Hamburg streets (the kids are running off 200m to the left)
Riverside apartment living (The kids are being held on to very tightly by their father and are wriggling and screaming 50m to the left)
More cool apartments (kids still going bananas as above)
The Police Station (the kids are running off and moaning about the sun 100m to the left)
Yesterday we went to Hamburg. I was humungously excited, especially as I'd got it confused with Dusseldorf, which is nowhere near it and probably nothing like it. The trouble is that I was aware they both had docks and I had initially known that Dusseldorf has some gorgeous Frank Gehry architecture at it's docks, and then over the mists of time (ok, the past month or two) somehow I started thinking they were in Hamburg.
Luckily for the rest of my family, I did some checking (which is highly unlike me) on the internet on Friday night and discovered my error, otherwise I would have had them trekking for hours round the docks in search of non-existant buildings.
Our plan had been that I would book a hotel room during last week and we would stay overnight. But with the general lethargy of being under the weather I just didn't get on to it, so we decided we would just chance it and get a room when we got there. But oh, what a horrible journey. Don't get me wrong we enjoyed flying along the Autobahn, scooting past endless flat fields, and seeing all the wind farms on the way, but Hamish had decided this did not fit with his plans for the weekend (I don't want to go to school, I want to go see baby animals) & did nothing but moan for the entire journey, and once we arrived in Hamburg, Orla decided it was her turn to have tantrums, scream and be generally horrible.
Stevie and I both felt worn out and even though our first stop was lunch in a thankfully empty cafe, we both thought it might be an idea just to finish up quickly and go home.
Hamburg was lovely. A nice mix of modern and old. Lovely waterways and attractive buildings. I spent a fair amount of my time fuming though as the kids kept running away and not coming back. Despite enjoying fuming through the city with it's Elle Decoration-like riverside view apartments, and the Habitat I had to speed round and hastily murmur "Oh I like that!", "Oh I need those", "Oh, looking at this sofa I do realise I miss the UK", I think we were glad to get back home. Stevie and I were both drained by the kids, and we've realised we 'may' need to re-evaluate our plans of visiting more German cities over the summer if this was a blueprint for how the kids would be. Stevie is currently lying in bed trying to work out how we can navigate the whole of Germany incorporating a trip to German Legoland just to keep the kids happy. He may be some time, I imagine it requires some serious inventiveness.
And today, in a return to normal programming, we will be visiting some baby animals. And having an easy life. Aah!
I spent a day in Hamburg whilst I was on post-GCSE work experience, age 16, with my (much older) cousin who pretended I was volunteering at her husband's advertising agency but instead made me babysit their three small boys for a week. Anyway, for some reason we also went on an overnight ferry trip to Hamburg, during which adventure I had to be locked into their cabin after being plied with Baileys by an enthusiastic young squaddie, so all I remember of Hamburg is teenage shame and hangover. It looks lovely from your pictures though.
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