Miniatur Wunderland... and more

Today, our friends Elder and Sister Frank drove into Hamburg from Kiel to spend the day sight seeing with us.  We were very glad to see them.  We laugh a lot when we are with them.  They arrived about 1100 am, parked their car (yes, they have a car) and off we went.  First we took a Stadtrundefahrt, (a sight see in bus that you can jump on and off all day) ans toured the city of Hamburg. We saw some beautiful areas with great big houses and some not so nice areas  like the "red light district" or "Reeperbahn".  It originally referred to the amount of hempen rope produced here during the 18th and 19th centuries for ships in Germany's biggest harbor.  Now it is known for it's nightlife and "off color" entertainment.  We were not impressed. 

After touring for awhile, we had lunch at a Haufbrou.  Yes, we had real German food and yes, it was tasty.  We were introduced to at drink called FassBrause, (apple beer).  It is very tasty and non alcoholic.  After lunch, we hopped back on the bus and went to the Speicherstadt along the Elbe River.  This is a historical warehouse district in the heart of Hamburg.  There we found the Minitaur Wunderland.  It is a giant model train exhibition.  It covers 1 1/2 floors of the warehouse with more construction to be completed by 2020.  There is over 13000 m of train tracks with 930 trains running.  The longest train is 14,51 meters long.  There are1270 signals and 3050 switches.  It is run by 46 computers.  There are approximately 335,000 lights, 215,000 figurines, and 228,000 trees in the exhibit.  It took 580,000 construction hours to build to date.  These numbers will increase as the new areas are built.  We spent 2 hours wandering around, looking at each area.  There was a USA area which included Las Vegas, The Grand Canyon, Monument Valley, New York.  There was a Swiss ares, A Bavarian area.  Scandinavia,and Austria were also represented. Germany included the Knuffingen Airport with planes landing and taking off, middle Germany, and  Hamburg  It was worth going to Hamburg just to see this exhibit.  (You can find a video on you tube about it).  After leaving the exhibition, we returned to our hotel, took a short nap and went for a ice cream run.  It was a great day.

Hamburg

Today, we are on our way to Hamburg.  We take the ICE train from Berlin and arrive in Hamburg 2 hours later.  The train went 228km/h.  When we arrived in hamburg, it was drizzling.  We had such good weather in Dresden, I was hoping for it to continue.  We took a taxi to our hotel, the Sofitel, in downtown Hamburg.  It is a modern hotel, decorated  with modern "IKEA" type furniture.  It was not my favorite, but was nice.  Our room was small and crowded.  The service at the hotel was amazing.  People were always trying to help you.  We checked in and went out to view the sites.

 We went to the "Rathaus" (government building), to go on a tour only to discover no tours this week because Parliament was in session. It was inaugurated in 1897. It is a lovely old building with museum type art and furniture.  We were disappointed not to get to see it.  We took a couple of pictures in the lobby and then headed outside. Above the main port is written in Latin "The descendants shall aim to maintain the freedom which was achieved by the ancestors with dignity". 

Next we wondered around downtown Hamburg, a bustling city with many stores and restaurants.  It was a lot more crowded here in Hamburg then Dresden.  We went into a couple of churches that we found.  They are beautiful inside.  Many  of the churches are still for weekly services and have nightly meetings or entertainment.  One church we went in was St. Michaelis.  It was built in 1762.  Much of the church was destroyed by bombs in WWII and had to be rebuilt.  We were able to go down into the crypt and also up the 435 steps to the top lookout.  the tower is 132 meters high.  From the top we were able to see all of the surrounding areas of Hamburg. Every day at 100:00am and 9:00pm, "Turmblaster" takes place, a trompeter playing a piece of classical music which can be heard for miles around.  Hamburg is mostly flat and a lot like Berlin with it's big buildings and traffic.  We finished the day with dinner at a lovely fish restaurant called "Fischereihafe Restaurant".  We had to take a taxi there.  It was located in the Harbor area, our table overlooking the water. Back to our room, watched a movie on the TV.  We don't have TV in Berlin so it was a treat and then to bed.  It was a good day.

