Fall Madness

An odd thing happens to me around the middle of September. I begin to get this insatiable itch for pumpkin flavoured everything, I crave caramel apple cider, and the only things I seem to want to do involve apple picking, pumpkin picking, going on hayrides, and driving out to see fall foliage. This oddly incurable condition which affects 1 in 1 Americans is aptly named Fall Madness*. 

As much as I adore England, there is no place in the world I would rather be for autumn than the eastern seaboard of the United States. I have never been able to put my finger on why, but autumn here seems to wrap you up in a well-worn blanket of colour, spices, and crisp, beautiful fall days. It has and always will be my favourite time of the year. A time when I can’t help but imagine Washington Irving’s descriptions of Sleepy Hollow, New York and think about eating all the pumpkin things, and bake with maple syrup, mace, cinnamon, and allspice.

Since I’ve arrived back in the US I have managed to do some of my favourite fall things like apple picking at the local farm, baking cookies, and yesterday I managed to add a new fall favourite to my list and went out to Longwood Gardens. Those of you who have been following my adventures for a while know how much I love being outside and love wandering around gardens. So you’ll understand when I tell you that of all the botanic gardens I’ve been to, Longwood is my most favourite. I’ve even gotten in an evening of sailing on the river.

I’ve managed to share these special days with my closest friends which has made them all the more special. Dear Reader, I implore you to get out and enjoy autumn in all its splendour. Do ALL the fall things! 

A fall staple: Pumpkin Spice Cookies with vanilla glaze.

My Fall Madness presented with a manic need to bake something pumpkin flavoured. Thankfully my nine-year old niece was over for a visit and I recruited her to help. I couldn't stop talking about pumpkin this and pumpkin that. By the time we got to the stage of putting the dough onto the cookie sheets I finally got around to the most important question. 

I turned to my very patient niece and demanded more than asked, "You like pumpkin don't you?"

She looked at me sympathetically, "Well, it's not really my favourite thing."

Suddenly the past hour flashed before my eyes. My niece had been dropping subtle hints the entire time. Saying things like, "I don't like pumpkin pie but I do like apple pie." I began to laugh. 

"Next time we'll make apple spice cookies," I said.

Sometimes Fall Madness can make you jump in the air while you are in the middle of an apple orchard.

After the pumpkin spice incident, I decided to try to hide the symptoms of my fall madness as best I could. Then the message came from my good friend, Erika. She wanted to go apple picking. I tried to contain my excitement. APPLE PICKING! THE QUINTESSENTIAL FALL ACTIVITY!

We went to the local farm during one of their fall festival weekends and meandered up and down the rows of Red Delicious, Granny Smith, and Golden Delicious. The names of each species rang magically in our ears and we couldn't help but pick, pick, pick. Our bags became increasingly weighed down by our bounty. Erika stopped for some decorative gourds as well. After all it IS decorative gourd season. I managed to resist the temptation of the gourds, though they seemed to sing out like the Sirens straight out of the Odyssey.

Longwood Gardens in Autumn is a site to behold.

It is as though my friends cruelly feed my Fall Madness. Just a few weekends after my apple picking trip, my best friend, Laurie suggested a visit to Longwood Gardens. We've already established that Longwood is my favourite botanic garden so how could I resist Longwood in the autumn. 

We wandered past the Italian Water Garden, starkly green and blue against the leaves of the trees which were just starting to turn. We skipped through the meadow and past the most beautifully orange maple tree, standing as a Fall Sentinel at the side of one of the paths. The orangery was filled with ornamental peppers and yellow Lollipop flowers. We had an amazingly decadent lunch at the 1906 restaurant where we received a taste of the most amazing apple spice tea. 

As we were leaving, Laurie convinced me to get a student membership card as it would pay itself off at the next visit. How could I resist more autumnal flowers and meanderings?

As the season presses on, I should warn that there may be another post or two involving pumpkin carving, Thanksgiving baking and cooking, and hayrides and apple cider. Fall Madness does not end until I see Santa at the Thanksgiving Day parade in New York. (I suppose that's similar to the old adage, it ain't over til the fat lady sings....) Fall Madness ain't over til the Jolly Man laughs.


