Hamburg/Luneburg

Gillian, Christoph/Jannie, Anna, Juliane

The Hamburger Burgermeister is the mayor of Hamburg. And maybe Christoph was right.

This was my favourite part of our trip so far, and will be hard to top. Technically, we were staying in Luneberg, a town outside of Hamburg, but not a suburb - it’s a town in itself. And a really nice one at that. Christoph took Gillian and me into Hamburg on Thursday to show us around, give us a chance to experience the city and see it for what it was, but we spent most of the time in Luneberg, which ended up being fine by me.

Although I only saw it for a day, Hamburg was really nice. It was friendly, laidback, there was a really cool energy to it. It’s also, apparently, the “greenest city in Europe.” Hell, even the industrial sector, separated from the heart of the city, is generously dotted with trees. There are independent fashion designers and food places all over town, beautiful canals that run through the city, and an efficient train system with a stop named Schlump (love it!).

One really cool thing about Hamburg is the role the water plays in the city. On the outskirts of the town, there is a ferry that runs as part of the intra-city transit system. Christoph also showed us a lake that is located inside the town, which looks very cool. Even cooler (sorry I’m low on adjectives at the moment), we rented a paddle-boat in the afternoon and paddled around the river that runs through the city. We had drinks, took breaks and just drifted, had hilarious misunderstandings (there will be a list of inside jokes at the end of this trip), and got to see a very peaceful part of town.

The bulk of the trip took place in lovely little (found some new adjectives) Luneberg. Damn, that parentheses got in the way of a perfectly good alliteration. Ah well. Luneberg was a great city to stay in. I felt the same friendly, relaxed, indie-cool energy that I saw in Hamburg (that was different from the friendly, relaxed, indie-cool energy in Berlin) and I was able to “get to know the locals” a bit better because we were living with “the locals”. We got to stay in a nice apartment in a nice area of town, we got to meet and talk to locals (i.e. Christoph’s friends, although their English isn’t as good as his and Jannie’s), and we got to eat and drink at popular local eating and drinking spots. Christoph and Jannie took us up this hill to this observation point where we could look over the town and, to our surprise, we discovered that there is a fairly thick forest that runs in and around Luneberg. Very cool to see and very nice to spend time in a place like that.

It’s also very important that I mention that Christoph and Jannie are one of the coolest couples I’ve had the opportunity to get to know. They tease each other a lot, but you can tell they really care about each other, and Jannie said something to Gillian one night at a BBQ that I thought was very telling.

Jannie: I hate couples.

Gillian: (laughing) But you’re a couple.

Jannie and Christoph are not a lovey-dovey, PDA-overload, must-always-do-everything-together kind of couple, as far as I can tell. They get along and share the same interests (e.g. both are very into soccer), but they also pursue their own interests. And when it comes down to it, they’re both very cool interesting fun people.

So when asked about which city in Germany was my favourite, I realised that it might not be one of the big cities. I really really enjoyed both Berlin and Hamburg but... I think I’m-a have to go with Luneberg as my favourite city in Germany.

And Christoph said that was acceptable. :D