February Trip to Hamburg (WUNDERLAND!)

Post date: Feb 27, 2017 3:37:18 PM

Penny (surprise soul mate who lives in London) decided to visit somewhere new every month of 2017. I have decided to join her in her resolution. So for February we decided to go somewhere cool and new in Germany, Hamburg. As Germany’s second largest city, Hamburg is known for it’s young and very hip scene. While we are neither young, nor hip, but we definitely had a blast.

As usual, I did all my research about Hamburg from Lonely Planet, which suggested the Chilehaus as the number 1 site to see in Hamburg. I’m calling bullshit. It was a cool building (see interesting architecture below) but it wasn’t even the coolest site on Saturday, let alone in all of Hamburg. Also, they did not serve chilli, which really genuinely disappointed Penny.

It’s no secret that I don’t love museums, but part of being a good travel buddy is sometimes putting the needs of others over yourself. So off to the Museum of Art and Industry Hamburg we went. And let me tell you, we saw the coolest exhibit I have ever seen at any non-science museum ever (my dislike of museums doesn’t extend to Natural History Museums, which I love). It was called “Game Changers” and highlighted different video game designers who changed the field. It started with about a dozen arcade games, like Space Invaders, Donkey Kong and PacMan. It then went through a number of different designers, and for each one had a game console set-up so you could play the game. It was so interesting seeing Mario being played on three different screens next to each other, so you can see the obvious differences between Super Mario, Mario 64 and Mario Wii. Sonic was featured on the sega genesis and a sonic in 3D screen (which Penny is playing below). But they also had guitar hero, World of Warcraft, racing games, dance games, the Sims and so on and so on.

There was interesting designs, “god games”, artistic games vs. commercial successes, games I hadn’t seen since I was a child, and games that are super popular right now. There was a big screen version of Angry birds! We walked through that one exhibit for hours. It was awesome. (Fun fact, there are more copies of Angry Birds in existence than all the people in China and Europe combined.

Hamburg is a port city and emphasizes good food and great seafood. There is an entire Portuguese section in Neustadt (translation:new city… every place in Germany has a neustadt), so Penny and I yelped a Portuguese place for dinner. The dish below came to the table still bubbling from heat, and it was BEYOND amazing. Also, 0.5 l of wine… 7 euros… yes.

I’m not really a late night person, but Penny and I decided to keep things going by heading to bars. We were staying in the gay neighborhood in Hamburg (St. Georg), and found ourselves at a few gay bars. It was hoping. Please note there is a red light district in Hamburg, but the biggest brothel (prostitution is legal in Germany) does not allow women or boys under 18 years old to enter. So we didn’t go.

In our researching Hamburg everyone said repeatedly “You have to go to the fish market” So we got up early on Sunday and went. It was a standard market, nice because it was on the water (even if it was a little grey).

But apparently the best part is that people stumble drunk from bars and there is music and food. We saw our fair share of drunk kids stumbling around (been there, done that, not this trip) and enjoyed the general frivolity, before seeking out breakfast.

One of the stranger sites in Hamburg is the Elbphilharmonic theater. It is one of the largest and most acoustically advanced concert halls in the world. It is popularly nicknamed Elphi. It’s built on top of an old warehouse and apparently ran WAY over budget and was only finished in Nov. 2016. Plus it looks really ugly.

But you can go up to the viewing level free of cost, so up we went! I like the cold (thank you Slovenian heritage!) but Penny does not. In order to stroll around the outside of the building she had to bundle up.

After our stroll we had time to kill so we found the brewery! Most German breweries (brauhaus) are laid back affairs with little pomp that you would expect from an American brewery. This one was the exception, it was very… posh. They had specially designed glasses that it took a few tries before we figured out the way to drink out of them. The beer wasn't bad (Penny LOVES German beer), and the radler was delicious (radler is my drink of choice, it's a mix of light beer and sprite) and warmed us up after our journey into the cold.

Hamburg is a beautiful city, but Germans sense of beauty is sometimes stark. Like the stereotypical canal below. Hamburg has more canals than Amsterdam, but they are less… pretty.

Finally, the jewel of Hamburg and the site I was most excited about takes a little explaining. It is called “Minitur Wunderland” and is exactly what it sounds like. The photos below capture some of, but not all of the awesomeness. Trains run around on miniature tracks, planes take off and land, hot air balloons drop in on cities and towns full of miniature people living their miniature lives. The rooms were divided into different geographic regions including the US below.

Beneath the Matterhorn there was the “International World Domination” lair. It came complete with a plotting under the globe conference room, an MiB room, a torture room and my personal favorite….

My favorite part of the sprawling two story exhibit space? There was a Miniatur Wunderland building, in the Miniatur Wunderland exhibit. Very meta.

All in all another successful trip! Penny and I talked about life, politics, empathy, success, career and reaffirmed by belief that we are soul mates.

We’re headed to Warsaw together next month, so our resolution continues!