Gent and Hamburg

Monday afternoon we caught a train to Gent, found our hostel, wandered around and settled ourselves at a riverside pub that bragged of 150 local beers available. A cold beer by the water is the perfect way to end a long day.

Tuesday was the day of ultimate health : we had meat and cheese sandwiches for breakfast, an apple for lunch and puréed vegetable soup. (it was actually really tasty). We explored the town, semi in search of interent to find a hostel for Hamburg, and ended up at the biggest cathedral in town. Upon entering, there was a table with a poster on it saying that free tours were available. Being the poor students that we are, we asked about the next english tour. A German girl, Marieke, said that the english girl was under the weather, but she was willing to do it with her « not very good english». Turns out, she was overly modest, speaking perfectly. It was a good time. We visitied the 11th century crypt and the famous reporduction of the Adoration of the Lamb. It was really interesting with an interesting story - way back when, some guy stole a panel of the altar and therefore making famous - more people are concerned with the stolen one than the actual altar itself. The thief said that when it was time for him to die, he was going to confess to its hiding place. He died suddenly. No one has any idea where the panel is. Jokes on them.

We found internet in an italian café. It was great, updated everything. After dinner, I went and sat on the canal with my book : Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman, a unique read.

Wednesday, we ran to get breakfast, smuggled some sandwiches out in our valuable tupperware, and went back to our room to do intense laundry. It is amazing how quickly you run out of clean underwear when you only have 3 pairs. Later, we found a 15th century epicerie (an old school spice shop). It smelled just like the Dutch Toko. It was great!! We found a cheap package of spekuloos. mmmm..... we then had spekuloos sandwichs for lunch with our smuggled bread. We had a beer ar the family run brewery, Gruut. It was good. The actual seating was beside the brewing tanks. Cool.

Thursday we were up on good time to catch our train from Gent to Brussels. We had had plans to meet up with this guy for coffee, but that fell through when he didn't show up. We then caught our train to Hamburg. That was certainly an adventure as with Eurail passes, you don't make a reservation and therefore get kicked out of the seat by someone with a reservation. I think I ended up moving over 6 times!! frustrating as it was a full train. I ended up sitting on the floor by the luggage rack, that is until some overweight old man stood on my hand. OW!!

When we arrived, we saved money by walking to our hostel. Little did we know that it was a 5km hike across the city with all of our crap. totally not cool. We ended up walking through the Reeperbahn (which we know fondly recall as Creeperbahn). There were many old creepers hanging around the entrance of strip clubs trying to get us to come in. Why, I don't know. We were both sweaty carrying huge backpacks and obviously not in the mood for a good time*.

The hostel was a little sketchy. It was a basement appartment that was filled with bunk beds. The room that we stayed in was a 12 bed dorm. It was alright security wise until we realised that in about 40 people, we were the only girls in the place. sweet! actually it turned out alright, as the guys were all very wary of our presence and therefore were very gentleman like.

Friday, we explored the town, by walking the 4 .5km back to the center of the town. It started to rain, so we found ourselves an internet café where I could call home. The family seemed fairly excited to hear from me. Later, we again found a big church, it turns out that there are all kinds everywhere in every city and therefore easy to find. It was a Lutheran church, which we didn't figure out until we attended it on Sunday. We also visited the town hall, got a summary of all the museums and tourist spots by an older gentleman, who was overly kind. After a serious adventure we found a grocery store, we bought cans and vegetables and sat on the dock by the lake. It was beautiful there.

Hamburg, we decided would be a great city to live in, have a job, a social life, etc., but it was not really a great place to visit. Being the righest city in Germany, they really play it up and therefore all the tourist things are really expensive. It is more retired, world traveling couple's destination.

Saturday, we hit up a museum, to be all cultural. It was alright. There was a temporary exhibit on a German cartoonist, I think his name is Loitor, anyways, the sketches were really hilarious even though we couldn't read the captions. The rest of the museum was filled with porcelain figures and then sturdy, never-dying german made hardwood furniture. It was very indicative of the culture and the Germans themselves. In the huge, prissy mall, Europa Passage, there was a big bookstore with a good english section. We plunked in their couches with some books for a while. I love reading in the mother tongue : comprehension levels are so much higher. We found a cheap italian gelato vendor. I had tiramisu and mocca. It was sooooo good.

Sunday, we dragged ourselves out of bed early and went to the church that we had previously found. It was lutheran, we discovered when we were given a bulletin. The structure was the same as a reformed service, the building was a almost catholic, but it was lacking the statues of Mary and baby Jesus and there was no insense in the service. That afternoon, we went back to the hostel and died. we slept, napped, read our books, journaled, sudokud, etc. general laziness. Neither of us had any energy left after sleeping for 6 hours - a drunken spanish guy wanted us to go out with them, but SSSHHHH!!!! he's from south africa where SSSHHH!!!!!! the canadian girls need to come SSSHHH!!!! otherwise it be no fun!! come!!! SSSHHHH!!!!! the canadian girls are sleeping.....SSHH!!! it was hilarious, but really didn't aid in the resting process.

Our train left the main station at noon to Berlin. We got everything cleaned up and packed away before we were off. after only a short run in with the law, we made it to our train. Goodbye Hamburg!

*Subject to personal interpretation.