Day 8 - The Long Road Home

After a not very good night's sleep I think I can say that at this time of year the sun does not ever really go away in Stockholm. I don't think it ever got darker than just a deep blue.  Just enough to get the street lights on but not full dark.  Eventually though it was time to get out on the road.  At 4:45 there were still lots of people out coming home from their late nights out.  We caught the express train (normal trains weren't running yet) out to Arlanda airport which was a zoo.  You'd think Stockholm would have a nice, efficient airport but no, things were moving so slowly they had to hold the plane for us and a couple other passengers who were trying to get through security after dropping off their bags.  Crazy!

Once on the plane I promptly passed out and woke up in Copenhagen which has an incredibly efficient airport - except for where people come out of the baggage claim, that is a nasty bottleneck.  But their security area I think is the biggest I've ever seen, it seems to occupy an entire floor of the main terminal building.  But anyway, after a snack we boarded flight number two to Dusseldorf via Air Berlin again.  And again I managed to sleep through the flight.

Our layover in Dusseldorf was about 5 hours so we decided to catch the train into the city and find a place to have lunch.  The area around the train station wasn't too nice and it was pretty dead on a Sunday so we ended up walking maybe a bit over a mile over to the old town area before we found any action.  It seemed to us that on our walk the canal that runs north/south through central Dusseldorf separates the nice and touristy side from the less nice, dead-on-a-Sunday area.  The old town area was very nice and crowded due to some festival going on.  We found a place that seemed alright if not a little seedy and the food was okay.  But the trip out was worth it to see what was going on in Dusseldorf.

Heading back to the train we got caught in a sudden and intense rain storm so we were a little bedraggled getting back into the airport.  This one was another efficient one and we had no issues boarding our flight back to the states.  Naturally I got stuck behind a full time seat recline person and naturally I gave it a few good shoulder checks.  I watch Desolation of Smaug and The Lego Movie, both were enjoyable.  We spent the night with Peter and Vicki again and tomorrow we are flying back to our respective homes.  Trip over!  What a great one!  Hope you enjoyed reading.

Day 7 - Our Last Day in Scandinavia

We slept in as late as we could and still make it to breakfast which was a pretty good spread.  Nothing as fancy as what was served in Gothenburg but still plenty to eat with eggs, bacon, sausage, and the usual Scandinavian breads, jams, meats, cheeses, and yogurts, as well as some pickled herring - which I tried, and caviar in a tube - which I did not try.  The pickled herring was something that I decided I didn't want in my mouth again.  And since we had a fridge up in the room we were able to make ourselves a little breakfast for tomorrow.  Score!

After breakfast we rode the metro down to Gamla Stan to see the changing  of the guard at the royal palace. We got there a little early so we walked around a bit, tried one of the famous Swedish cinnamon buns with salt - okay but the tartlets are crazy better, and took some pictures.  Dad was given a firm hand up, "Halt!" from one of the guards when he got too close to a cannon so we parked ourselves behind some barricades while we waited for the day's relief guards to arrive.  And they arrived with much pomp and banners and barking of orders.  It reminded me of the changing of the guard at Arlington cemetery only with a band.

We then went out and wandered Gamla Stan which is really beautiful and old world. Lots of narrow twisting cobblestone lanes and unfortunately lots of tourists.  It was a relief to find a lane that didn't have any shops so you could spread out a bit and enjoy the ambiance.  We both bought some souvenirs for family members and then stopped for a beer at the very cool Medusa Rock Bar which had an enormous underground space that was probably pretty awesome  during the peak bar going hours.

After our beer we walked up to the central city again, past Swedish Parliament, and through their formal gardens to ride the metro over to the western island.  I mainly wanted to see the stations along the blue line which were just blasted out of the ock, fireproofed, and turned over to local artists to decorate on a grand scale and boy were they cool.  The first one looked like an underground grotto with ruins and streams and plants (probably fake since we were so far down) and another was painted a deep red and had these huge columns flanking the escalator portal.

We then walked around the very sleepy western island down to the waterfront to sit a spell and watch the city before heading back.  We dropped off our things and went down the street to a steak place for our last dinner.  Except neither of us had steak.  Dad had a burger - which he ate with a fork and knife like everyone else, and I had the lamb.  Both were good, not great.  We then left, got some dessert next door.  Ice cream and cake and headed back to our hotel to pack and go to bed, we have another long day tomorrow.

I feel I should also mention here that Stockholm is beautiful.  The city was built on a vast archipelago and is actually a series of islands, small and large, all connected.  There is so much waterfront that you really can't escape it.  Some of the islands are also quite hilly like Sodermalm with dramatic bedrock cliffs rising straight up from the water's edge.  The only real disappointment was the central city which had a lot of brutalist and uninspired modern buildings occupying entire blocks.  You could still find beautiful spots here and there but it was not as stunning as when you got out and into the surrounding neighborhoods and islands.

Day 6 - There's Lots to Do in Stockholm

We left Gothenburg very early this morning via train and headed over to Stockholm.  The journey took us about three hours and I spent most of it updating the blog - I was behind a day or so. I also managed to slip in a quick nap as well.  The scenery was similar to Denmark, rolling hills, a few lakes, and farms as well as a few cities that we passed through.  It was very pretty but nothing exotic.  There was a notable absence of wind turbines though, perhaps that area we travelled through didn't get the same wind as Denmark did.

We arrived in Stockholm at about 10am and lugged our bags up to the hotel Scandic Norra which was very nice.  It had the most spacious room out of the three we stayed in and a partitioned off shower, which was something we didn't have in Gothenburg or Copenhagen.  Forturnately they had a room available when we checked in so we didn't have to store our bags anywhere.  So we dropped them off, freshened up, and sallied forth on our way to the last of the amusement parks on the itinerary, Grona Lund.

Grona Lund is located in Djursgarden, sort of Stockholm's version of Central Park.  We decided to walk over to the tram that would take us there rather than do the maze of transfers that the trip would require with the metro.  It was a bit of a hike though and we stopped along the way at a hot dog cart to have a French hot dog.  Which is sort of like a bagel dog where they slip the weiner into a roll that has a hole at one end which the vendor has lubed up with various condiments of your choosing.  Totally how the French would eat a hot dog. We also were amused by the posters that we encountered here of a man named Steve Aoki and another man named Afrojack who were promoting something called Big Slap.

The tram took us along a canal and over a very decorative bridge and into the garden and along to Grona Lund.  Along with hundreds of other people.  This would be the most crowded park on the trip and after Dad and I rode Twister, which was so twisted he could do no mas, I had to switch over to professional amusement park patron Kyle.

I then rode Broom, a witch themed suspended coaster that, while short, had some great near-misses with surrounding brooms, a random fire explosion and a tunnel through the upper floors of the witch's house.  Then I rode their Wild Mouse, which was the most free form, custom wild mouse I had ever been on.  It was so convoluted that  I had no idea which way I was going.

Grona Lund occupies a very small amount of real estate right on Stockholm Harbor and so their rides tend to be stacked up on top of other rides and intertwined with other rides.  Four of their five coasters are built on pretty much the same little corner of the park going in and out and around and over each other while maintaining space below for park walkways, midway games, restaurants and a huge spookhouse.

After Wild Mouse I noticed that Jetline was down - probably because it was a hot day and it was overshooting its brakes.  So I had to suck it up and tackle Insane next.  Insane is the only coaster there that stands off on it's own and as a ride it's sort of difficult to explain.  The track travels only in a two dimensional vertical plane.  The lift takes you straight to the top level and you twist and turn your way down from there.  The cars are mounted on the side of the track and hold four riders on a side, two facing each direction if the car is level.  Which it isn't.  As it travels through the track the car spins randomly like a tilt a whirl according to its momentum flipping riders end over end in sometimes as many as three somersaults in a row.  It is incredibly dizzying and you can't see where you are going and as the ride drops suddenly down to each level it is completely unnerving.  It was a crazy terrific ride but a little bit gimmicky.  And I only had the fortitude to do it once, despite only having a ten minute line.

After Insane I noticed that Jetline had reopened so I hopped on that.  This was another thoroughly enjoyable and twisted ride and as the older coaster in the park, it formed the basis for which all the other coasters were designed.  

I met up with Dad having conquered the coasters and we decided to do their massive fun house.  It probably took  us twenty minutes to get through it and featured shifting stairs - three flights just to get in, moving walkways, spinning barrels, a mirror maze, and an enormous wooden slide that you go down on a rug.  We both came out of there with big smiles and I was proud to get through the spinning barrel without losing any skin (see my Australian trip report on Sydney's Luna Park).