* I am not a medical professional. I you feel like you may be suffering from Fall Madness I suggest you contact your GP or alternatively call into your local Starbucks and order a venti Pumpkin Spice Latte.

The Pause Button

I’ve been back in the US for a month. The memories of my year in Durham have begun to fade ever so slightly; making it seem as though it were all a dream. I’ve fallen into a sort of routine here. Wake up. Go to CrossFit. Come home. Shower. Eat lunch. Do something semi-productive. Eat dinner. Go to bed. Repeat. Peppered in between are outings with friends and family. Those are the times I look forward to the most.

My year abroad though dream-like now, has certainly changed my perspective. I feel much closer to the people I left behind and being able to spend time with them has been very important. It has begun to make my return to England in January feel much more difficult than I had anticipated. I received word from Leicester that I have been accepted into the PhD programme and I accepted their offer last Friday. I can’t describe how excited I am to start a new adventure in a few months but it is bittersweet all the same.

I can’t get over this feeling of nostalgia I’ve had for the past two weeks. It began when I suggested to my parents that we visit my dad’s parent’s graves. I had never been to see them and I’ve been getting stuck into our family history and wanted very much to try to connect to the people I’ve been researching. Especially my grandfather as I never knew him. He served in both World Wars and was a Major by the end of WWII. I have only a few pictures of him and I know he was fluent in French (he was from Quebec) and that at one point he was a tailor and had taught my dad the proper way to iron trousers. We visited the cemetery and placed flowers on the graves.

A week later I felt ready to visit my grandmother’s grave. She passed away in January and I hadn’t been able to leave England to attend her funeral. My parents and I made plans to visit the cemetery. I must admit it felt odd standing at my grandmom’s grave. I had visited there many times to put wreaths on the stone for my grandfather, but this time it felt different. I couldn’t help thinking that under the ground my grandmother was lying there now. She is the first person I have been close to that has passed away and I wasn’t entirely sure what I was feeling.

We left the cemetery and went to meet up with some old family friends, John and Ollie. I have vivid memories of them and it had been a number of years since I had seen them last. I remember John always had me in stitches with his Donald Duck voice and Ollie was always filled with life. It was really great seeing them again and being able to connect with both of them as an adult. The feeling of nostalgia that had started a week before hit fever pitch on the drive home while my parents and I talked about “the good ole days.”

Nostalgia is a funny emotion. It is not at all a happy one. It is bittersweet and filled with a longing that can never really ever be realised. I began thinking about moving abroad again and an odd, overwhelming desire to hit the pause button on my life in the US struck me. I suppose in a way it is a very selfish feeling. I don’t want to miss anything. I don’t want to miss my nieces growing up, I don’t want to miss birthdays, I don’t want to miss Monday evening dinners at my friends Laurie and Lloyd’s house. It’s more than that though; it’s the odd feeling of time perpetually working its magic. It’s the not being able to rewind life just to get that taste that the hunger of nostalgia craves.

I do beg your pardon for the odd, slightly depressed nature of this post. To be honest, I’ve been really very happy over the past weeks. It has been brilliant seeing people, and connecting to everyone again. It is inevitable that in revisiting old stomping grounds that nostalgia would rear its head. If anything it reminds us that each moment is a really important and irreplaceable gift. I intend to make the most of the next few months here and when I move to Leicester, you better believe I’ll do my best to make every moment of those three years count. 

A Year (Almost) in Durham

It’s hard to imagine that a year ago I was just settling into bed for my first night in Durham. The memories from that day seem so vivid right now. The exhaustion from all of the goodbyes and the long flights, the incredible anxiety over finding my way in a brand new place (indeed a brand new country), the loneliness of knowing absolutely no one. I don’t consider time to be a linear thing at all. In fact, I feel as though I’m looking at Past Jen through a thin veil and I feel so excited for all the amazing things she is about to experience and I have experienced. It’s going to be an incredible year for Past Jen.

I’ve been back in the United States for two weeks now. It has been an interesting transition. I have managed to see some of my really dear friends (and was able to be in one of their weddings), I have unpacked all six of my suitcases, I’ve started CrossFit at my new box, and I’ve even managed to get some artwork done.

