Day 30 (July 8th): Hamburg

We woke up at 6:10 AM and showered so we could make the 6:55 AM bus. We were psyched since the sky was clear and there was no sign of rain (no need to bring our umbrellas). We made it out to the bus stop on time and realized that the bus schedule off the Internet was wrong and we waited for the 7:03 AM bus to come. We headed down to the Fish Market and arrived there around 7:30 AM. The Fish Market is a tradition in Hamburg. It originated as a true fish market but now hundreds of vendors sell everything from fish to fruit to candy to clothes. It runs every Sunday rain or shine. They estimate that 40,000 people show up each weekend. We walked around with the hordes of people and bought some candy, coffee, postcards and other little snacks. Most of the vendors were screaming out to the people to come buy their produce and how their wares were better than everybody else. There were a few vendors selling birds, rabbits and fish . The kids loved those stalls and we spent a lot of time looking at the animals (see bottom picture). The market closed at 10:00 AM and we went to a local cafe and had breakfast. Zach had a cheese sandwich on a hard baguette. Of course, when the sandwich came out there was a microscopic piece of lettuce on one of his pieces of cheese and he pulled that slice off to the side. I had an interesting egg pancake thing with sliced potato, onions and bacon in it along with an orange juice. Very tasty. After breakfast, Zach wanted to feed the pigeons. Since we have been in Europe every time he sees a pigeon he runs after it. We wanted to take a boat cruise so he headed over to the Elbe River. We found a cool place along the way to hang out and have a drink. It was right on the water and it had sand set up with chairs with big pillows. The kids played in the sand while the adults sat in the chairs and soaked up the rays. It was time to head out and we went down to the docks and bought our tickets for the 12:00 PM boat cruise. It was a big boat with four stories on it and we got a table on the third level. It was a guided tour with the tour operator speaking both English and German. We headed up the Elbe and saw the Hamburg coastline (see top picture) and the huge shipping docks. Hamburg is one of the largest shipping ports in Europe and probably the largest in Germany. We checked out the large container ships and the guide operator explained how the whole container process worked. Fact: Hamburg has the second largest dry dock in the world. It can hold a ship over 65,000 tons. It was interesting but the kids were not thrilled. They ended up getting some ice creams on the boat and ate their candy so they had a good time. The tour lasted one hour and we made sure to use the bathrooms before we got off. We then headed towards St. Michael's church. On the way over, there was a cavalcade of motorcycles. We found there was a special motorcycle event going on called "MOGO". Thousands of motorcycles from all over the area gather together and travel up one of the autobahns to the north. We made it to the church and walked inside the main pew area. The church was nice but the main attraction is taking the long staircase to the top of the church that has a great view of the city. Anika took the elevator but Al and I took the stairs with the kids. By the 10th staircase, I was definitely feeling it while the kids ran upstairs. When we got to the top it was a clear sky and we could see for miles. From there we had a great view of the motorcycle calvacade which stretched for blocks. We took some pictures and hung out (see middle picture). Al and I took the elevator down while Anika went down the stairs with the kids. When we got out we went to the corner store and got some drinks. We then started heading toward the subway. On the way, we stopped at a fountain in a park and let the kids play and took some pictures. We decided we should get some food before going home so we found an Italian restaurant and everybody had pizzas except for Al who had a pasta and vegetable dish. My pizza was called "the Diablo". It had spicy salami and hot chillis on it. Very good. The kids and I got some gelato for dessert; Hannah had the cappucci, Zach had the cookies/cream and I had the mango gellato. We finished our late lunch and got on the subway to head back to Anika's apartment. When we got there we let the kids finish watching Ice Age 2 while Al and I packed up. We had washed our laundry at Anika's but she doesn't have a drier so we took everything off the clothesline and folded it. We finished packing and loaded the car. It was around 6:30 PM and we said our tearful goodbyes and hit the road. The drive was very pleasant while the sun was still out, eventhough we hit some traffic and got rerouted through the countryside by the Nav system. As we approached the outskirts of Dusseldorf it got dark and started to rain again. We all wanted to be home and in bed. We finally arrived at our apartment around 11:30 PM and woke the kids up and brought them upstairs. We all got into bed after a long and exciting weekend.