Dad then went to go hang out in one of the park's beer gardens while I finished up.  I took a ride on their two dark rides.  One themed to fairies forming a civilization.  At least that's what I think was going on until the last scene where the fairy queen leaned out of her royal carriage and vomited.  Then I got a bit confused.  The other dark ride was the Ghost Train spook house which was pretty awesome.  It had some great gags and even made me jump a few times.

I then rode their Star Flyer, a four hundred foot tall beast that was erected on the roof of the park arcade.  I didn't get hassled by any Scotsmen this time and was a paired up with a fellow wearing an OKC Thunder shirt.  I asked him if he was from the US and he said no, he had studied abroad at Florida State and took a cross country road trip and stopped for an NBA game in Oklahoma City.  We continued talking and he pointed out a lot of sights and sites from our vantage point.  Or tried to, as we got up to top speed it became a little hard to get a fix on distant objects.

I took one more spin on Jetline and called it good, happy to end my coaster riding for the trip at the hands of my favorite designer, Anton Schwarzkopf.  Then Dad and I walked up to the Vasa Museum which I wasn't too keen on because my guidebook, while saying it was good, wasn't terribly convincing.  But it ended up being a very cool facility and exhibit.

The Vasa was a huge ship - a Titanic of it's time that sank in mild winds twenty minutes after its maiden launch in Stockholm harbor several hundred years ago.  They found it in the middle of last century and were able to raise it up more or less in one piece and spent the next twenty some years preserving it and constructing a huge climate controlled exhibit hall to house it.  The ship itself was amazing but what made the visit worth it was all the cultural stuff they discovered as they uncovered it and were able to piece together a very thorough account of what life was like back then as a sailor.  The story about how much effort was spent in preserving it was also pretty humbling as well as it has taken decades of work since its location was first discovered.  It's worth a visit.

After that we took the tram back into the central city and hopped the metro over to Sodermalm - a large island to the south where we first made our way through the streets up the hills to a lovely park overlooking the harbor and the city on the other side.  It was a terrific view and seemed to be enjoyed only by the locals.  From there we walked back down the hill and almost to the south end of Sodermalm and settled on a dinner at Hosteria Tre Conti, an Italian place in a slightly run down neighborhood.  The food was good although Dad won with his cheese stuffed, prosciutto-wrapped, chicken breasts over my seafood pasta that required some final preparation on my part.  There were a few dead eyes that stared forlornly up at me from my plate.

From there we walked back north up Gotgatan, Sodermalm's main drag up to Gamla Stan - the old town on it's own island in the middle of the city.  We were looking for a metro station back to our hotel but got distracted by a tasty smelling bakery.  So we parked ourselves there and had a chocolate mousse pie, a chocolate canoli, and a lime tartlet.  The lime tartlet was something else, I think it was a sponge cake with a large amount of whipped cream on top of it all wrapped up in a thick layer of lime flavored marscapone.  I would very much like to have this again so I will now be on the lookout for Swedish bakeries wherever I go.

After that we caught the metro back up to our hotel and I had a beer and watched soccer in the lobby while Dad did some emailing next to me.  Then up to our room where we somehow found the energy to skype with our family before going to bed.  Crazy long day but loads of fun.  Tomorrow is our last day and there's still so much to see!

Day 5 - A Day in Gothenburg

This morning we woke up for a only full day in Gothenburg.  We started off with a very nice breakfast in the top floor of the hotel which was the attic and had lots of little nooks and crannies and was crammed full of interesting things.  Breakfast was also Parisian themed with omelette and fancy cheeses and fruits and baguettes.  After breakfast we caught our street car down to Liseberg and spent the next four hours there.  Liseberg was another really old park but they had made quite an effort to keep things more modern so it felt a lot like an urbanized Hersheypark - lots of history and charm alongside some very modern rides.  After Tivoli and Bakken it was a bit of an adjustment and once I had adjusted the crowds had arrived in force.  Where I had ten minutes waits for rides I now had an hour and ten minutes so we left at that point.  But during those four hours we had a very good time.  Dad took advantage of the pay-per-ride program they have there and only rode Balder with me - their wooden coaster, which is considered to be the best in Europe.  It was an outstanding ride and will also probably crack my top ten as well.  Dad also went on the Hotel Gasten spook house with me which was an additional fee but featured live actors and was easily the best walk-through spookhouse I've ever done.  The sets were amazing and the actors all did a very good job.

I also rode the log flume which had a cool triple drop down the hill, the gigantic ferris wheel, and the very bizarre fairy tale dark ride which was similar to the Hans Christian Andersen one at Tivoli but even more abbreviated.  The other three coasters beside Balder that I rode were Cannon which was a small hydraulic launch coaster with a loop and barrel roll.  It was fun but rough and blessedly short.  And their two hillside coasters.  Liseberg Railroad which was one of my favorite coaster designers last projects and also one of his biggest. It was very fast and wove through the woods and over rock outcroppings and around other rides - probably a top twenty ride for me.  And their newest coaster, Helix, which opened this year.  Helix was very fast and very loopy but seemed to lack any focus, it just sped around the side of the hill from one end to the other and just sort of felt like it was going in random directions.  I knew the layout of the ride but I was still confused while riding it about just what was going on.  It was one of the crazier coasters I've ridden and may ALSO be a top ten for me!  So for those keeping track, Liseberg has three insanely good coasters.

And to top that off, Gothenburg is a very beautiful city.  Out of the now five northern European cities I've been to (London, Hamburg, Berlin, and Copenhagen{Paris doesn't count because it feels so different from those other cities}) I would put Gothenburg at the top.  It's hilly, beautiful buildings, tree-lined streets, lots of large parks, canals, plus the ever present streetcar.  It was a really nice place and I wished I had a more time to explore.  Which is what Dad and I did after we left Gothenburg.

We walked back to the hotel taking a meandering route through the neighborhoods south of downtown oohing and ahhing as we turned each corner and saw another cool sight open up.  We also saw an enormous tournament being played in a park of a game that was unfamiliar to us.  It seemed similar to Australian rules Football but the turf court was only a bit bigger than a basketball court.  The players had to dribble the ball but not as frequently as in basketball in the middle of the court but once they passed what looked like a 3-point arc in basketball they switched to rugby and they could run with the ball but the defense could tackle them as well.  It appeared that the object of the game was to throw the ball into a net minded by a goalie similar to water polo.  It looked like a fun sport one that would have been fun to play with the kids in the neighborhood growing up.

Eventually we made our way back to the hotel.  We freshened up, made dinner reservations, and went up to the hotel bar on the roof for a beer.  Now for this trip it was about this time where time seems to get a bit wonky.  Up until about four in the afternoon time seems to go by normally but right at about four the sun seems to stop moving and the light just does not change, at all, for the next six hours.  Our dinner reservations were for 7:30 and when we went in it felt like it was about 6.  When we left an hour and a half later it still felt like 6.  And when we got back to our hotel after doing some more wandering around in downtown Gothenburg at about 10:15 - it still felt like 6. The sun sets around 11 and goes down fast.  It only takes about 15 to 20 minutes to go to full dark.  It's very weird.

Anyway, dinner was at a place called Smaka which was a Swedish place south of downtown near the university and it was very tasty.  We both had meatballs with lingonberries and mashed potatoes.  Dad also had a salad and I had a little salmon tartare.  It was good and also came with a little caviar which I hadn't had before.  My unsophisticated palate thought they tasted like little jelly beans filled with salty goo.  Good when mixed in with something but not so great by themselves.

We leave for Stockholm early tomorrow morning so a packing I will go.

Day 4 - Road Trip!

We left Copenhagen early this morning via rental car (Ford Fiesta) and headed for the mainland.  It seems that automatics are still considered a luxury in this country as the price to rent one was very high.  So we didn't.  Once we got out of the city we stopped for breakfast at a McDonalds along the way although this particular McDonalds was more like a Panera Bread with danishes and throw pillows.  Dad went for a couple cinnamon rolls and I had a sausage mcmuffin (on whole wheat)!

After that we proceeded along to our park for the day, Djurs Sommerland.  The landscape along the drive seemed similar to the midwest, rolling hills with lots of farms and some forests here and there. They like their wind turbines though as you couldn't look anywhere at any time at all along the drive without seeing at least one.  They weren't really in big wind farms they were just sort of plopped down wherever.  Some where in a straight line for awhile but otherwise it seemed pretty random.  We also drove across two suspension bridges,

one being the Great Belt Bridge which has the third longest main span of any bridge and is the longest span of any bridge outside of Asia. It's a biiiiiiiig bridge.