Truthfully, the move back to the US had been giving me great anxiety (I still have some). When you travel and live in a different place for an extended period of time, you change. Sometimes the changes are imperceptible but in my case, the changes have been on the order of St. Paul’s Cathedral. I feel out of place here now, like a puzzle piece in the wrong box. It is apparently a normal feeling for ex-Pats who come back, but it is unsettling.

I’m still uncertain about the future. I can only imagine Future Jen sitting somewhere behind the veil smiling about my present trepidation. In a week I will have a Skype interview for my PhD application at Leicester. Perhaps in a week I will know what Future Jen is smiling about. Perhaps, I won’t know for a while longer. In any case, I wish Past Jen the best wishes for an exciting year and I, for the moment, think I need a cup of tea, Earl Gray, hot while I sit with my memories. 

Farewell, Dear Durham

One year ago I was beginning to say my farewells to my friends in the United States. There were dinners, deep conversations, long hugs, and tears. How odd to be in England now going through the same sort of transitional period with my friends here. It seems, as I get older, that partings have become more and more frequent. I find that many people come into my life and are here for a short while and then we say goodbyes. Thanks to modern technology those goodbyes aren’t usually permanent. Our friendships pass into a different phase of messaging, exchanging likes, and Skype sessions.

I’m finding myself more conflicted in emotions than ever about this latest round of partings. I will be seeing most of my friends when I return to Durham in January for graduation and perhaps I will be staying on in England after that for PhD work. Perhaps these thoughts are making the goodbyes easier. Perhaps it’s something else.

Have you ever gone back to your high school or university after you’ve graduated? It’s a very odd feeling. A place that felt so familiar, so much like home, feels strange when it is filled with different people. People are what really make a place feel special, feel unique, feel like home. Over the past month or so I have seen friends and acquaintances leave Durham on their way to the next phase of life. As Durham has emptied, its character has changed. It has begun to feel different, not like the Durham I have gotten to know. New faces have arrived and unfairly I have just made some new friends only days before I leave. Even so, Durham is changing around me. Even if I had managed to stay here for the next few months, I’m not sure I would have recognised it. I’m not sure I would have belonged here. I would have been standing still while my world kept moving and changing.

This will likely be my last post from Durham, at least until January. I plan to continue writing posts for my blog over the next few months. There is still a lot of exploring I haven’t done in my own backyard and I have a feeling there is going to be quite a lot of reverse culture shock (especially since I have a bit of an accent now). The journey isn’t over, it’s just moving continents for a short time.   

The Uncertainties of Life

September is tomorrow. September is TOMORROW? SEPTEMBER IS TOMORROW! I’m not sure how August has flown by so quickly. Maybe it was all the work I’ve been doing on my research paper or maybe it was all the running around I’ve been doing trying to figure out the next step on this crazy journey of life. September is tomorrow.

I must apologise for leaving a blog entry for so long. The truth is, I have been quite busy finishing up my last assignment for grad school. It has been one of those things that I think I’m done and then I read it the next day and decide to totally change everything. Then I think to myself, yes, yes this is a good paper. Then I read it the next day and decide, actually, it would be better if the third paragraph were the second paragraph and the second paragraph were the fourth paragraph. Many a grad student has gone insane in the fateful waters of the grad school research paper triangle. I managed to break free of it about two weeks ago, but that is only because I refuse to read my paper.

So two weeks, Jen? Two weeks and still no blog entry?

Well, when you get to the end of a chapter in your life, sometimes it takes a lot of thinking, walking, and searching before you know what the next chapter is going to be. I got back from Amsterdam with a renewed sense of purpose. I’m pretty sure it was while I was sitting in the café at the Anne Frank House that I decided to do a PhD.  Yeah, you read that right. It seemed really clear and I felt very strongly about the subject matter. In the next couple of weeks, I began reading everything I could and discovered to my delight that the leading researcher in the field I’m interested in was someone I had already exchanged a few emails with back in January. I got back in touch and after several more emails, eight or nine books, three meetings with one of my lecturers here and more writing, I submitted my application to the University of Leicester for a PhD in Museum Studies. If all goes according to plan, I should begin in January and will be in England for three more years. It’s not a sure thing by any means, but I think it is the next step for me.

