Hamburg - Day Two Part I

Hamburg – Day Two Part I

9th of July, 8:00 AM

The alarm clock was ringing which was a clear sign for me and for us all to stand up, so I opened my eyes and saw that everyone but me was already awake and afoot. But no, I wasn't the only late riser. Jasmin was still sleeping.
The other girls told me to hurry up, because we had to go to breakfast at 8:30, so we would be ready at 9 o'clock.

At breakfast we met the rest of our class. Today we planned to visit the Miniaturwunderland (miniature wonderland – the biggest model railway in the world) and Hamburg Dungeon (an attraction providing Hamburg's dark history; next to London Dungeon and York Dungeon a part of the Dungeon chain) in the morning.

9th of July, 10:00AM

Because we arrived at the Speicherstadt (old city island of Hamburg, with old buildings formerly used as storage for coffee, carpets, etc.) a lot earlier than we thought, we took a walk at the Elbe (another river). We've seen some people of a German beer company building up something for an event. My mate Katja incidentally fancied someone with curls and I was a bit annoyed by the rain.

Then the time was ripe to go in the Miniaturwunderland. I had already been there before, so it wasn't that interesting for me, although it's an interesting and beautiful place to visit. But I was really looking forward to Hamburg Dungeon, because I always wanted to visit that, but we've never had the time.

Between MiWuLa and Dungeon we had some spare time which ended up with standing in front of the Dungeon and talking to some of my classmates.
Suddenly three girls and one guy stood next to us.
"Can we interview some of you for a project.", one of the girls asked. We looked at each other and Babsi, Flo and Julia agreed. Me and Katja went along because of our curiosity. They asked them questions about the HafenCity (harbour city) which is currently being built next to the old Speicherstadt. The interviewees said exactly the opposite of what they wanted to hear, but well… It was our opinion!

Later on, when the interview was finished, we went back to our waiting point and stared some holes into spaces. Then Flo had the great idea to ask them where he could find an "Abort" (enormously franconian word for "toilet" or "Toilette" in German). So he went back to the interviewers and asked them in an extremely Franconian dialect, where he could find an Abort. First of all they went into a huddle and then one girl replied: "Well, the Speicherstadtmuseum is quite interesting, the Elbmuseum is nice as well…"

No comment at that point *facepalm*!
But you can't resent their language problems, because it was hard to understand. But it was funny, nevertheless.

9th of July, 1:00 PM

Hamburg Dungeon! In front of the building there was a woman who worked for the Dungeon. It was her job to kill the waiting people's time. And she was evil. And again because of our dialect. But we didn't care much and went inside. Tobi, a classmate, was frightened to death before the actual scary stuff started. He and Mr. S. went out later, because we and he were afraid he'd probably collapse.
At that day I wore my Werder Bremen Shirt. You gotta know that Werder Bremen and Hamburger SV are some of the worst 'enemies' in German Bundesliga. And while waiting some boys showed me a sticker on which you could read "Scheiss Werder" (something like "Fuck Werder"). I told them that "Scheiss" was spelled wrong and asked them of which football team they'd be fans. One of them answered Hamburger SV. They seemed to be quite aggressive (with such a sticker) for about 15 year old school boys, but in the end they were quite nice actually. Just a bit dumb and fan of the wrong team!

Then it was finally our turn to enter the Dungeon. It was quite interesting, because actors where talking to you. One of them screamed "Jasmiiiin!" all the time, because she made the mistake to tell him her name.
The 'stories' the Dungeon told us were about Hamburg's history – The big fire who destroyed half of the city in 1842; The cholera-epidemics 1852; Störtebeker and his stories (a well-known pirate) and the storm flood of 1962. It was scary and funny at the same time! And after all a great experience.
And at the end there was a smaller freefall tower we all liked a lot.

And also check these links out for more information concerning Hamburg Dungeon, Speicherstadt (pictures) and MiWuLa:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamburg_Dungeon (wikipedia entry for Hamburg Dungeon)
http://www.thedungeons.com/ (international Dungeons website)
http://www.miniatur-wunderland.com/ (English MiWuLa homepage)
http://www.hamburgfotos.de/speicherstadt/index.htm (pictures of the Speicherstadt)