Hamburg - Home Away from Home

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I arrived in Hamburg after a delayed flight from Copenhagen late on Thursday afternoon. It was nice to fly in over the city and see all the familiar sights again. This is my third time in Hamburg.. I just keep coming back! Everytime I come here it is like rediscovering the city again... I have been here in Winter, Spring and now Autumn - and the city is a different landscape each time.
I met up with Christina at the airport. She and I met when I came to Hamburg as an exchange student back in 1993. We have kept in touch over the years and I visited her last time I was in Hamburg in 2005. Christina has planned my stay in Germany for me... so I am just going along with that! Nice way to end my last week in Europe... don't even have to think!!!
Yesterday the plan was to take a boat to Stade (a town a little further down the Elbe river), but the tide was out and the boat could not dock at that town. Also, the weather was quite dismal... so a boat trip might have been nice, but we would not have seen anything. So, we went to plan B and decided to do the shopping that we had intended on doing on my last day. We wandered through the city centre a bit and then made our way to the shopping centre that is in the suburb near Christina's house. We shopped until we dropped - but not before enjoying Kaffee and Küchen and have a lunch of Würst and Bratkartoffeln. We had a quiet evening at home.
Today, Christina is at school, so I have been let loose on the town to explore by myself. It has been a good opportunity to practice my rusty German, and I have had a nice time so far. For a city that I have visited 3 times now, I keep finding new things to explore. Today, I walked around the Binnenalster (a lake in the middle of the city) and then went up the lift to the top of the Nickolai tower. The Nickolai is a church that was bombed during WWII and they have kept the ruin as a memorial. There are some very nice views of the city from the top and the lift is glass, so we get a great view of the city and the lift goes on its journey.
I am having a great time in Germany so far and can't believe that I am already in my last week of my European holiday.

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