Rathen

Today we took the the train to a small town in the Sachsische Schweiz.(Saxon, Switzerland).  Don't worry, we did not leave Germany.  This is a forest area very like some places in Switzerland. The town is called Rathen, (pronounced rotten).  It is located in a national park.  It consists of a couple of streets of businesses and homes.  It is a located at the base of the Bastei.  The train ride was 40 minutes and then we had to cross the Elbe River on a ferry.  As we walked around the quaint town cobblestone streets, we stumbled on to a path that led up to the Bastei.  This is a large area with rock formations similar to those in Bryce National Park, Utah only they are gray instead of pink.  We started hiking up the trail along a river, then turned up between high narrow rock canyons.  The trail then turned into steps, approximately 800-1000 of them to the top.  The country is beautiful.  The views spectacular.  We completed the hike going down the other side of the Bastei.  It would have been a much easier hike if we had come up that way instead of the many stairs but we would have missed so much of the experience of hiking in the steep canyon of rock. 

We decided to take the cruise boat back to Dresden.  It cruised up the Elbe River through county that looks a lot like Saxony.  It took longer, about 3 hours, but was very beautiful.  The ship was full and we had to stand up the 1st hour, but then were able to get seats the rest of the way.  It was relaxing and warm. 

When we arrived back in Dresden, it was dinner time.  We went to an Australian Restaurant.  We ordered something to drink and then started looking at the menu.  It was hard for us to find something that we would eat.  The menu had crocodile steaks, kangaroo steaks, ostrich steaks...   I was not interested in trying any of those things,  I finally found a chicken dish that sounded good(it was), and ordered that.  Dan found the 1 beef dish on the menu and ordered it.  He also enjoyed his meal. 

It was a long, fun day.  We would love to go back to Rathen someday and hike some more. 

Our last day in Dreesden was spent relaxing in the morning and then meeting with Elder Angerhofer, and Elder Riesen.  Elder Angerhofer was in Berlin with us for 4 months before being transfered to Dresden.  We took them to lunch and caught up on how he was doing.  It was great to see him again.  We then boarded the ICE train and sped back to Berlin to get ready to go to Hambug the next day.

Dresden is beautiful....

Monday, We boarded a train and went to Dresden.  It is a beautiful place, full of history.  We took a taxi to our hotel, the Bulow Residenz, dropped off our stuff and went out to see the sights.  We walked across the bridge to the center of old Dresden.  It is full of churches, museums, and history.  You will notice the buildings are all black.  After the fire bombing in 1945, most of the buildings were destroyed.  They have used the bricks  from the original buildings to rebuild when ever they could.  We tried to smell the kerosene in the brick, but it no longer smells.  History says that at least 50,000 people died the first night of fire bombing.  Many suffocated because they hid in basements and all the air was sucked out by the fires.  There were also "fire tornados" all over the city.

 One of the main churches we saw was the Frauen Kirche or Women's Church.  The inside is beautiful, decorated in blues and golds.  We went to the top of the church and had a great view of Dresden.  The church was first erected in about 1722.  We also visited the Dreikonigskirche.

  We went to the art museum, one of many museums in the area.  It  is internationally renown due to its holdings of Italian masterpieces including Raphael's "Sistine Madonna", Giorgione"s "Sleeping Venus", Titian's "The tribute Money",  and Correggio's "Holy Night".  The paintings are beautiful, with such detail.  Unfortunately, pictures were not allowed to be taken inside the building.

Glenike Parade

Yesterday we went to help out with the Glenike Parade and Celebration.  The city was celebrating it's founding 600 years ago. Glenike is pretty city.  Many of the houses we saw were big.  All were neat and tidy, no two looked alike.  There were many trees around the homes.  It would be like living in Mammoth with the forest all around.   It was simply beautiful!

  Many of our missionaries and YSA's went to help.  We had a great time.  The weather was partly cloudy and cool at times, but no rain.  I was assigned to help line up floats for the parade.  I also was assigned to pass out sandwiches to the "Helping Hands"  workers.  Lots of walking, and 1 hour later, the sandwiches were all passed out.  Dan was also assigned to positioning floats, though we were assigned to different groups.  I think that was because we so not speak very much German. Together it would have been difficult to communicate what we wanted people to do.  Everyone appeared to be having fun.  The pictures are of the workers and parade.