After getting priced out of Cologne with reservations, I decided instead to travel to Hamburg. It is, after all the second largest city in Germany after Berlin, and after researching on the internet, they had a Banksy exhibit that I wanted to visit.
Getting to Hamburg from Rotterdam was an adventure of itself, having to make two transfers, first in Ultreit, then in Duisburg, which essentially just a suburb of Cologne. However, the precision that Germans are known for didn’t necessarily extend to their train system. Hence, I needed to wait an through an hour delay for my train to arrive, and when it did, due to a last second platform change, I missed it. The good thing is there was now another train to Hamburg 5 minutes later, and was able to make it on there and practically had the train to myself.
Around 8 pm I arrived in Hamburg and got checked into my hotel. It was somewhat close to the train station, about a 15 mintue walk, but here wasn’t really anything open in the neighborhood at that time. Given it was late, and I had already had a long day, I decided to just turn in for the night.
The next day I got up and after the hotel breakfast, I headed to Starbucks for additional caffinaiton. After after which I went exploring around the neighborhood,which got me the St. Nilkoli church. This church built in the 1100’s was destroyed in the war and now stands as a ruin. The steeple however, is still in tact. When it was built, it was the highest in the world at the time.
After this, it was time for me to go to the The Mystery of Banksy exhibit which was the main thing that brought me to Hamburg. Needless to say, it’s still a mystery. Though, I did notice one of the exhibits was set up with a Massive Attack poster, affirming my belief that Banksy is Robert DeNage.
After this, it was time for me to rest and recover. I mentioned in my earlier posts that I had sprained my ankle pretty severely about a week before my trip. Meeting with some friends afterwards, they were surprised that I was still planning on following through on this. Well, I made the reservations, and there was no turning back at that point, and will endure the pain if I have to.
Needless to say, the pain actually hasn’t been that bad. It was a bit bothersome in Rotterdam, but it seemed to be healing along the way. In Hamburg, I think the bigger issue is some blisters I am getting on my other foot, which were a bit painful. I mostly attribute this to me doing a shit ton of walking. Sure, this is something I normally do, but I have been doing this on a much larger scale for the past week.
After recovering, I walked back to the train station area, and did some people watching over a beer, before grabbing some McDonald’s, again with the fast food, and heading back down to the hotel.
Back at the hotel, the only English language station available was the BBC World Service. They were doing wall to wall coverage of Liz Truss and the cluster fuck she has caused. Earlier this month, she managed to crash the UK bond market with a ridiculous budget of tax cuts with no corresponding spending reductions. Shortly after, when it was obvious that her plan was not going to work, her Chancellor was replaced and now, this evening, here Home Secretary resigned. They included interviews with Conservative MP’s who were pretty much like, “we don’t know what to do now”. Wow, and I though US politics had issues.
Finally, after trying to keep up with this saga for a couple of hours, I headed to bed. Tomorrow was another travel day, this time to Berlin.
The next morning I discovered that I could in fact stream content fro my phone to the Smart TV that the room was equipped with. So perhaps my following of the Liz Truss saga the night before was entirely unnecessary. Oh well, hopefully the Hampton Inn that I am staying at in Berlin has a similar setup on their hotel TV’s
The following morning, after hotel breakfast and additional Starbucks, I headed to the train station to catch my train to Berlin.
And here I go..... 