Alright, so it sounds like you’ve got this all figured out. Wait….January? What are you going to do for the next four months?

So that’s a bit of a long story. Originally I thought about finding a flat in Durham, getting a part time job and putzing around until Congregation and then moving down to Leicester. Then I randomly bumped into a friend while walking to CrossFit. She’s an American as well, just finishing her MA in Archaeology and during our chat she mentioned that if we leave the UK after turning in our final paper we won’t be let back in as students. They will stamp our passports as tourists.

Well that’s fine isn’t it? A tourist can stay for six months, right?

Sure. The problem is I can’t apply for a student visa while I’m in the UK on a tourist visa.

So, don’t leave the country.

Well, I’m in a wedding the weekend after I turn in my paper and before you– who are you anyway?

I’m just an author’s trope providing an interesting dialogue-like element to what might otherwise be a really boring expository entry.

Oh, okay. I’m not boring.

No need to be defensive.

I’m not being defensive, just saying.

Okay. You done?

Yes…What was your question, again?

I said why don’t you just stay in the UK if leaving will cause you visa issues and then you said you were in a wedding.

Right, right. One of my oldest and dearest friends is getting married the weekend after I turn in my paper. I was devastated after I discovered all of this about the visa. I phoned the University Immigration Office to confirm everything, which they did and send a quick message to my friend back home. I felt terrible. Wedding planning is stressful at the best of times and I can’t imagine what it’s like when one of your bridesmaids send you a text that she may not be able to leave the country she’s in to make it to the wedding which is a month away.

Then I got a message back. She told me that she knew how important it was to me to be in England and that she wanted me to be happy. That I shouldn’t worry about the wedding and make a decision based on what I needed and wanted.

Now, I’ve been in many relationships where I have had to suppress my own needs in order to maintain said relationship. I have been badly taken advantage of and generally misused by more folks than I care to remember. Here was a friend telling me, you need to put yourself first. 

I began to think about that. I thought about how she’s always been there when I needed her; how we’ve known each other since the fourth grade (I don’t remember meeting her in fourth grade but she insists and I believe her); how we are more like sisters now and her parents are like a second mum and dad to me. I remembered this past December when I was home and really going through a tough bout of depression. I remember going to brunch with her and crying in the middle of the pub and she gave me the biggest hug imaginable. Then I thought about some of the other “friends” I’ve bent over backwards to please only to be met with ungrateful and sometimes abusive words and actions. I decided right then and there that I had it all backwards. From that moment, I decided to bend over backwards for the people who genuinely cared about me and the rest, well, to hell with them. I messaged her and said I would be at her wedding because being there meant more to me than staying in England for four extra months. And truthfully, it does.

Wow. Sounds like you’ve had a lot of revelations in the past month?

I have, yes. It’s been really good but it really hasn’t been easy. Transitions are never easy. I remember this time last year I was going through some similar things. I had more certainty though. I knew I’d be in England for a year and I knew where I’d be and what I’d be doing. Right now, I have a general idea. I’ll be in the US for four months that much is certain. In January I’ll come back to the UK, that is certain, too. But as of now, I don’t know if I’m coming back merely to attend Congregation or if I’m coming back to start a three year adventure into PhD land. You know something, though, author-trope-voice-thing?

What’s that?

I’m starting to enjoy the uncertainties of life. 

An American in Amsterdam

Amsterdam felt like a favourite sweater, one that embraces and warms at the same time. Never have I fallen in love with a place so quickly and so completely. I don’t believe in the metaphysical and genetic memory is not something I have ever considered. I have managed to trace both sides of my family to the Netherlands, a connection five hundred years old. Could it be that deep in my genetic code there is stored some predisposition to Dutch architecture? To canals and charming bridges? To the Dutch language? To windmills and wooden shoes? Very likely not. More likely it was a mental connection. Some sort of unconscious recognition of my ancient ancestry. It really doesn’t matter what caused my instant affinity with Amsterdam, I just know it ran through me like one of the city’s many canals.

Canals are the truly the heart of Amsterdam.
They are beautiful and each is unique.

