Germany Day 11 – Kids' Day Out

A small, historical stop
on the road to Berlin

We reached Kyra's limit on day 10. We'd spent a couple of days of serious site-seeing in Hamburg, walking a lot, and enjoying boring things like the weather, the scenery, the architecture and the history. If she knew the phrase "death march," she would have used it. And we followed it up with a long car ride from Hamburg to Berlin, by way of a couple of small, but historically significant towns. This morning we'd thought to get started with a bus tour of Berlin, to get our bearings, and to stop at a few of the major destinations, such as Checkpoint Charlie and the Reichstag and The Brandenburg Gate, and cross them off our list. And she just couldn't take it anymore.

Kyra - having fun
at the trampoline

When she had turned nine, we'd decided that now was the time to start traveling with her. It felt like she'd reached an age when a window of opportunity was open, a window that is likely to close again when she's 16 or so, and too busy or too cool to spend several weeks at a time with us. She's old enough now to keep herself occupied and amused for decent stretches of time. We've traveled with her before this of course, to see her grandparents, or to visit friends with kids, or to go to Disneyland. But this is different – a trip with long plane and car rides, lots of site-seeing, and long stretches without other kids.

We've made some accommodations for her. For example, we brought along some DVDs of her favorite TV shows, so that in the morning she can sit around in her pajamas for a half hour watching some familiar TV before getting up and going. And we brought along the laptop with some really good video games, so that she can kill some time in the evening, if there's nothing else to do in a hotel room, or if the grownups are sitting around chatting in that boring way we sometimes do. We brought along a big stack of books, and always have one handy, in case we're stuck waiting for a train, or standing in line, or sitting on a boat looking at castles for a little too long. We brought along her favorite stuffed animals, and don't blink when she wants to bring one along to a restaurant, or on the subway. And we've considered her interests when we're making our plans, which are short on museum visits, for example, and long on stops for ice cream.

But we hit her limit today, and needed to reconsider our plans. Fortunately, our hotel is right across the street from the Berlin Zoo, and so we didn't have to think too hard about what to do. We spent the day at the zoo, and it was great.

The zoo itself was beautiful. Walking through it felt like walking through a park with lush vegetation and winding paths. Some of the animals were familiar, such as elephants and zebras, but sometimes even the familiar ones looked different. (I think their zebras may have more stripes.) And sometimes the animal selection was completely different, so that we saw some we'd never seen before, for example wild animals that closely resembled pet kittens. The habitats were smaller than at our local zoo, and the safety precautions different, so that the animals were much closer to us than we were used to, and we could see them much more clearly. We saw an elephant bathing himself in a pond, for example, squirting himself with water from his trunk, and we felt a few drops of water land on us. He was so close that had he wanted to, he could have easily drenched us. And we watched penguins swimming by so close that we could have reached down to touch them.

On the playground

But the best part of the afternoon was at the playground in the zoo. It was the most elaborate playground I'd ever seen, with trampolines, and other play equipment I'd never seen before on a playground. Kyra found some girls her own age, and even though none of them spoke English, and Kyra speaks nothing but, they figured out how to play together, and she played there for about two hours. When she was done playing, she was tired, flushed, and happy. We spent the evening playing in the hotel pool.

The funny thing is that Paul and I had needed a day off from our vacation too, only we don't tend to cry or whine, so if it hadn't been for Kyra, we probably wouldn't have taken one. But all the plans we'd had for today, wonderful things that we may only get to do once in our lives, and which we were gritting our teeth and approaching like an onerous duty, we're now eagerly anticipating doing tomorrow. At least, Paul and I are eagerly anticipating them. Kyra is willing, and she knows that if nothing else, she'll have along a book to read.

Days 8 & 9 in Germany – Sunny Hamburg

Kyra relaxing at a beach cafe

It's the middle of our trip, and we're drooping a bit. I skipped a day of blogging because I went to bed when we got home last night instead of writing about our day, and then I slept in this morning too. We are kind of drifting along in the middle of our trip, enjoying Britta's company, and enjoying the sunshine and beautiful weather, which is a happy change from the weeks of dreary cold rain they'd been having in Hamburg.

Britta took us to all of her favorite haunts, downtown, at the docks, in the Portuguese enclave, around a lake, and gave us a running travelogue as we went, one of the advantages to knowing geographers. We took a boat up the Elbe, to see the container port, which was pretty fascinating. We watched ships being loaded and unloaded by robotic cranes, and enormous ships being tugged out of the dock and sent on their way to the sea.