Djurs Sommerland was a very nice park sort of out in the country and it was a bit on the crowded side.  Nothing too bad but since we were on a tight schedule it did cramp our style a bit.  Well, it cramped my style. The park felt like a big park with rides and it was laid out that the themed areas (Pirates, Central American jungle, American West, African Jungle, etc.) formed a ring around an enormous open area with play structures, hundreds of trampolines both for individuals or large groups, swings of varying size, pedal powered cars, slides, and lots of other things that would have been tremendously fun if I was ten years old.  I did jump on a trampoline or two though. As for the rides I only had time for a couple laps on each of the four coasters before we had to move on.  Thor's Hammer was a fun freeform wil mouse type ride that had some rough spots.  Treasure Island was a water coaster that had some steeps twisting dives before splashing down into a big lagoon.  Dad rode this one with me and enjoyed it.  Jewel was a launched coaster themed to riding in an ATV and Dad rode this one with me too.  It was a very surprising ride as I didn't expect it to go as fast as it did but it really gained a lot of power coming out of the second launch and you really haul tail through the second half of the ride.  Dad loved it but was done for the day after that.  Fortunately he rode Pirate first, the park's standout coaster and my main reason for hitting this park.  It's only 100 feet high but it packs a crazy punch into those hills and turns.  It was easily a top ten ride for me and may even end up in my top three and being that at the time I rode it I was at 310 roller coasters ridden, it was a very good ride indeed!

After we left Djurs Sommerland we were going to attempt to get to Farup Sommerland which was supposed to be a little under two hours away but a combination of google maps drive time estimates being too optimistic, and an apparent language barrier in Frederikshavn where we would be dropping the rental off, taking a cab into town, and catching the ferry made me decide that we just wouldn't have enough time at the park if we wanted to actually be on the ferry and we should just get to Frederikshavn and play it safe.  And as predicted Frederikshavn was not very English friendly despite being a major port town.  We had a very tough time finding the rental place even though I had mapped it out we still had to circle a few times before we found it - it was in a Volvo dealership - and the man had left for the day.  So we left our keys with a salesman who we also had to have arrange a taxi come pick us up and take us to the ferry. And then began a series of "coulda had a V8" blunders where we were forgetting things or losing things so we figured we must be very hungry and tired so we walked from the ferry terminal into the downtown which was pretty deserted and our options seemed to be Italian or Mexican - there were three Italian-Mexican places doing business.  So we found one and had a pizza each and felt a lot better. Every trip has its nadir and hopefully Frederikshavn was ours.

The ferry to Sweden was enormous!  I have never been on a ship that big.  As we were walking back we were astounded by how many trucks and cars were lined up to drive on, I still have no idea how they all fit.  The top three decks were for passengers with the topmost one being open air.  There were restaurants, bars, a game room with ping pong and foosball, a small movie theater, cabins, a large duty free shop where people were purchasing huge amounts of alcohol so much so that when we were disembarking we saw one family carrying their two sleeping children while they used the stroller to carry out at least twenty cases of beer.  We figured perhaps they were selling itor were stocking up for a couple years but with how much people were buying, perhaps alcohol in Sweden is taxed at a very high rate.  It does appear from our receipts that sales tax on general merchandise and food is 25%.  Yes, twenty-five.  But that it also is included in the price so there isn't an awful shock when you get rung up.

We found a couple chairs by the window and promptly fell asleep.  I woke up before Dad and decided to go explore a bit and get a snack.  The top deck was very slippery and my feet went out from under me and I landed on my back.  Fortunately I had my backpack on so that cushioned the blow a bit but it hurt.  I sat up with a lot of eyes on me so I gave them a friendly wave and got back up on my feet.

We pulled into Gotherburg at about 11:20 and caught a street car into the downtown area where our hotel was.  The Hotel Robinson which was part of a 1920s Parisian themed complex.  The Hotel Robinson rooms were the ones that hadn't been renovated or were more bare bones than the Palace Hotel and Hotel Pigalle but they all shared the same common areas that were all very nice.  Our room was a good size as well so we laid in our beds and to sleep we went. 

Day 3 - Copenhagen By Bike

Today was our last day in Copenhagen so after a hotel breakfast we walked over to the Vesterbro area west of the central station to rent a pair of bicycles for the day.  Copenhagen seems to have the nicest network of bicycle lanes I've ever seen, every road with any pavement markings and even a few without had bicycle lanes - which were separated from the road and the sidewalk by curbs and at intersections, bicyclists have their own signals.  They also have a LOT of cyclists here as well so some roads were quite heavily trafficked.  We managed though and I also found a place that sold memory sticks that fit my camera.  So while I can't download them yet, I can still take pictures!  And that's the imporant thing!

So among our stops were the Marble Church - a beautiful domed church, the Palace, which was surprisingly sleepy, the New Haven canal which was hopping, we rode along the lakes north of the central city, cruised through the Sondermarken park, and made a stop at the Carlsberg Brewery.

Well it was their old brewery.  It seemed that the old man and his son didn't see eye to eye on how to brew Carlsberg so his son opened the New Carlsberg brewery and they competed for many years until the two were consolidated.  The museum was fun and the tasting at the end of the tour was in a very nice courtyard.

After returning the bikes, Dad and I went for a long walk back to the New Haven Canal stopping for dinner at the Cock's and Cows restaurant which I had seen a couple nights ago with a very long line to get in.  It was a burger place and the Danish interpretation of a burger was quite good, however we looked around and saw that everyone was eating them with a knife and fork.  I followed their lead and it sucked, Dad did it American style and had a much better burger experience.  A knife and fork is a lame way to eat a burger, Copenhagen!

We returned via the pedestrian shopping street, Stroget, and got ready for our car trip through Denmark tomorrow.  Until then!

Day 2 - Bakken and Tivoli

This morning we took advantage of a late opening time at Bakken amusement park and slept in and got ourselves a little caught up in sleep.  And after getting ourselves out the door and over to the train station and had a quick fast food brunch at a place called Sunset Blvd we caught the C line over to Klampenborg to check out the park.

It was a very cool park with lots of charm.  It was set in the woods along a river.  We walked around a bit then I got to riding.  I hit up the Wild Mouse first and it was one of the fastest, if not THE fastest I've ridden, it was crazy!  I did the fun house with lots of tilting floors and stairs and a blast of air to end with.  Then I did their flitzer coaster, Racing, which was also fun.  I checked out their spook house which was quite nice and their hunting themed dark ride which wasn't.  Then dad and I did their surprisingly very fast mine train coaster and their big old side friction coaster - which had recently gotten new trains and a computerized ride system so it no longer had brakemen who rode along the ride but it was still a peppy, fast ride with a lot of fun moments.  Then I rode the old wooden coaster and the mine train one more time each and then steeled myself up for a ride on Tornado - their spinning, launched, indoor coaster.

Tornado was awesome!  Once you go over the top you start spinning like mad and the track is so twisted you can't tell where you're going or which way is up!  It was a crazy, crazy ride.  And as soon as it was over I wanted to do it again.  Dad met me at the exit and I was so pumped that he decided he wanted to give it a try too, so off we went.  I chose a seat across from him and it was a riot watching his expressions at the beginning parts of the ride.  But once he got over his initial alarm he had a great time as well!  Go Dad!  After that we sat for a beer in a cafe next to the wooden coaster and people watched.  Finally we caught the train back to the city and took a little break at the hotel.  Well Dad did, I ran out to an electronics store to try to find a means to get my photos downloaded.  No go.  

After I returned we headed out to dinner at Wagamama.  A high end Asian food chain that's all over Europe and it appears they may have opened a place in Boston!  It was very, very good.  We both had delicious chicken curries and I would definitely hit it up again if I find myself near one again.  Very recommended.  Next up was Tivoli Gardens!  An amusement park right in the center of Copenhagen.

It's been said that the park was the inspiration for Disneyland and it is clear that they spared no expense in making things appear as fantastic and fanciful as possible and after the sun starts going down (at about 10:00pm) all the lights start coming on and the lights are all just as fantastic and fanciful as well.  I probably took 100 photos here it was so wonderful.  And as soon as I figure out how to get my pictures off the camera I'll share them with you all. 

