So here we go with the vacation posts, as promised! We started our trip by heading north towards Denmark, our first Scandinavian country. We had debated on whether or not to just drive to Copenhagen in one day, but, while it's technically do-able, we decided to stop in Hamburg for our first night. I had often heard that Hamburg was a German city very much worth seeing; huge harbor, historical areas, modern architecture, etc. Stefan's mother grew up near Hamburg, and Stefan was born in Hamburg and lived there for a bit of his first few years of school.
So, after church we drove north. We spent the afternoon and early evening walking around the city. However, we kicked things off with a 'Hafenrundfahrt' (harbor tour). We spent an hour riding around Hamburg's massive harbor. It was pretty unbelievable! The first thing that was pointed out to us was an enormous yacht being built/modified in the shipyards (1-2). Owned by a Russian billionaire, it's the largest private yacht in the world, complete w/it's own submarine. (You can read about it here, it's pretty insane!) We also saw the Rickmer Rickmers (3). This boat has docked here for ages. Stefan's parents once had dinner on the boat!
We saw many other boats in the harbor and it was a great sunny day to be out. We also saw the famous new philharmonic concert hall, still under construction (4, see it's future here), one of the Aida cruise ships (5), the construction of HafenCity (6) with it's amazing modern architecture, and we cruised through the historical Speicherstadt. If you ever get the chance to visit Hamburg, do it! And definitely make time to do a Hafenrundfahrt!
We spent the evening trying to see if we could find the apartment where Stefan's family lived for a short time (only 2 years) when he was little. So much had changed after nearly 30 years, so it took some hunting, but we found it! This is where Stefan played hide-and-go-seek with his little brother in the tall hedges and learned to ride his bike on the sidewalk. It was nice to see that the property was still well-maintained.
After dinner at a local Italian restaurant we drove one town over to Allison's house. This was the first 'blog friend' we were meeting up with, and we were spending the night there! Allison and I had been emailing for a while and commenting on each other's blogs, so it was fun to finally meet up in person! While it was admittedly a little weird thinking we were going to spend the night at the home of somebody we'd never met, it ended up being great. As Allison's dad once said to her, "If the devil can use the internet for evil, than the Lord can surely use it for good". So true!
It turns out that Allison actually met her German husband online. This, in turn, ended up being fascinating for Stefan. He had never met another couple where the husband was German and the wife American. The men had some good laughs at the wives' expense I think! Really, though, it was a very nice time. Allison and her husband are also both Christians and active in their Hamburg church, so there were lots of other things to talk about as well. It's pretty amazing how faith in Christ really just brings people together, a beautiful thing, actually.
While it's absolutely pathetic that I only took one or two pictures of our sweet guest room and totally neglected taking photos of their darling baby boy, her amazing studio, and her jaw-dropping collection of finished work in her basement 'shop', not to mention our fantastic hosts, I think it's a testimony to the fact that I was too busy enjoying my time to take pictures. (and seriously Juliette, pictures of the guest room?! it was cute though, right??) Still, it's a shame. Maybe she'll agree to an interview post over on my Zuhause blog in the future... (hint hint)
Monday morning brought a drawn-out brunch that segued into afternoon farewells. Allison stuffed our little cooler with freshly baked spanakopita, cookies, chocolates, and antipasto before letting us leave. We literally ate for two days from that feast! We were so grateful! Stopping at Allison and Christoff's was a great way to kick off our trip and we hope to see them again sometime (and not just for the amazing food, ha!). Definitely a big 'yay God!' for connections like that!
We didn't have to go far before we found ourselves waiting in an eternal line at the ferry terminal. It turned out that their recommended arrival time was waaay off. We missed our reserved ferry waiting in line, but made a connection 2 boats later. With 5 more ferry rides ahead of us on our road trip, we learned the hard way about making sure we get there extra early. Thankfully there was no financial penalty on the short trip from Germany to Denmark!
Stay tuned for the next stop: Copenhagen!
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