The Hamburg port

We spent a leisurely hour on the beach, lounging in deck chairs at a beach café – right on the Elbe, across from the docks. We rode the ferris wheel and drank BubbleTea at the carnival near her place. We spent some time in her apartment with our feet up, enjoying the view and cold drinks, and caught a cool water and light show in the park last night.

At the carnival

Today we went to the world's largest model train exhibit, and it was incredible. It's so large that they have divided the exhibit into countries. In Switzerland, there's a miniature Matterhorn, with a moving tram to take skiers up the mountain. In Austria there's an airport with model planes that actually taxi, land and take off. In the Hamburg area, you can see the building that houses the model train exhibit we were in, and when you peak in the tiny windows, you can see an even tinier model train exhibit. It's kind of like a diorama of model train infinity.

After a week in Germany, I am in better shape than I have been in years, despite the fact that we've been eating ice cream every day. (Kyra's idea.) It's been like a week on a medieval stone stairmaster. Everywhere we go we are walking up and down stairs. Yesterday we decided to climb to the top of the tower of Michaeliskirche (St. Michael's church) to look out over Hamburg, and Kyra objected. There was an elevator, and she wanted to take it. But first we had to climb three flights of stairs to get to it.

Kristin and Britta

Tomorrow we head to Berlin, the last stop on our trip. We won't be sorry to leave our hotel, which has the worst coffee I've ever tried – so bad that we actually went without caffeine this morning rather than drink it. It has a laundry room with a washer and dryer, which was nice, because we wanted to clean a few things before we packed. But when we went to check it out, we saw that it had only a washing machine, and that what they called a dryer was actually a wooden rack where you can hang your wet clothes. So we washed a few things out in the sink, and we're hoping for better luck in hotels when we get to Berlin.

Hamburg - The New York of Germany - Day 7

It was sad to say good-bye to Tina, a good friend I only see about once a decade or so. Sad to say good-bye to leisurely breakfasts over bread and cheese and really good coffee, and to talks late into the night. But it was time to press on to Hamburg.

Rest stop on the way to Hamburg

Our fantasies about driving 100 mph on the Autobahn were just that. The trip from Frankfurt to Hamburg is supposed to take about four hours, but it took eight, because the Autobahn was a parking lot most of the way. Germany is about the same size as Wisconsin, but with about 16 times more people, and they were all on the highway to Hamburg.

We're staying at the Suite Novotel, a new, modern hotel that strikes us as a Budgetel for international business travelers. Our room is very sleek, but very compact, with bamboo screens that slide across the middle of the room dividing the desk area from the bed area, and thus qualifying as a suite. The bathroom is in two parts, with a shower, bathtub and sink in one modular unit off the bed area, and a toilet and sink modular unit off the desk area, apparently so your guests to the desk area don't need to see your shaving and bathing things, while still being able to do their business, in all senses of the word.

The Hamburg port
and the Blockbrau Microbrewery

After checking in, we met up with Britta, a friend I met in grad school, when she came to Wisconsin for a Master's in Geography. Now she's a professor at the university in Bonn, but she keeps an apartment in Hamburg, very near the port, in the part of the city that must be the Greenwich Village of Hamburg, filled with color and street life and many, many people.

Finding parking near her place was tricky, and involved some nasty, aggressive people in a sporty car, completely uncharmed by Kyra and her stuffed dog Puffy, trying to bully us out of a parking space. And we were again reminded of New York.

Dinner

We walked down to the water for dinner at a wonderful microbrewery in a charming old building, with great food and beer and a great view of the port. I took Britta's dare, and ordered Labskaus, a traditional dish of fried eggs, hash, a little dead fish and a pickle. Apparently these are all things that are easily preserved on a long sea voyage, and this is a favorite comfort food in the area. It was surprisingly good, or else I was very hungry.

Tunnel under the Elbe

After dinner we took a walk along the water, and then took many, many steps down what looked like an enormous underground tower, to a tunnel that runs under the Elbe to the shipyards out on an island.  The tunnel was long, probably several football fields, and beautiful – fully lined with decorative tile for its entire length. It was built in the early 1900s for the thousands of shipyard workers who needed to cross the river to get to work. The underground tower is actually a car elevator, which still operates, and it also has pedestrian elevators, and the many, many steps for people like us, who can't seem to avoid treating Germany as a giant stairmaster.

Even late at night the tunnel was packed with pedestrians and bicyclists. On we got to other side, we looked back to Hamburg, and watched fireworks over the city. Very nice.