The rides at Tivoli didn't disappoint either!  Demon was a nice, twisted looping coaster with a cool helix before the first drop, The Flying Trunk was a nutty rid where you ride in a twisting and turning steamer trunk through a serpentine series of dioramas based on Hans Christian Andersen stories while a recorded monologue gave a VERY condensed version of each story.  It was almost all in Danish but I did recognize The Emporer's New Clothes, The Ugly Duckling, The Snow Queen, and the Little Mermaid.  Maybe a few more.  Odin Express was a zippy little mine train that ran it's course three times per ride without stopping in the station.  It was cool but I got some painful high fives from the operator as I went flying by at full speed!

 Starflyer was next and is sort of the new emblem of the park as it's visible from just about anywhere in central Copenhagen.  Imagine your typical amusement park chair swings on a 225 foot tall tower going 40mph and you've got the Starflyer.  I've ridden one before so I knew what was coming, but it's still a rush and you're spinning fast enough up there that you can barely get a fix on the view.  I love them!  And can't wait to try the 400' version in Stockholm!  They were a little over the top with their safety regulations on this ride though as we had to empty our pockets and were individually patted down to ake sure we had everything out of our pockets.  I was a little hesitant to part with my wallet but the ride operator (in a Scottish accent to rival Fat Bastard's) gave me a light sock in the arm and said, "Whut?  Ya wanna kill a wee baybah?  Jus' put it in da bax!"  So I did and all was well.

I did a round on their float through dark ride themed to mining and dragons which was well done and their fun house which was really not.  And then finally Dad and I took a spin on their sCENIC Railroad coaster, which is celebrating its 100th birthday this year!  It's an old side friction coaster and has a brakeman who keeps the train from derailing.  It's probably a nutty job because the ride was surprisingly very thrilling and had some great drops and tunnels through a fake Alpine mountain range.  Dad said it was his favorite of the day and I was also quite surprised by it and immediately rode again.  After that we spent the last hour walking around the park enjoying the ambience of the place and caught a closing time light/laser/fire show on the park's pond.  As we walked out we stoped for a beer at the German beer hall across from the train station and technically still in the park.  It was a nice end to a very fun day.  The weather was great (aside from a 20 minute shower while we were at Tivoli), Wagamama was delicious, and the parks were absolutely terrific. 

Day 1 - The Trip Begins in Copenhagen

Welcome back to the blog! It's been awhile but I'm on a trip again and I want to share my experiences with you all yet again. This time around I am traveling through Denmark and Sweden with my dad on our first and hopefully not last big trip together. We flew Air Berlin from NYC JfK - a hugely big thank you to Peter and Vicki for picking us up at the airport, putting us up for the night, and ferrying us back to the airport the next afternoon! It was a seriously animal pantry, lobby your Mom kind of thing to do (inside jokes) and we appreciated it.
Air Berlin was typical of the European airlines. Flight attendants with charming accents, plenty of free alcohol, and a good selection of movies and shows to watch. Dad and I both enjoyed Anchorman 2 on our flight over and our meals weren't too bad either. My only gripe is that there is zero leg room on their planes and their seat backs recline pretty far - farther I think than I've ever seen. And of course the lady in front of me kept hers cranked back the whole flight. I couldn't get out of my seat without giving it a good shoulder check - which I delighted in doing everytime. Passive-aggressive airline funtime!
After a short layover in Dusseldorf, we flew on to Copenhagen and landed about an hour later. One checked bag retrieval, one bathroom break, and one train ride later we were disembarking at Copenhagen's central station - a terrifically medieval looking place but with chandeliers. It was still mid morning here so we dropped our bags off at the hotel and went and started exploring the Christianshavn area south of central Copenhagen. We went inside the Christians Church, walked along the river, and stopped for danishes at a bakery before making our way over to the Vor Frelsers Church which had a famous spire that is open to the public that I wanted to go to the top of.
And what a spire! And what a church! Absolutely beautiful and with spiraling spire, it had a touch of the fantastic. the spiral on the outside of the spire was actually the top portion of the stairs and let me tell you, climbing the ladders up through the belfry past bells that tolled the quarter hours up to the roof and the walking up that spiralling, narrowing stair up to the sky was pretty crazy. Very fun experience. Dad sat that one out, as 400 stairs was quite a lot.
After that we walked over to Christiana, the hippie commune that lives off the grid and has its own way of doing things. It was mostly a lot of food trucks repurposed as mobile head shops and old warehouses repurposed as hash and pot bars. Interesting but not really our scene. However, the rain intensified there so we spent a lot of time standing under tents avoiding getting soaked until we at last got ourselves to a bar for a couple Carlsbergs.
Eventually we left Christiana, and Christianshavn via the roads along the canals and back up to central Copenhagen. We explored the Slotshomen area (Danish government seat) and took an elevator to the top of the parliamentary building for another bird's eye view of Copenhagen. This time Dad joined me. Checked into our tiny, tiny hotel room at Cabinn City Hotel and got ourselves situated before heading back out for a hell of a meal at Frk. Barners Kaelder (Mrs. Barner's Cellar).
Whew! Ready to call it a night!

Germany Day 10 & 11: Going, Going, Gone

After going to bed late we slept in again this morning and took our time getting ready. Once we were up at put together we all decided to go out for a walk. Doris took us into the nature preserve again near her place although this time we walked a different route and came upon a large enclosed pasture full of deer. They looked like caribou or reindeer in the way that they were small but had impressive, fuzzy antlers. Doris said that they weren't reindeer but something else that she didn't know the name of in english.

Anyway we watched the deer for awhile before heading back to the apartment but rather than go straight in we decided to take a walk around in her neighborhood. We found a little corner ice cream shop. Feeling adventurous I tried a double scoop of Zitron and Waldmeister. Zitron was lemon and was delicious - I love lemon ice cream and I don't understand why it isn't popular in the states. Waldmeister was unidentifiable. It may have been vanilla and lime or it may have been vanilla and irish cream, whatever it was the flavor got lost in the lemon. It looked pretty though.

After our walk and ice cream we all piled into Doris' car and headed out to meet her son Norbert and her sister Renate for dinner at a Turkish restaurant. It was a pretty good meal although there was a snafu with the ordering and I think the waiter got confused and put a plate of calamari in front of me when I thought I had ordered the curried chicken. I asked if there was some sort of mixup but no one seemed to know so I started eating it thinking it was my dinner. It turned out that Norbert had ordered the calamari in addition to his dish but wasn't sure if I had ordered it too. Stupid language barrier! I felt bad but everyone else thought it was pretty funny. Luckily I didn't eat ALL of it.

After dinner we spent a quiet evening at Doris' place because Kirsten and I had to be up the next morning at 4 to catch our flight home.

Fast forward to the next morning. Up with the sun. We sleepily say our goodbyes to Hedda and Kendra who were leaving on Wednesday and sleepily make our way to the airport. Many thank yous to Doris for driving us. I slept for the flight to Amsterdam and we made our connection to Newark there without any problems. I was surprised to see that they are still doing the additional screening and containment of passengers at the gates for all flights to the US. They have TSA agents manning metal detectors and xray machines and asking each passenger questions about their carry ons. Yes it's as inefficient and annoying as it sounds. But we did make a stop at the duty free shop to purchase a bottle to declare to customs and this time we thought Aquavit would be a good choice since we drank so much at the wedding reception and before with Roland and Susi at their place.

Our Continental flight to Newark was just as bad as it was coming. No delays this time but we did get split up again - I don't know if it's because we keep using the site like travelocity or because it was a codeshare with Lufthansa but getting split up keeps happening to us and for some reason we aren't given the opportunity to switch our seats around. I got an aisle seat with a broken tv monitor a restless infant next to me and a restless leg behind me an overactive bladder next to me and a headrest all the way down in front of me. Fortunately I had a book to read, sudoku and crosswords to do and sleep to catch up on or it would have been a completely miserable flight.

We arrived in New Jersey about 11:30, survived the severe scrutiny by our customs officials, and caught the train into the city. Since the train took me to Penn Station, I just went upstairs to work for five hours while Kirsten went home.

So that was our awesome trip to Germany! We had a great time traveling around with Hedda and Kendra as well as with Ingrid and Doris in Berlin. Also extra special thanks to Doris and Roland and Susi and their kids for putting us up, feeding us, and taking us around Hamburg, out to Heide Park, the soccer game, and to the Hofbrauhaus. Hopefully we can return the favor to you someday soon. And of course best wishes to the newlyweds, Volker and Christine who probably are not reading this since they're on their honeymoon but we hope we'll see you again soon too.

