September 5th, 2008: Hamburg, Germany
Bob: Hoping to walk the Hamburg Volksmarch that we had done on Wanderung 15, we took the train down to the harbor and stopped in at Kapitaen Pruesse. But we had left our Volksmarching books at home and they didn't have any replacements available, so we had to give up on the Volksmarch. I made a mental note to put 4 insert cards into our luggage for the next trip; sometimes it seems like we are always packing for what we left behind on the last trip instead of our upcoming trip!
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Monika: We thought that this morning we would try to do the Hamburg Permanente Wanderweg (year round Volksmarch). We did not have our books, but thought that Kapitaen Pruesse, the store were the start point is located, would have either books for sale, or insert cards. However, they had neither. We looked at each other and both thought: "No stamp, no walk". So we turned around and thought about what to do. |
Bob: We continued into the "new town" section located at the end of the harbor and walked back past the Maritime Museum to get to the Prototyp Auto Museum, a museum dedicated to some prototypes and vintage post-war Porsche models. In contrast to the enormous extent of the Maritime Museum, the Prototyp Museum was quite small, consisting mainly of two exhibition rooms on a single floor of one of the restored warehouses. I was particularly impressed by the extreme streamlining of one of the prototypes on exhibit; even the front wheel wells had removable covers on them to smooth on the airflow, and, as a result, it could achieve surprising high speeds with very limited horsepower. The museum also displayed some racing cars where the external body panels had been removed so that we could see the details of the internal framework; I enjoyed getting a really close look at how all the suspension pieces worked on those exhibits.
I had the most fun with a driving simulator built around a Posche body and a wide-screen TV, because I could not only touch it, but actually drive it. The clutch, brake, gas pedal, and gearshift were all there and it worked quite well. It took me a while to realize that the racing circuit was a kind of motocross track where half of it was on mud and dirt while the other half was on a normal paved racetrack, but once I got used to that I started to really have fun. Although the Prototype Museum was limited in coverage and could be covered in just a few minutes by folks not really interested in cars, I did enjoy it. |
Monika: There was this other museum in the Hafencity, a Porsche Museum. Wow, I could hardly contain my enthusiasm. But what the hey, my only hope was that it was a lot smaller than the maritime museum. And indeed it was only one floor of cars and a floor of pictures. It still took a couple of hours with Bob carefully looking at every car. There also was a simulator and Bob had fun trying to negotiate the race course without crashing. |
Bob: Around this time we were getting hungry, so we hiked back to an Imbiss located on a nearby Fleet. Ordinarily, a German Imbiss, like a typical British pub, will give you decent food at decent prices with decent service. But this time we waited and waited and waited for our order, and finally after a half an hour of fruitless waiting we demanded our money back and left in disgust. The silver lining on this unfortunate experience was that our next attempt at lunch was down near the Jungfernstieg where we had a very hot and spicy curry-laced Frikadelle with a big dinner roll. I was surprised to see curry entering into German cuisine, but I would guess that like in England the immigration of folks from Asia is leading to more experimentation in the traditional cuisine. |
Monika: For lunch, we again tried the little bistro that was in an old building next to a bridge over a fleet. It was beautiful outside, so we gave out order inside and set down outside. I made the mistake of paying right then, bad idea. When not even our drinks arrived, we finally asked and then I even had to go in to get our drinks. We watched a group of construction workers on break and other people getting served. I finally got hold of the waitress again and asked about our food. She said "oops" I'll tell the cook. After a little time, she came out to tell us that our selection was no longer available, but in about 20 minutes we could have something else. We had enough, finished our drinks, and asked for our money back. This she gave us without problem. The cook grumbled about "Can't even wait 15 minutes" to which I replied that we had waited already 30 minutes. |
Bob: After looking at a the set of booths in the Rathaus marketplace that had been set up to showcase bicycling, where I saw a 7,000 Euro (around $10,000!) carbon-fiber framed bicycle (!), we returned home for Kaffeetrinken with Heinke and Gustl and packing. |
Monika: So still hungry, we forged on. We knew there was a really nice food court next to the Rathaus, and when I looked at our map, I was surprised to see that we were only a few blocks away from the Rathaus. On the Rathaus Square was an exhibit for and about bicycles. So after lunch, we took a turn through it and Bob enjoyed reading about the newest bicycles available in Germany, although he was astonished at some of the prices. |
Bob: After that we headed off yet again for a dinner with Silke, an old friend of Monika's, and her husband Ulf in Hochkamp. It was a wonderful meal and the conversation ranged from family matters to health concerns to politics to global warming and, basically, anything that popped into our heads. We chatted so long and hard that we didn't get back home and back into bed near midnight, which is way late for us. |
Monika: For the evening, we were going to visit my oldest friend Silke. She lived across the street from me while we were growing up, and we spent a lot of time together. I remember her coming over on Sunday mornings and we would play chess. My father would sit quietly reading his book, until Silke was about to make a fatal error, at which point he would make some comment like "Not a good idea". I was, of course, irked at my father. I had written Silke a snail mail letter and asked for her E-mail address, and she invited us for dinner tonight. We had met her and her husband Ulf before and, as before, the four of us just started chatting. We all still seemed to be on the same wavelengths. We heard about their daughter who had studied architecture and now was working in London, and we talked about our kids. But besides family, we seemed to talk about pretty much every other subject you can imagine. It reminded me of getting together with our old college friend Chris, no matter how long a time between visits, 2 hours, 2 days, or 2 years, we always seem to take up where we had left. It was midnight by the time we quietly crept into our beds. |
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