Arrival
The flights were fine except that the flight from Newark left
an hour and a half late, and arrived one hour late.
The Train Station
I took the S-Bahn (sort of like light rail) to the hotel,
which is smack in the middle of nowhere. They said I could not
check in until 3 PM, so I had about four hours to kill, and I
took the S-Bahn back to the main train station. Here are
some photos inside the station.
There were lots of interesting places to eat as well;
I ended up getting some sort of wurst & french fries.
If I ate that stuff every day I’d have a coronary
within a month. The first picture is a pizza joint,
and the second I put in for Cathy’s benefit.
(Cathy is a co-worker who does
pot-bellied pig rescue.)
Hover the mouse over
a picture to see a translation.
Some pictures from outside the station; the last one is
the Schauspielhaus, or theater.
Outside the Station
From there, I walked around. These pictures are part of
the Kunsthalle (art museum).
There are a lot of rivers throughout Hamburg, and I got
a picture of one of the boats. You can take short tours
around the city on these boats.
Miscellanea
The garbage cans have clever sayings on them to urge
you to use them. Hover the mouse over a picture to see
the translation.
These little Smart Cars were just everywhere:
And these clever signs not only tell you where to
find parking; they tell you how many spaces are left
in each area:
I ended up on Spitalstrasse, which is a nice
pedestrian shopping area. On the way there, I found
two bookstores with lots of technical books in them.
I could have spent hours in
Thalia.
I noticed that Linux must be popular in Germany; there
were five different Linux magazines.
I didn’t have time to go as far down that street
as I wanted, but will probably return there tomorrow.
The Hotel
As I said, it is smack in the middle of nowhere. Their
promised Internet connection in every room isn’t
there, and the rooms don’t
have telephones—“Everyone has
a cell phone,” the manager told me.
Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, the room is clean and the bed
is comfortable, so I guess I can’t complain too much.
Anyway, the lack of Internet connection will get me out
of the room and doing more sightseeing tomorrow.
It is about 11:30 PM here, and I am going downstairs to
upload these files, and then get some sleep. We are way
farther north than in California; the sun did not set until
9:30 PM or so.