Until our next adventure. . . Prost!

Germany Day 9: White Wedding Part Zwei

Okay, so obviously we're back home now and getting caught up with our normal lives but that doesn't mean that I've forgotten about the conclusion of our German trip! Nope, far from it! So now to relate our last two days in the Hanseatic State of Hamburg:

We all slept in after our night out with Susi and Roland and then spent most of the day packing up and getting ourselves ready for the reception. After the reception, Roland and Susi along with their kids were heading off on an international journey of their own to Denmark so Kendra, Kirsten, and I would be spending our last two nights in Doris' living room.

So by three we were all dressed and loaded into the car and went over to Doris' place, dropped off our luggage and picked up Hedda and Doris and headed to the reception, which was being held at a nice banquet hall overlooking a pond somewhere south of Hamburg. The first half of the reception was standard fare. There were drinks and mingling out on the terrace before hand and then we all went inside for the dinner. Kirsten and I were seated at a table with some of Volker and Christine's english speaking friends which was nice of them, their friends were also very nice and mostly spoke in English so we could follow along even though they were not completely confident in their abilities in the language. And as the night went on our table seemed to become party central with our new German friends ordering round after round of schnapps. Mostly a liquor called Aquavit which is actually Scandanavian and has a very odd aging process. The load it up onto boats and ship it to Australia and then back. Apparently the length of time at sea and the motion of the ocean help give the liquor it's unusual flavor.

The dinner was very nice, we started with a white tomato soup with truffles followed by a main course of steak, potatoes, and vegetables in a red wine sauce, and a hazelnut mousse type dessert. One thing that was interesting was that before and after each course was served a representative from one of the tables would stand up and give a speech or toast to bride and groom and room at large.

After dinner the DJ put on her music and there was dancing and more mingling out on the terrace. At one point the Hamburger SV soccer mascot came by so everyone could get a photo with him and everyone sang the HSV Forever and Ever song. Volker and Christine also did this thing where they sat back to back with one of their shoes and one of the other person's shoes in their hands and were asked questions that they had to respond to by raising the corresponding shoe. Questions like, who is the jealous one? Who does the dishes? Who is good with money? Who is messy? Etc. If they agreed most of the time it was said that their marriage would last. Volker and Christine got a 75% so pretty good odds.

They served cake and currywurst at midnight and we finally left to go back to Hamburg at about 1:30 while the party was still going strong and got back to Doris' place an hour later. Another late night for us!

And I'm sure you're wondering, "Currywurst? What's that?" Well we've been told by quite a few people that it's the junkfood of choice in northern Germany and we had tried it in Berlin and prior to the soccer game with mixed results. The stuff in the crock pot at the reception was quite good though. Essentially it seems that it is summer sausage (or whatever the equivalent is) is cut up and stewed in hot cocktail sauce with curry powder mixed in. Now obviously there are some nuances to making good currywurst and it seems to be similar to getting a coney dog in Detroit or a slice of pizza here in New York - there are lots of places out there selling it and most aren't very good, but when you find a good place you don't go anywhere else.

Germany Day 8: White Wedding

Today was Volker and Christine's wedding day so we got all dressed up and drove into the city.  The ceremony was being held at the Town Hall or Rathaus which was built in the late 1800s and is very ornate - equivalent to many state capitol buildings and more richly decorated than even some of those.  The ceremony itself was held in a special room upstairs which has to be reserved a year in advance.  Although the ceremony was in German and was fairly brief, Hedda, Doris, and Susi all explained the gist of what was said and it was all fairly standard although the officiant did take a little bit of time to explain some of the artifacts in the room.  Of interest was an unexploded bomb that would have destroyed the Rathaus if it had gone off.

After the wedding and all the photos were taken, there was a champagne toast out on the plaza in front of the Rathaus followed by a brief reception at Volker and Christine's apartment.  The official reception will be tomorrow.

The rest of the afternoon was spent being lazy.  Roland, Kendra, and I watched Shoot Em Up - a ridiculous, over the top, action movie while Kirsten napped.  Roland tried to teach me how to juggle - not successful, at least not yet, and in general we just putzed around.

Later, Roland, Susi, Kendra, Kirsten, and I went out to the Beach Club on the Elbe while Chrissi, Caro, and Karden went to stay with Susi's parents for the night.  It was a nice little beach area with cabanas and a large deck with tiki torches, a bonfire, and lots of chairs and benches from which to watch the big container ships cruise up and down the river while drinking beer and eating pizza.  So we did that for awhile.  Then we left to go back downtown for a bit but not before I took a trip down a giant slide we found just outside the parking lot.

The drive back into the city took us through the Reeperbahn - the red light district which mostly looked touristy and a little predatory.  However Roland did point out this back alley that was all walled off with a lot of neon red light coming from the other side and a huge pack of people surrounding that was for men only.  The fact that it was walled off was rather creepy and disturbing.  But eventually we settled for having drinks at the Hofbrauhaus - an outpost of the Munich original.  Aside from Susi - who was our driver for the evening - we all ordered giant liters of beer that came in enormous mugs that at first we wanted to buy but then realized it would take a lot of bottles of beer to fill.  We also ordered some sort of delicious dessert that was sort of like a coffee cake but was cut up and jumbled with some nuts and other things.  So we ate our dessert, drank our beer, listened to the band play German folk music (with a few American songs thrown in) and watched some of the people around us - making up stories for them and just generally having a great time.

After our liters of beer we were feeling quite full so we drove back to the house and sat around for a bit trading stories and laughs until we finally went to bed after 2am.

Germany Day 7: Kirsten and Kyle's Hansa Park Adventure

Today Kirsten and I woke up early and caught the train up to Lubeck where we transferred to a train to Sierksdorf to visit Hansa Park – yep, more roller coasters. Everyone else was going shopping so this seemed like a fun alternative.

The park is built on the shore of the Baltic Sea and is also very beautiful and well landscaped. We started off our day with a ride on their star attraction Fluch von Novgorod. The ride is heavily themed and there is some sort of story but it was all in German so we didn’t understand it but it was fun to see all the special effects and atmosphere. The ride itself was very cool with spook house sections going into roller coaster sections back into a spook house section, back into a roller coaster and so on. It may have been our favorite coaster of the trip which was a surprise. You also exited the ride via slide into a dark maze.

After that we went for a ride on their wild mouse which was themed to a mine and had an audio animatronic jug band entertaining the people in line, their starflyer which is a standard swing ride that you find at any park except it goes up a 200 some foot tower. We were very nervous waiting to ride this since I’m not a fan of spinning around and Kirsten isn’t a fan of high heights. It actually ended up being a lot of fun and really wasn’t too scary. We also jumped on their giant trampolines for a bit and rode their other two coasters Rasender Roland which is a mine train which was pretty good, and Nessie their old signature coaster which was showing its age a bit but was still a lot of fun and we got right back in line to ride it again, and their panoramic sky tower. After that we decided to go for one more ride on Fluch von Novgorod, check out their log flume and then head back to the train and try to spend a little time checking out Lubeck which looked very cool. Unfortunately the line for Fluch von Novgorod ended up being over an hour and the log flume took a little too long as well and we missed our train. The next train back was an hour later and by then it would be too late to see Lubeck. Oh well, something to do next time.

So we made another loop around the park but decided we were done and leisurely strolled back to the train station and made our way back to Hamburg where we had a nice barbecue out in Roland and Susi’s backyard.

Germany Day 6: All Kinds of Awesome!

In the morning Kirsten, Kendra, Hedda, Doris, and I took the ferry into Hamburg. The trip took us past all of the cargo terminals along the River Elbe where the cranes were busy loading and unloading the huge container ships. Apparently it’s one of the biggest harbors in the world and it’s crazy to think of how much goes into shipping like that, everything has to get to its destination correctly and all the ships have to be loaded in a way that they’re balanced with an appropriate center of gravity. I guess that would be industrial engineering? Maybe packaging engineers? Perhaps structural. . . I wonder who does that.

Anyhow we landed at the wharf and walked along to water until we came to the dome of the Alter Elbtunnel. Constructed in 1911 it was the first tunnel under the Elbe and features two tubes that terminate in silos or caissons that are identifiable on the shore by their domed tops. We took the stairs up and down but there are six elevators to take you to the underground level, one for passengers, one for bicyclists, and four for cars. Each of the tubes is only one lane wide with sidewalks on both sides and one tube was out of service this morning so there was a policewoman down at the bottom directing traffic. Fortunately most of the automobile traffic uses the other tunnel and we saw only a few cars come and go from this tunnel.

