For lunch on day 2 in Hamburg, I was planning on meeting up
with my single-serving airport friend, Henrike, who I had spent close to 12
hours with during my 24-hour stay in the Miami airport. Henrike is from Hamburg
and we had discussed meeting up and her showing me a little of the city. We
were planning on meeting at the Rathaus (City Hall) at noon, so I took the
U-bahn (side note: it was extremely easy to get around the city…gotta love
public transportation) and arrived about 10 minutes early. The square was
crowded with tourists and they were also setting up for a rock concert later in
the evening, so it was pretty packed. About 20 minutes into waiting, I spotted
a woman who looked to be standing around as well. Truth be told…I didn’t quite
remember what Henrike looked like, though I was almost positive she wasn’t this
other female. At 12:30pm, I decided to strike up a conversation with the
unknown woman and was correct in my assumption…it was not Henrike. However,
Judith was actually in a similar predicament and was supposed to be meeting up
with a friend for lunch at noon. Judith spoke almost perfect English and
explained how she spent a year studying in Kansas in an exchange program. At
around 1pm, Judith’s friend, Lisa, showed up. I was just about to say “Choos, schönen
tag noch” (bye, have a nice day) when they invited me to a quick lunch (since
they were both on their lunch breaks from work). I accepted since the
alternative was getting lunch on my own followed by walking the city by myself.
I’m sorry I missed Henrike (who had to cancel because an appointment ran way
over. Also, my phone apparently wasn’t working properly and I didn’t get her
email till I was back at the ship…terrible luck on all accounts), but had a
wonderful time chatting with Judith and Lisa instead!
After actually saying bye, I started making my way towards St.
Michael’s Church, a church the final four passengers of the night tour saw the
previous evening (after everyone else exited early). The church is a landmark
for the city, as well as the largest church in Hamburg. It is dedicated to the
Archangel Michael (see picture showing the statue in front of Michael defeating
the Devil). It too has a tower you can climb, via 350 stairs, so I paid a few euros
and did it. It was totally worth it as the viewing platform had a clear 360°
view of the city.
St.
Michael’s Church
Views From The Top:
I spent the rest of the day wandering through huge parks (Grosse
Wallanlagen & Kleine Wallanlagen), talking with various individuals
(Germans, Australians, Dutch, English, and Americans), before going out for
dinner and drinks at another recommended restaurant, Sala Thai, which was
delicious! On the way, we were able to see the Elbphilharmonie (Elbe Philharmonic
Hall), which is a concert hall. It is located in HafenCity (New City), which has
completely different architecture and looks like a completely different city
than the rest of Hamburg. The concert hall is designed on top of an old
warehouse and will be the tallest inhabited building (apartments are located on
the upper floors of the concert hall) in Hamburg, when completed. Therein lies
the true question though. Construction started in 2007 and the structure was scheduled
to be finished in 2010 at the estimated cost of €241 million. After multiple new
budget estimates and changed timelines, it won’t be completed till 2017 and the
new estimated cost for the city is over €700 million…yikes!
The Elbphilharmonie (Construction still in Progress)
I hadn’t stayed up too late because the next day was filled
with another SAS Field Program which I was leading. This time it was the
Dollerup Service Visit to the Diederichsen family farm, which was converted
into a foster care home in 1992.
The day started with what was going to be a 1.5 hour drive
to the city of Flensburg, (which was about 20 minutes from the foster care
home), where we’d meet with a recent graduate of the University of Georgia,
Erik, who has been working at the foster home for the last 8 months.
Unfortunately, we hit terrible (like LA terrible) traffic and it ended up
taking us 3.5 hours to get to Flensburg. This obviously cut down the time
frames for the rest of the items on our itinerary significantly. We stopped for
a late lunch in Flensburg (that was planned), but didn’t get to the farm till
3pm (instead of 1pm). Thus, our group only had 2.5 hours at the farm, but we definitely
made the most of it!
After a brief introduction with the family, our group was
able to get a tour of the entire property. It was a converted farm with two
main houses and a “stable” which had been turned into a play area (20 years
ago). The foster care home currently has 7 children: Alina (female-12), Dilan
(female-13), Jonas (male-13), Marvin (male-14), Chrissy (female-16), Kevin
(male-16), and Tom (male-20), though the family has had a total of 24 since
1992. In addition, the children spoke no English (only the father spoke a
little bit)…however, Alina and Dilan did both sing an entire Adele song to our group
when we were finishing up (though I’m assuming they didn’t know what they were
actually saying in English). The service projects SAS had planned were to help
the family paint a wall of the play area and to help construct a new soccer
goal for the field in the backyard. The students were eager to get to work and
to start interacting with the children. When the projects were finished,
everyone played a pick-up game of soccer; however, it only lasted about 20
minutes before we had to get on the bus and head back to Hamburg. Here are some
pictures:
Painting a Wall of the Play Area
The Finished Product
Group Picture at the Dollerup Foster Care Farm
The Children Blocking the Driveway
As this was our last night in Hamburg, a few of the staff
(Alison, Nathan, Carla, Bryan, and I) decided to go out for a night on the
town. We went to the Reeperbahn (red-light district) where we proceeded to do a
pub-crawl and dance late into the night. The last place we went (and stayed the
majority of the night) was excellent. There were numerous rooms with a “pub”
feel, “club” feel, as well as a large room with live music (acoustic guitar).
Interestingly, most of the music played in this type of setting is American top
40 (with some 80s and 90s thrown in as well).
Being that we were out late, I slept in till 10am on my
final day in Hamburg. This caused me to miss the fish market, which seemed to
be a big deal in the city, but those that went explained it was really like any
other fish market you could go to. This made me less upset at myself for not
waking up (not to mention I couldn’t eat the fish anyways). Before getting back
to the ship, I finished my Germany food experience with one last schnitzel
(love the schnitzel!) and helped out with the embarkation of the students.
Schnitzel Sandwich!
On the ship, we have a small television in each room with 6
channels. One channel always shows the ship’s position, one is a live feed from
our biggest classroom (The Union) on the ship, another has a news channel
(usually BBC or Al Jazeera) and finally one has various popular movies on a
continuous loop. In-Bruges was on for the three days prior to arriving in
Antwerp, so I watched it and got myself ready for Belgium!
“A sense of accomplishment. It is the most important
ingredient in any rational being’s formula of happiness. It is the element that
builds confidence and allows us to go on to other, greater tasks. It is the
item that promotes a sense of self-worth, that allows any person to believe
there is value in life itself, that gives a sense of purpose to bolster us as
we face life’s unanswerable questions.”
Loved the Diederichsen Family Farm/ Foster Care Home. Your story made me cry. Great job on the play area wall. Too bad you don't get Fox News. Love you.
ReplyDeleteCool story about the family farm, Dave! I've heard from students that have participate in SAS that the service trips are some of the most meaningful experiences. And way to brave it as a field trip host! Good luck with future excursions!
ReplyDeleteGreat stuff, Dave - I hope you have more opportunities for service work for other similar experiences. Also, keep eating/enjoying the local food :)
ReplyDelete