the way back to the shore. We swam for a little bit and it was my first time in the ocean so that was really cool for me. Then we went back to Julia's to eat supper.

Cuxhaven

The next day I noticed that my feet, the only place I didn't put sunscreen, was really burnt. We were planning on going to Bremen so I ran to the Apoteke really quick which is the apothecary since that is how you get all of your medicine even over the counter stuff. After rubbing some stuff on my feet we made our way to Bremen! Took about two hours on the train and it was super hot that day. We saw the typical stuff that tourists see in Bremen. We saw the Frauenkirche (women's church...but I don't think it is just for women), the Bremer Stadtmusikanten (a statue of a rooster standing on a cat that is standing on a dog that is standing on a donkey), and we saw the Rathaus, Dom (another church) and we even went to the Hilton there and secretly used their bathrooms because it was free!

Bremen

When we got back from Bremen I took off my shoes and my feet were even redder than before we left. But luckily they didn't hurt. So we just rested the rest of the evening and packed. We were planning on going directly to Dresden but we had never heard from our teacher that we were going to meet there so we decided to just come home and rest since I was sun burnt. I didn't want to take the chance of it hurting while walking through Dresden. Plus we wanted a break, we had seen so much that week that everything was sort of running together. So we are planning on going to Dresden next week just for a day, since we have a ticket that will let us go there on the fast trains.

I think that is about it. My feet are not so red anymore they look a lot better. My sunburns are fading into a tan too. If you want to see all of my pictures just click here