German Trails

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Geo: 53.5534, 9.9922

Germany! First stop was Mummelmannsburg. Ok, I will make it easier for you, Hamburg.
I flew in to Hamburg with limited sleep and a horrible cold. Not the best way to start a trip. After taking the train in to the Hauptbahnhof, I was greeted by a friend I met in Australia last year.
I was sleeping at her place, but with a catch, a 15min underground train trip to the outskirts of the city to the suburb of Mummelmannsburg, which roughly translates in to "Bunny Hill".
Being sick sucks, so I wasn't in an energetic state. But with the limited time I couldn't let it stop me from seeing this nice city.
It was cloudy when I landed but as soon as we got in to the city it cleared up and was a beautiful blue sky in no time. A trade mark of my travels.
So not to waste the whole day we caught the train back in to town and took a small tour of the university of Hamburg, we met up with Merets boyfriend and a few other class mates and played some table soccer and mini soccer in one of the rooms used for testing kids in psychology. Then back for some much needed rest.

The following day produced another beautiful clear sunny day, and being on a Sunday means the city water front was buzzing full of people. Too many people were queuing for a ride in the ferry so we skipped that and walked along the river bank, having ice cream and chucking coins on a post for good luck. I got mine first shot, oh yeah.
The riverside was quite nice, on the other side is the huge industrial shipping area, scattered with cranes, ships and shipping containers. Kind of reminds me of Newcastle in Australia. Afterwards we caught the train to the "alternative" area for a bite to eat and a walk around the area. we headed back around 5 and it was bed bound for me.

I had a train booked for Berlin at 2.30 and I hadn't really had the opportunity to see a bit of the other sites and the city. I arranged to meet another friend for a couple of hours before hand. We strolled around and saw a bit of the city and accompanying sights, a few churches and the town hall. I thought the town hall was really nice and I think you are allowed to visit it inside but it was closed on the day we went, but from what I saw it looked quite nice.
Hamburg was great, unfortunately I didn't have the opportunity to enjoy it as much as I could by being sick, but it was a really nice city.

Fast-forward 7 days {Berlin, another blog) and I now find myself in a car with a Frenchman and German guy.
See the trains in Germany are really expensive, so there is a website used for people who are travelling by car to allow people to join them for a small amount. So instead of paying 80 euro to take the train from Berlin to Dortmund, I payed 21 euro. A BIG difference.
the sight for reference is www.mitfahrgelegenheit.de, A real tounge twister.
I was lucky to join the two guys to Dortmund and then with the German guy to Witten where I was to be staying for what was originally going to be 2 nights and ended up being 4.
I was visiting Joana, my brothers girlfriend, in Witten, a small town south of Dortmund. Joana had the next day off from work, so we took a drive to an organic farm nearby where my brother had been working for a while when he was there last. It was a small farm but really nice, a few animals and two dirty old couches where my brother rests and sleeps when he is too lazy to work.

From there we went to visit Dortmund, armed with a Dortmund city brochure from the ITB Travel convention in Berlin, we set about discovering the highlights. The city was nice, but packed with people along the main shopping arcade. I can't help thinking if anyone why there is so many people around in the middle of the day and does anyone in Germany work? The I realise there are 80 million people in Germany and this isn't Australia.
This was also the case when I went to Cologne {Koln} for the day.
We took a walk to the park and sat to enjoy the sun. We went up the Tv Tower for a measly 2.50 euro for some nice views, but it was a bit hazy along the horizon.
We proceeded back to old Witten town for some nice home cooked meal which I was fortunate to have most nights with Joana and her flat mates.
A big thanks goes out to Joana, Meret, Liisa and Ina for all their help with accommodation and food and entertainment.

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