I stepped out of the station and bought a three-day tram ticket. (Traveller’s Note: If you are in Amsterdam I highly recommend using the tram system, it’s easy to figure out and will get you everywhere you want to go.) I took the 5 to Keizersgracht and walked to my room. I had used AirBNB for the first time on my own and was slightly nervous about the arrangements. I walked down the canal, taking in the gorgeous, narrow buildings on either side. Looking at the numbers, I soon realised that I was on the wrong side of the canal. Amsterdam isn’t like other cities where you can just cross the street. I walked back to the bridge and crossed.

The room was perfect. It was the best accommodation I had on my entire trip. It was a basement room, but right on the canal with a large, warm bed and spacious bathroom complete with a tub. I had spent the past ten months using my space pod shower room and seeing that tub…well I almost thought of spending the entire time I was in Amsterdam taking a hot bubble bath.

This was a great find on the way to my room.
It's where John Adams lived when he was in Amsterdam.

This is where I stayed while I was in the city.

That evening, I ventured out on the tram in search of dinner. I wandered past numerous cafes looking for something special, something unique. I had been spoiled while in Hamburg having dinner on the water. I settled for a table on one of the bridges looking down the Singel towards the dome of the Koepelkerk Conference Centre. I sipped on my glass of Sauvignon Blanc while taking in the atmosphere of the city. I had scheduled my time in Amsterdam rather carefully. I had wanted to come to the city for what seemed like ages. I was determined to fit in what I could.

The next morning I had breakfast at Bakers & Roasters, a little café not too far from Museumplein. I had read about it in an article and decided to take a chance. When I arrived, the staff was busy working through a power outage. My waitress very kindly offered me pancakes and fruit which suited me perfectly.

I like blending into the stories of other people. As I sat with my cup of tea and plate of pancakes, an Englishman came in with a little dog on a leash. He was obviously a regular as the staff greeted him warmly and offered the dog a bowl of water. This was his morning routine, breakfast at Bakers & Roasters, perhaps a walk along the canal later, and then…my thoughts trailed off as my fruit bowl arrived.

After breakfast I walked down to the Rijksmuseum. A bicycle path cuts right through the entrance and leads out to Museumplein, a marvellous stretch of green park lined with museums as the name would suggest. It’s a rather iconic place with the I Amsterdam sign a must-photograph spot. I purchased a timed ticket for the Van Gogh Museum at the museum shop (I do recommend purchasing tickets prior to arriving at the museum as there was quite a queue.)

Museumplein

Best slogan ever. I really amsterdam.

I spent two hours with Vincent looking at every single painting watching his stylistic transformation from Dutch painter of peasants to master of colour and texture. Many of his earlier paintings had a certain amount of anxiety inherent in them. One in particular gripped me, Avenue of Poplars in Autumn. I stared at it uncomfortably, feeling a silent horror for some reason. As I look at images of the painting now, I don’t get that anxiety, but in person, it felt strange. I ripped myself away and when I found his later works, vibrant, and bold, I found myself smiling and feeling more at ease. Seeing his work in person was so important to me. Seeing his joy and jest in his paintings but knowing that it was subsumed beneath those terrible layers of loneliness, depression, and anxiety.

When you leave a truly remarkable museum experience, you need some time to return to so-called real life. I had intended to go to Vondelpark but decided to stop along Prinsengracht for lunch. I looked down the canal towards Westerkerk and decided I needed to climb the tower to complete my collection of bird’s eye views.

I got to the church and purchased a tour of the tower before they closed the sanctuary. The organ was absolutely beautiful and I found the plaque indicating Rembrandt’s internment. I sat for a while, just taking in the simple, Dutch surroundings. It was time for my tour. Only six people can be taken up at a time and I found myself on a tour with a German family of five. The climb was one of the steepest, most difficult of the climbs I have made. The passage is terribly narrow and you feel very claustrophobic. I did appreciate the tour though. Westerkerk is right next to the Anne Frank House and she wrote about the bells of the church reminding her of the world outside of the annexe. Standing at the top of the climb, Amsterdam stretched before me and once more I fell in love with the city. I still do not know why Amsterdam had worked its way so deeply into my heart, but standing there, I couldn’t help but smile. My guide came up to me.”

