Bremen and Hamburg
Last weekend, I went to visit Steph in Bremen. Although the train ride was tough (10 hours with a 4 hour layover at the Frankfurt train station), I had a great time. It was awesome seeing Steph again!
Bremen is, in many ways, a lot different than Tuebingen. To begin with, it’s a lot bigger than Tuebingen with almost 550,000 people instead of like 80,000. Even though it has a pretty sizeable population, the layout of the city prevented it from appearing that big. Until I looked up Bremen’s population on the Internet, I was going to guess that it would be about the same size as Wurzburg (it has about 200,000 people). The architecture is also a little different in northern Germany. The Altstadt (the old city) seems to be built in a much more gothic style than any of the buildings found in Tuebingen; they are much more imposing than Tuebingen’s historic buildings since they are mostly made out of wood. While Steph showed me the Altsadt, we actually did not go into too many buildings. After my train ride, I was wiped out so we mostly toured the shopping district and looked at the outdoor market. I was really glad that I brought my northface, however, because it is still really cold in Northern Germany. It rains a lot still in Tuebingen and it can get a little cool but it still feels like it’s winter in Bremen.
Hamburg
On Saturday, we took the train to Hamburg. It’s about two hours away from Bremen. While I felt Bremen to be a small city, Hamburg seemed almost a little too big for me. It has over a million people. I was glad that Steph knew where she was going (she went to Hamburg last year) because I would have gotten completely lost if left to my own devices.
The first place we visited was the art museum. This particular museum is apparently very famous in Germany and I can see why; they have a lot of great exhibits (almost too many. I think we were there for 2 hours and we only saw the 19th century and modern art exhibit. There were so many others!) While the modern art gallery was interesting, I really enjoyed the 19th century art. They had some Monet, Manet, and even some Picasso. They also had quite a few paintings from Casper David Friedrich, including his most famous ones “Wanderer above the Sea of Fog” and “The Sea of Ice”. I actually bought a poster of one of his works at the gift shop but unfortunately I accidentally left it with Steph; I will have to get it back from her sometime! I’m bringing back so much artwork back from Germany that I don’t know what I’m going to do with it all…
After we left the art museum, we walked around the city for a while and looked at the Rathaus (town hall) and a few churches. Hamburg was the victim of an air attack in WWII so one of the churches we looked at was, for the most part, destroyed. It is now a memorial rather than a church. The other famous church in Hamburg was also closed for reconstruction when we visited. The put up pictures of what it looked like without all the ladders, dirt, etc but it wasn’t really the same thing. After walking around the city for a while, we ended up crashing at a park that overlooks the river. All in all it was a very relaxing day.
On Sunday, I left for home (which was another 10 hour train ride) and I actually talked with a few people on the train. It is a lot easier to speak German with northern Germans because they do not use the “slang” German that most people use out here. I’ve been told that it is much easier to learn German in the north and I can see why; they speak exactly like the write. People in the south throw i all sorts of slang and even some swabish into the mix
Other than my visit to Northern Germany, everything has been pretty routine; I go to class, do my homework, and try to go to some extracurricular activities in order to meet some more Germans. I actually tried belly dancing last week (my friend really wanted to try it) and I’ve discovered (so surprising really) that I really suck. I can’t seem to just move one part of my body….When I try to move my hips, my whole body goes with it. The teacher laughed at me. I don’t think I’ll be trying out for any dancing auditions any time soon