We didn’t walk through the tunnels but only checked out the big elevators and the portals and all that stuff within the dome before heading back up to street level. This time we headed over to the Hafen City which is an enormous urban building project on land leftover from when the cargo port moved to deeper waters. The land is enormous and consists of several islands where lots of new development is going on. The crown jewel of the area will be the Elbphilharmonie – Hamburg’s answer to the Sydney Opera House. We’ll definitely have to come back to take in a show when it’s completed. The rest of the area had a nice mix of standout architecture and infill structures that mixed well with the existing warehouses that line the canals in the area. We walked around for a good while before sitting down at a small café on a plaza where we had some deli sandwiches. Kirsten and I ended up with these meatloaf sandwiches, I’m not sure what they were called but they were pretty good.

We then parted ways with Kendra, Hedda, and Doris and walked up to the Hamburger Dom (the fair) and went in. It hadn’t quite opened yet so we were able to walk around a bit before our ride on Olympia Looping Bahn. The size of these portable rides and pavilions is staggering. I couldn’t imagine hauling all of this stuff around. They had a spook house with three levels, and a huge log flume ride. The fair also had two other roller coasters but due to time constraints I didn’t ride them.

Olympia Looping Bahn was the main attraction though. It’s the largest portable coaster in the world and can be assembled and disassembled in a few days due to Anton Schwarzkopf’s, the chief engineer, cone plug system of supporting the whole structure and large tanks of water acting as the foundation. It is also still the only coaster in the world with five vertical loops. Other coasters might go upside down more times but they usually rely on quick one-two inversions which in my opinion don’t match the loop for sheer thrill and appearance. The five loops are also laid out and colored in a way as to look like the Olympic rings when viewing the coaster from the side. And because it only stays in Germany and is never in one place for more than a few weeks, it’s a very hard roller coaster for an American to ride so it has achieved a sort of mythical status. So we rode it three times and then headed back to the S Bahn.

Oh you want to hear more about it? Well if you must know I thought it was amazing. Not number one but 95th percentile for me. Kirsten wasn’t feeling it so much for some reason although I think she was a bit alarmed by the filthy Russian carnies operating the ride who when the train returned to the station they greeted you with a gruff, “Get off!” And the shoulder harnesses have a tendency to tighten during the ride. The five loops were amazing and I was pretty apprehensive about the ride since loops tend to make me dizzy. And yes after my three rides I was feeling pretty dizzy and high from the high g-forces. However, the first drop, loop, turn, and then two more loops in a row is one of the best opening combinations I’ve experienced.

By the third ride it began to rain pretty hard so we trudged our way over to the U-Bahn and took the train from St. Pauli to Landungsbrucken then transferred to the S-1 to Othsmarchen where we met up with Roland, Susi, Kendra, and Chrissi to go to the Hamburg soccer match against Chelsea. Now granted it was a preseason exhibition game but still we were pretty excited to go to a fussbal match in Germany. We took the bus from Othsmarchen Station out to the Arena and met up with Volker and his fiancée Christine at a biergarten nearby.

The game itself was a blast, Everyone did a good job explaining all the traditions in cheering on their team and seeing as how we had tickets for the bleachers it was good to be able to participate. It was akin to sitting in the student section of a college football team that has particularly rowdy fans. Lots of noise, lots of singing together and waving flags, lots of camraderie It was a great time. And the bratwursts sold at the stadium were exceptionally good as well. Hamburg defeated Chelsea 2-1 and we all piled into the bus and headed back to the house.

Germany Day 6: Triple Colossos

Today was our trip out to Heide Park, an amusement park an hour south of Hamburg. Roland, Susi, Chrissi, Caro, Kendra, Kirsten, and I met up with Doris' other son Volker, the one getting married on Friday and rode out there. This was our first experience on the German Autobahn and all of the stories about it are true. At times the traffic moved very, very schnell. It's truly a testament to German engineering that the cars and highway can routinely operate at that speed. I know ol' Bernie back at home would shake himself to pieces if I ever attempted that. And the highway etiquette was very impressive as well. No one got in the left most lane unless they really meant it and they accelerated enough to get back out. There was no one cruising in the left lane at ten miles below the speed limit yakking on a cell phone for sure.

So anyway, Heide Park was amazingly beautiful. You have to go to Disney World or Universal Studios to see the level of detailing in the states that they have. All of the grounds and rides were so immaculate and so richly decorated and appointed. Clearly Heide Park values quality over quantity (ahem, Six Flags).

Volker and I kicked things off with a ride on their Drop Tower called Scream which had a pirate theme while the rest of our party looked on. Then after that we all piled onto their bobsled coaster which was pretty tame but quite long and had some great curves. This was Kendra's first coaster since she was in college but she enjoyed it.

So naturally we went to their biggest coaster next, Colossos. It's one of the new breed of precision built wooden coasters and was a precursor to my favorite, El Toro. The line was already at ninety minutes at this point so we decided to plunk down nine euro and get three skip the line passes for their most popular rides. Once we were up in the station, Kendra and I paired up for the front seat.

And the verdict: Kendra thought it was a ton of fun. . . but once was enough. I loved it! Granted it wasn't as good as El Toro but easily a 90th percentile ride. Is that nerdy enough for you?

After that we went for a spin on Grottenblitz - their mine train coaster with wild horses engaging in combat, Mountain Rafting - their whitewater rafting ride, Wildwasser Bahn - their log ride, Big Loop - their looping coaster, a gentle boat ride through a garden and then back in time to see some cavemen, and also a stop at their biergarten for some beer and pretzels. Finally their other big ticket ride, Desert Race, opened after having some mechanical problems.

Desert Race is one of those rocket coasters that accelerate from a standstill to a high speed in a very short amount of time using cables, winches, and the power of hydraulics. Usually these rides accelerate and then go straight up but this one made a hard turn to the right and proceeded to do a series of high speed figure eights before abruptly hitting the brakes. This one was also a solid ride - a little short as the rocket coasters tend to be but still a whole lot of fun and one of the better ones I've been on. I really liked the fast turn after the launch.

We ended the day with another ride on Colossos (I actually went twice with three times total) and a spin on their other log flume which had a mine theme. Chrissi, Caro, Volker, and I also took a ride on their pirate themed splash battle ride where you go around this obstacle course in these large boats. Everyone on board has a hand crank powered water gun as do people on other boats as well as people walking by the attraction. Everyone is spraying everyone else with water without mercy for at least five minutes and needless to say we all got completely soaked.

After that we all headed back to Hamburg and a delicious meal of leftover wiener schnitzel. I'm seriously going to have to make it! The rest of the evening was spent hanging around relaxing after the long day at the park.

Germany Day 5: Hamburg From the Water and Air

Paragraph 1 of Day 5: We slept in and had a leisurely breakfast and it was great.

Paragraph 2 of Day 5: Doris, Hedda, Kendra, Kirsten, and I all went into Hamburg with hopes of taking a tour of the Alster Lake which forms the northern boundary of the central city and has many large houses all around it and of the canals which criss-cross the southern part of the central city before reaching the Elbe River. Unfortunately we didn’t get there in time so we had to go with the less popular tour of the canals north of the Alster Lake which wind their ways through the backyards of very opulent houses and apartments. It was neat at first especially going across the Alster with the skyline all around us but eventually it just became a pleasant boat ride as the houses started to look the same. But still, the name of the game was relaxation today so it was nice to sit for a couple hours on a boat and enjoy each others company without running about.

Prior to getting on the boat we had a little bit of time to kill so we strolled about the central area – mainly searching for camera batteries. It was very bustling with people rushing around. It strangely seemed busier than Berlin even though Hamburg is just a bit over half the size. Perhaps it’s because we visited Berlin on a weekend and today was Monday and near lunch hour. Anyway, there were a lot of people about. Not so many bicyclists but just as many dogs as in Berlin.

The dogs here in Germany are so well behaved that leashes seem to be an afterthought. It seems that two times out of five a dog will be off his leash and will be contentedly walking alongside it’s owner without any problems of running around. I don’t think I’ve known any dogs that could be trusted off a leash in a busy urban setting like that so we decided that it was clear that dogs understand German. I mean a whole European country can’t be better dog handlers than I and everyone I know, can they?

