Spring Break: Germany

Well after some trouble with the security at the Venice airport, we finally made it into Cologne, Germany on Thursday night. Steve's friend from high school, Alex, moved to Germany with her family a couple years ago. So she picked us up from the airport and drove us 45 minutes back to her hometown of Grefrath. Their house was very cool and her family was very excited for our visit. After settling our stuff down into our room, her mom had a home cooked (!!!) meal of chicken quesadillas and some various German finger foods. The food was very good. After we all ate, showered and emailed our parents, we went to bed for a busy day the next day.

On Friday, we woke up and had another incredible home cooked meal. The breakfast was absolutely amazing before we headed out for downtown Cologne. First we hit a Nazi Museum, which was a Gestapo Jail while Hitler was in power. The entire building just gives you the chills. The audio guide first took you downstairs to the cells. As seen in the picture, the cells were only suppose to be used for one or two people, but the Nazis would shove up to 30 people into one cell at any given time! There were scratchings all over the walls, some of which were translated, making the suffering of these people even more painfully obvious. These notes were about their terrible experiences, goodbye notes to loved ones and people expressing their deepest regrets. The upstairs of the building gave a history of the Nazi regime. It was a very sobering experience.

Next, we headed over to the huge Cathedral in Cologne. The structure was stunning and the inside was beautiful too, it was very Gothic. We paid an extra euro to climb over 500 stairs to the top of the Cathedral. The view was not as good as in Rome and Florence, but it was still very cool. You crossed the Cathedral bells, so we waited for the bells to ring. It was insanely loud, but cool to witness. We headed down from the Cathedral to meet up with Alex to make our way to Hamburg.

To get from Cologne to Hamburg, we drove on the Autobahn. And I always knew that cars didn't have speed limits, but I was amazed that cars really do go scary fast. Alex let Rock drive for a majority of the time. We maxed out at around 170 kilos/hour (which is about 105 mph). I thought I would be really nervous about the fast driving, but drivers are very respectful of the rules or the road and follow them very closely. I never felt unsafe in the 5 hour drive. When we finally arrived in Hamburg, we went grocery shopping, settled down in Alex's apartment and made some dinner. The next day, we took a bus tour of the city to learn about it. We learned that Hamburg was not only beautiful, but has more bridges than both Amsterdam and Venice, that it has the second biggest port in Europe and that the Beatles were"discovered" there. For the rest of the day, we just walked around and got ready for the night.

That night we went to the street of bars in Hamburg, called the Reeperbahn. It is full of clubs and bars that you can just walk in and out of. It was a lot of fun, German night life is crazy. We went into the bar that the Beatles were supposedly discovered. They played something like 700+ hours of concert at this one bar. They have the Beatles figures outside the bar that you can stand in, as you can see in the picture. Hamburg also has a red light district, so of course the boys had to see it. This was VERY different than the Red Light District of Amsterdam. I held both boys hands and still got very insulted. The girls would swear at me, call me crude names and even spit on me. At the end, one of the "pimps" told me very harshly to get out. We quickly obeyed and I had the boys stay at my immediate side for the rest of the night.

The next day, we were headed back for London. Although it was an amazing trip and every second was filled with fun and excitement, the three of us were glad to be going home. We made one final trip around the city, had some dinner and headed home. Overall, spring break was some of the most amazing ten days of my life.