“So what do you think?” she asked.

“It’s quite amazing,” I replied.

I spoke to her for a bit about how she came to be in Amsterdam, she had come from a small town in Holland and had been in the city for two years. She told me I was standing in her favourite spot in the city and I could understand why.

This little statue of Anne Frank is right next to Westerkerk.

The amazing view over Amsterdam.
The Anne Frank House is in the foreground.

Looking toward Westerkerk and the Anne Frank House.

Westerkerk tower.

We climbed back down and I exchanged a few words in German with my tour companions before heading back out into the city.

The queue for the Anne Frank House reached through the small courtyard through to Keizersgracht. I contemplated joining it, but decided instead that I would try tomorrow morning. I took a long walk back to my room, passing over bridges and through the busy, sunny streets.

The next morning, I woke early and took the tram to Jordaan. I was going to get to the Anne Frank House early and beat the–

The queue wasn’t as long as it had been the day before, but it was still not short. I had arrived forty minutes before opening and the wait took nearly two hours. I cannot express how much the experience affected me. I wasn’t prepared for the mix of emotions. I didn’t think I would be as moved as I was. I have gotten used to places failing to meet my expectations and perhaps I was afraid of the same thing happening here. When going through the warehouse and offices, you can imagine yourself back in the Amsterdam of the 1940s. Anne’s words are used in almost all of the labels and the videos in several of the rooms feature the helpers and Mr. Frank speaking about their experiences. Then you step through the actual bookcase and into the secret annexe. You feel what life would have been like for the eight people in hiding and you begin to truly understand how insane the world had become for the persecuted. I began to imagine not being allowed to see the beautiful streets of Amsterdam, only to live by hearing the world outside the windows.

I spent some time at the café looking out over Prinsengrapht as the modern world passed by. I needed that decompression time before I rejoined the world.

I took the tram across the city and went to the Hortus Botanicus. I was glad I had planned to go to the gardens after the Anne Frank House. The city floated passed the large windows and I began to dread leaving the city the next day. This place felt like home.

One of Amsterdam's trams.

I spent three hours at the gardens, walking through every inch of greenery. I meandered over bridges and through each greenhouse. I played with the butterflies in the butterfly house and was so delighted when several landed on me. The gardens aren’t particularly extensive, but they are certainly worth a wander.

I loved these guys and spent about five minutes watching them.

I ate at Restaurant Greetje that evening, a rather posh place to dine but with authentic Dutch fare. It was my last full day of what had turned out to be the best holiday I had ever taken. I retraced my steps from Copenhagen to Hamburg to Amsterdam. I had ridden on trains, metros, ferries, trams, and had walked miles and miles. I had dined at Nyhavn, seen the Little Mermaid, sung on the streets of Copenhagen, climbed to the top of Michaeliskirche, dined across from the Rathaus in Hamburg, and found a city that felt like home in Amsterdam. I had met amazing people and seen some fantastic things and I had found a place that had embraced me.

An American in Hamburg

If you must travel in Europe, travel by train. The rush of fields, trees, and towns past the window is better than any film in a theatre. Each is a mental snapshot. The family who just pulled up in front of their house from a shopping trip, the sheep grazing in a field, the home next to the reservoir where life is slow and the nights quiet. They are all scenes in a story, a story of which I will only ever see one second. One brief moment and then it’s gone. If you must travel in Europe, travel by train.

My trip from Copenhagen to Hamburg was filled with surprises. At the last station in Denmark a rather lengthy announcement was made. We would be boarding the ferry and everyone needed to disembark the train while we crossed. I had never thought about how we would get from Denmark to Germany. It had never occurred to me that the train would be placed in the hold of a ferry and we would spend forty minutes crossing the Baltic Sea from Rodbyhavn to Puttgarden.

The crossing was surreal. I exited the train and looked down the long length of it, placed within the hold like a toy. I climbed several flights of stairs and found myself in a busy, floating market. There were restaurants, shops, and currency exchanges. I found a seat near the bow so I could look out the giant picture windows. The sea was choppy and the boat heaved back and forth sometimes catching the waves just right so that a magnificent jet of white water slammed against the window. I sat there for almost the entire crossing, mesmerised by the amazing surprises I had already experienced on this trip.