After our boat tour we made a beeline for St. Michaelis church to see the inside and check out the view from the top of the bell tower. The church itself dates back to the mid 1600s but has had a few fires and the current building was actually completed in the early 1900s. It is a huge and very bright and airy church. The windows are all clear glass and the walls and ceilings are all painted a simple white or pastel blue. The result is a very cheerful church but still managing to be humbling with its size and beauty. There were a few items that were saved from the previous churches but most of it was from the 1900s.

The view from the top was amazing, you could see that Hamburg is a very low profile city and the skyline is still dominated by church steeples, which was neat to see in a city of nearly two million. We took some great photos and I drooled over the Olympia Looping Bahn roller coaster operating in the distance at the Hamburger Dom. I’ll be hitting that come Wednesday. Hopefully twice! It’s only the holy grail of us American roller coaster nuts.

Kendra, Kirsten, and I took the stairs down and got to see the apparatus that controlled the hands on the clocks and the chime and were amazed that it was just a system of gears, ratchets, and cables. All of which were controlled by a simple pendulum. The whole shebang was stamped 1911 – those Germans and their engineering. . . Completely awesome! We also walked past the swinging bells that play on Sundays and were astounded at how big they were. They were controlled by modern electric motors and rubber belts but I could imagine actually bell ringers jumping up and down on ropes back in the day.

After finally leaving St. Michaelis we hustled back to Roland and Susi’s home for a delicious Wiener Schnitzel dinner. Susi taught Kendra and I how to make it and we’re soooo going to attempt it when we get back. Just delicious!

It was a very relaxing day which is just what we needed after hustling around Berlin for the weekend and a full day at Heide Park tomorrow. Auf Wedersehen for now.

Germany Day 4: Palatial Living

Another restful night spent being rocked to sleep on the Spree River and another beautiful Berlin morning. A coda for last night: it seems that the crowds that we encountered so late were people going to see a famous German techno music artist who was putting on a show in some performance space. It was a good turnout!

We checked out of the hostel and hauled our bags off to the S-Bahn stop but not before getting some German pastries for the road. I picked up a giant jelly donut that was delicious and satisfied three of us for a quick breakfast. We ditched our bags in a locker at the Zoo train stop which is a very major stop on the train system and continued on our way to Charlottenburg Palace.

The palace was built as a summer home for Sophie Charlotte and her husband Friedrich III, Elector of Brandenburg who became King Friedrich I of Prussia. The two were eventual grandparents of Frederick the Great.

During World War II the palace suffered quite a bit of damage so a great deal of it has been restored rather than being original but most of the restoration was superbly done and at times it’s difficult to determine what is original and what wasn’t. The guidebook that we had said that the palace wasn’t much if you’ve seen others but being that I hadn’t it was plenty impressive to me! There was so much gold leaf and expensive chandeliers and damask wallpaper. Sophie Charlotte also had a very impressive and extensive ceramics collection that was interestingly displayed in some rooms.

After a lunch in the palace café (complete with a very talented violinist), we had a very nice long walk through the palace grounds and toured the outbuildings such as the mausoleum and the belvedere. It was especially nice that the grounds were open to the public as everyone in the surrounding area were out bicycling through or walking or jogging or just enjoying the day. It made the place very warm and pleasant.

We stopped in a little Italian sidewalk café on our way back to the train station for ice cream before our train ride back to Hamburg. We parted ways with Ingrid and made our way back down to the platform of the Berlin Hauptbahnhof and caught the regular train, no ICE this time, back to Hamburg. Roland and Susi’s daughter Carolin (Caro for short) met us at the train station and drove us back to the family home and the rest of the night was spent getting to know everyone including Susi’s older son Christoph (Chrissi for short).

From here on out we’re hanging out in Hamburg. Tune in tomorrow for some Hanseatic adventures!

Germany Day 3: Yer Mom's a German Day

We got up early this morning to get up to the Reichstag before the crowds got there – but unfortunately we didn’t beat them and when we walked around the corner we were greeted by the sight of dozens of tour buses parked along the street and a line three times longer than we saw yesterday. So we got burned there but we decided to stick it out and wait. It ended up being about an hour and a half before we were through security but while we were waiting we were entertained by a troupe of puppeteers controlling a giant man who walked through the crowd hamming it up and doing various gymnastics.



Finally we made it into the Reichstag which as I said earlier is Germany’s current capitol building. The actual building has stood on this spot for a very long time but was burned to a shell at the outbreak of World War II. Actually there is quite a bit of political intrigue there but I won’t go into that (see more about that here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reichstag_fire). It sat abandoned throughout the Cold War with the wall running directly behind it. Eventually it was remodeled by architect Norman Foster into the amazing building that it is today. The biggest tourist attraction here is the great glass dome that replaced the old cupola that was lost during the fire. Two ramps spiral up the inside of the all glass dome around a giant cone made of mirrors that direct sunlight into the assembly room below. The dome is also completely open so it also creates a convection current that naturally cools the assembly chambers without any need for air conditioning. Also the view from the ramps and the top of the roof of the surrounding area is spectacular.

Leaving the Reichstag we walked up Ebert Strasse Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe– a brilliantly done public space. The land gently undulates in a bowl shaped depression laid over with cobblestones while a grid of large monoliths is overlaid that with each one having a different height such that the tallest monoliths are approximately at the deepest part of the depression. So as you walk into the forest of monoliths it becomes more and more like a disorienting labyrinth. I say it’s brilliant as a public space because it’s a thoughtful memorial without being too stern and it’s large enough so that kids can play in the space without disturbing people who are there looking for thoughtful introspection.

After that we continued down Ebert Strasse to Potsdamer Platz which has become sort of the Times Square of Berlin. The architecture is very bold and modern however it acted like a black hole and we were sucked in for what seemed like four hours having lunch and dessert in two separate places in what was basically a mall. It’s very heavily commercialized in the American/Western style and the context is quite jarring from the rest of Berlin which is fairly laid back for being such a large city. We finally left the area in various levels of irritability which eventually subsided as we got back into the more realistic parts of the city.

From Potsdamer Platz we walked toward Checkpoint Charlie with a short detour to see the ruins of Anhalter Bahnhof train station which suffered severe bombing during the war. Actually, now it is just the entrance that remains but it was still neat to see and in the middle of a Bauhaus style neighborhood. Checkpoint Charlie was incredibly tacky and we didn’t stay longer than the time it took to take a picture of the McDonalds looming over the little guard shack and grimace at the I Heart CPC t-shirts.

Instead we retraced our steps to the Topography of Terror museum of the holocaust. It was located at the former headquarters of the SS and was left as rubble with a portion of the wall and a small but very nice museum in a modern building. The museum was very moving and difficult to stomach but educational.

We had quite a bit of time until our dinner reservations but didn’t quite feel like going back to the boat so we ended up sitting at a café in the Gendarmen Markt between the French Cathedral and the German Cathedral – yes, those are their real names. Hedda had a Berliner Weiss which was sort of a watermelon or sour apple flavored beer that was a deep emerald green. It was not popular among our group. While we were sitting there a string quartet began playing by the fountain in the plaza and a bachelor party rolled by on a bar where each bar stool had a set of bicycle pedals so the party could pedal around the city and drink at the same time. The bartender was also the driver but everyone had to pedal (and sing drinking songs at the top of their lungs). It looked like a ridiculous amount of fun. We also taught Hedda and Doris the fun of Yer Mom jokes.

Dinner was at a Moroccan place called Kasbah that was in the northern part of the city that used to be more of a Jewish quarter but is now very international. It too was a very good dinner in a very nice atmosphere. The food itself was a bit too salty for our tastes but was still very good.

We ended the evening with a quick trip to the top of Fernsehturm, the Berlin version of the observation deck on top of a television transmitter that are always a lot of fun to go up into. The tower is most famous for it’s “Pope’s Revenge”. The story goes that the East German government made it illegal for churches to have crosses on their steeples and so as construction was completed on the Fernsehturm, which features a spherical observation pod covered with a faceted mirrored surface it became apparent that when the sun shone directly on the tower it would reflect off the mirrors – in the shape of a giant cross - and on the tallest structure in East Germany no less!

We returned to the boat and found our little neighborhood was jumping with revelers even though there really weren’t too many bars in our immediate vicinity. Even the bar on the top deck of our boat was alive with dancing people. Most of our group went directly to bed but Kendra and I decided to venture out for one last German beer before calling it a night. We crossed over the river again to a cluster of nice, sophisticated bars that we had noticed the night before and along the way we discovered the epicenter of all the revelry. We couldn’t figure out exactly what was going on but people were lined up around the block – well after midnight – to get into this nondescript looking group of buildings. But the bar we went to was nice, we sat outside and watched all the bicyclers still whizzing about even though it was so late. Those Berliners sure like their bicycles, they were everywhere! We returned to the boat after one drink feeling more relaxed and ready for sleep. Our final day in Berlin will be up tomorrow!

