30 Juli-- Day 36

Okay. So after staying up waaay too late for real people, MC and I decided to get up around 9 or so. The prof was going to the Kunsthalle, this GIGANTIC art museum, and since we figured that would be fun, we decided to go there too (but later than her, cause we needed to have at least some sleep). This place was absolutely magnificent:

Nausicaa and her handmaids
George Dunlop Leslie

The Rauter Family
Johann Friedrich Dieterich

Click the photos to see bigger versions- the first was a pretty damn large paintings.Afterwards, we decided to go to the harbor. There's a huge huge harbor right in the middle of the city, and lots of bridges and whatnot.

The coppery-looking building is the Rathaus (again, the town hall, no rats except politicians)
if you were looking out from the front of the Rathaus, you would see the harbor

St. Nicolai church.

This one was pretty much all destroyed in WWII, but the tower is still standing and a little bit of the back wall. You can take an elevator up, through what used to be the bell tower or whatever,and then look around. Absolutely breathtaking. Plus, it's an absolutely beautiful example of the beauty of ruined buildings. It was so windy, and there were only these metal poles holding you in (felt like cliffdiver at splish splash)-- i was so afraid that a. I would drop my camera, b. that I would fall. I have my priorities.

The view from the top of the St. Nikolai church. In the background you can see another church.

There were a lot of lot of churches here, all of them magnificent. I think there were about 6 in all or so.

After looking at pretty much every church, and passing through the Rathaus, we were pretty exhausted. J and MC and I traveled together during the day to all these churches and whatnot. Then J and I went to go visit another church and see the Hafencity (HarborCity), which is basically this huge business/ can't really pin it down district. However, it's off another set of canals (?)/rivers(?). There's also a year round haunted hause there called the Hamburg Dungeon, and also a huge museum on model rains or something? (wasn't willing to pay the 9+ euros it cost to get in.)

The water between two parts of the Hafencity

We decided to meet up at this "Winedorf" in front of the Rathaus for dinner. Apparently, they hold this little winefest every year, and people from the southwest of Germany come up to Hamburg and bring their wines and their traditional food, and Hamburgers bring their beer and their fish, and they trade. There's this food called "Maultaschen"... absolutely delicious. It's like a dumpling, but not.

Inside the winedorf.

We split a bottle. Or 3. Delicious white wine.

Afterwards, we sat on the edge of the water (a little canal right next to the harbor)

Afterwards, we were sitting outside, and listening to this busker playing guitar. he was originally from italy, and so our spanish speakers could communicate with him to an extent. Beautiful music, beautiful view. After sitting there for at least a good half hour or so, we decided to split up- half of us went to St. Pauli again, and the other half went back to the hostel, and sat in the hostel bar to chat. I was in the latter group, while we had all gone to sleep at like 6:30 (except one) but only 2 of us (except one) got up before 11:30 or so. Also, I wanted to go to the fish market before we had to leave the next morning. So, I woke up at 5:15. Clearly my brain was churning out some great decisions then.