It was only a short walk from Hamburg Bahnhof to my hotel in St. Georg, a colourful neighbourhood described by some of the guidebooks as “bohemian.” There were so many different kinds of people; it was a fantastic introduction to one of Germany’s most interesting cities. I checked into the hotel and within an hour I was back out into the mix of Hamburg with barely a plan of where I wanted to go and what I wanted to see.

The train that carried me across the Baltic.

Hamburg Bahnhof

I walked from St. Georg to the Rathaus and it became obvious that Hamburg was a different flavour of city from Copenhagen. It was busier, noisier, with taller, more cramped buildings. There were many homeless people sleeping where they could find a spot and there was rubbish littered about. I wondered if the latter was due to the previous night’s victory celebrations over the World Cup but the former seemed to be a fixed feature of the city. Many of the homeless I saw had made semi-permanent make shift shelters and beds with piles of their possessions. I wondered why so many were living so rough and I felt pangs of guilt for not being able to help or even understanding what had brought them to that state. No one chooses homelessness and again, I wondered what stories were hiding under the soiled sheets and under the sodden mattresses.

The Rathaus is a gorgeous old building with a beautiful fountain in the central courtyard. I was exploring the city without the benefit of a guidebook and so I knew very little of the history of the sites I was seeing. I went where my feet carried me and where the skyline drew me. I headed towards Michaeliskirche where I knew I would be able to get a bird’s eye view of the city.

The Rathaus (Town Hall)

I loved this fountain.

The neighbourhood near the church was much quieter than the rest of Hamburg had been thus far. Lazy cafes and a park where children played with Frisbees stood beneath its tower. The church is well-worth the €6 entry free. I began in the crypt where a presentation of the history of the church was spelled out in German. Mine was rusty but I was able to piece together enough from the photographs and the text panels. I was especially excited to see the burial place of C.P.E. Bach before I began my climb from the crypt to the top of the tower.

View under the overpass

The tower of Michaeliskirche

Some stained glass dudes hanging out in the crypt.
(They look a bit grumpy)

Climbing the tower and not a bit tired.

Looking down at the bells

Standing out at the very top, the wind whipped my hair violently. Once again I found that my favourite place in the city was on top of it. The views were incredible and looked out on the Norderelbe and the Auẞenalster. I took my time looking out at every side and at every viewpoint. 

Hamburg

Der Orgel der Michaeliskirche

Michaeliskirche

Juxtaposed landmarks

Eventually I joined the rest of the city and walked along the waterfront to Landings Brücken. I turned north and quite by accident, stumbled across the enormous statue of Bismark. The base was covered in colourful graffiti and the small park in which it stood was lonely and felt slightly abused or at the very least care worn.

I was walking through the park when I caught sight of Bismark

Graffiti Bismark

Walking past the waterfront

Landings Brücken

My stomach led me back towards the Rathaus. I found a restaurant right on the Kleine Alster where I ordered my first meal in German.

“Ich möchte Hamburg Pannfisch und ein Glas Riesling, bitte.”

The waitress smiled and took my menu and left with the unmatched view of the Rathaus across the canal. Again I had that feeling of wanting to be nowhere else at no time else. The evening light played against the cream face of the town hall and twinkled on the water. It was so close to a perfect moment.

The view from the restaurant

This little guy was very interested in what I was eating

And who can blame him? This Apfel Strudel was amazing.

I ate my amazing meal and ordered an Apfel Strudel for dessert. I had never had apple strudel before that day. Well I thought I had, but I was incredibly wrong. I have a feeling I will have to wait until the next time I am in Germany to have it again.

I strolled back to my hotel where I spent the rest of the evening trying to relax. I would be on a train again within a few hours on my way to Amsterdam. I regretted not planning a longer stay in Germany. I enjoyed practicing the language and I knew I had barely touched the surface of what Hamburg had to offer. The next morning I ate breakfast in the hotel before packing and heading to the station. The week was flying by and I was desperate to hold onto every single moment.