Germany Day 2: Sunny Day in Berlin

We woke up early from a very restful night courtesy of Roland and Susi and met up with Doris and Hedda to make our way to the main train station in Hamburg for our train to Berlin. Doris got us advance tickets on the ICE – Germany’s high speed rail although the corridor between Hamburg in Berlin is too short for the trains to really get up to top speed. Still, they were a very comfortable ride and they look cool. The northern German countryside looks a lot like the Midwest of the US – lots of agriculture plus big windfarms.


Upon arrival to the Hauptbahnhof of Berlin we caught the subway/elevated train over to the east side where we were staying in a hostel boat docked on the Spree River just on the other side of one of the longest remaining stretches of the wall in the city which is now used as a canvas for graffiti style art. Ingrid was waiting there for us when we arrived and waited for us to throw our bags in our rooms and get checked in.


From there the six of us retraced our steps back to the local station and retraced our tracks back to the center of town. We decided on a nice little pizza place in the Hackeser Markt area which was pretty good and quite affordable. I tried the local specialty drink of mixing the typical north German pilsner beer with sprite or some similar fruit soda. We all agreed that initially it was quite tasty but after awhile it seemed to just take away from the beer flavor. We got caught a couple more times with the beer – sprite mixture before we figured out what to avoid. I’m glad that we tried it though because we had heard about it from others.


Freshly fueled we finally made our way out into Berlin which was an amazing and modern city. Because of bomb damage during the war and then cultural damage during the communist days there has been quite a lot of development since the fall of the wall. The result is quite pleasant with very old buildings sitting next door to restored buildings that had been partially damaged sitting next to brand new buildings that architecturally sympathetic to their surroundings but still have an identity of their own. Our first stop as we crossed the Spree onto what the Berliners call Museum Island was the giant Berliner Dom (Berlin Cathedral). We had just missed the tour so we didn’t get a chance to go in but the outside was amazing and vastly different than the grand churches we’ve seen in Paris and London. Mainly because of the enormous dome on top and the fact that the German churches seem to be more square shaped than following the cruciform plan of the traditional catholic churches.

Crossing back over the Spree we followed the main street through Berlin which has several names but goes by Unter den Linden for this, its most famous stretch. The roadbed dates back to the mid 1600s and gets its name for the Linden trees that are planted along the road and the promenade down the middle. Walking down this street takes you past several important buildings in Berlin as well as Humboldt University which we found out later was the alma mater of Marx, Lenin, the brothers Grimm, and Einstein.


Unter den Linden ends at the Brandenburg Gate made famous to Americans by JFK and his famous speech, Reagan and his famous speech, and several videos on MTV by the Scorpions and Jesus Jones. I was actually surprised at its size, for such an important landmark in European and even world history the gate is quite diminutive. Size notwithstanding it was awe inspiring to be standing in the shadow of something that had witnessed so much history in so many lifetimes.

So that was pretty cool.


Crossing through the gate we stepped over a cobblestone line in the sidewalk which marked the former site of the wall. For those keeping track for historical purposes, we were now leaving East Berlin and going into the west. In front of us was the Tiegarten, which is Berlin’s central park as well as the Reichstag which is now the center of German government after witnessing quite a bit of history itself. We decided the line to get in was a bit too long for our liking so we decided to return tomorrow morning so more about the Reichstag tomorrow.

Don’t look at me that way, there’s other crazy stuff ahead!


Like fer’instance we decided to walk through the Tiegarten to the other side where there was a lake and a little café that Ingrid either remembered or had heard about and as we were walking through the park a completely naked man walked out of the trees and laid down in the grass. See, that’s pretty crazy right? Continuing further into the park there were many more naked man encounters. It seems that naked sunbathing is something to do in the parks in Berlin. The park itself was very leafy and wild, no sign of formal gardens or paved paths. There were a few footbridges and we did discover a couple playgrounds but for the most part, the park was entirely wooded with a few meadows interspersed for pick up games of soccer or naked sunbathing.



After our little coffee and beer break at the café by the lake we walked out of the park and onto Kurfurstendamm which was the main drag for West Berlin when the city was divided. Now it’s mostly a typical commercial artery with a lot of tourist schlock. We did stop by the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial which was the bombed out ruins of a church with another modern church nearby entirely composed of small blue stained glass windows. It would have been a very cool little memorial but the all the vendors crowding around the outside spoiled the mood.



From here we returned to our little hostel boat and freshened up for dinner. Ingrid had made us reservations at a Turkish place called Deneb which was across the river from our hostel in the area called Kreuzberg. It was a fairly lengthy walk but we got to see a lot of different facets of Berlin and the bridge we walked across to get to the other bank of the Spree was very cool and Baroque. The dinner was superb and we got to eat outside right on the sidewalk so we could watch the people going by and the river flowing past.



Later when we returned to the boat, Kirsten, Kendra, Hedda, and I all went up to the top deck bar for a nightcap and a lot of laughs. It was a solid first day in Berlin and we had a great time!

Germany Day 1: Pushing Through the Jetlag

Well the first day of jet lag has been conquered. Barely. Our flight over was. . . well I feel bad because normally I like Continental and I feel that they're one of the better of the old guard US airlines but they just didn't put their best foot forward. Or they perhaps put their best foot forward directly on a loose roller skate. Anyway, I'm not going to kick this latest blog expedition with a bunch of whining. I will mention that I watched Cop Out on the way over and was amused to see so many sites from our neighborhood (Bay Ridge) in Brooklyn.

Hamburg so far has been very nice. Kirsten's Aunt Doris met us at the airport and shortly after we arrived, Kirsten's mother and sister, Hedda and Kendra arrived. We all piled into Doris' VW Golf with all of our luggage and much nose honking (clown car joke) and made our way over to Doris's apartment in the city. She made us a delicious lunch and then we went for a very long walk through a nature preserve near her place. It was very astonishing and progressive to see such an enormous nature preserve so close to the center of the city complete with ponds and horses grazing.

After our stroll we returned for a little R & R at Doris' place before heading to Doris' son Roland house where Kendra, Kirsten, and I will be staying in Hamburg with him and his family. We had another amazing meal and plenty of great conversation and laughs. It's been fun listening to everyone jump between German and English. This evening we generally took it easy keeping in mind our early morning train ride to Berlin tomorrow morning.

Day 0: Butchering a Classic

Twas the night before Germany and all through the Apt.
Not a creature was stirring 'cept me and one cat.
The bags were all packed full of clothes just so
All set for tomorrow when away we will go.
The wife was passed out, sprawled all over the bed
Perhaps conjuring visions of bier in her head.
As I finish loading my ipod and rechecking my list
I hope that there isn't anything that I've missed.
I rub my eyes and stretch and say to the cat
"Well Manny, you know I suppose that is that."
He blinked and rolled over as if to say,
"Pay attention to me, you were out all day!"
And while rubbing his belly I got to thinkin'
All the details of the trip were starting to sink in.
We fly from Newark to Hamburg on a big ol' jet plane
And from Hamburg to Berlin we're taking a train.
Tante Doris is meeting us and with her son we will stay
And Kendra and Hedda will join us later that day.
Ingrid from England will meet us in Berlin
All these women. . . what this trip really needs is some men!
I feel my eyelids drooping like they do on the subway
It's soon time to power down and go hit the hay.
I look forward to flying to Europe like a duck
But twenty-eight verses of this I fear is too much.
It seemed a good idea when I started at first
But I know I can't finish it my eyeballs will burst.
Which is sad because I wanted to include
Something my Grandad said when I was a lil dude.
He would stop when he came to the part "threw up the sash"
And say to me, "I always thought it was 'threw up my hash."
Then we would laugh and giggle because it was silly
And to think of it now it rather still is, really!
Well I know there's an airsickness joke there somewhere
But alas it's midnight and my brain is threadbare.
So I'll leave you now with that great vision
Of vomiting out a window but that wasn't my mission.
But tune in tomorrow or whenever it may be
To find a new blog posted to you all from me.
And now as the garbage truck rolls by in the night
I'll see you in Germany! Boy, these pants sure are tight. . .