(no subject)
Spent the night in Hamburg though only just barely as the main hostel was actually booked pretty much completely and I got there after dark (I'm leery of hunting for lodging at night after my experience in Aberdeen, Scotland) but I managed to secure one of their 'emergency' beds. Which is to say, they put seven beds into one of the secondary rooms and gave them to the handful of people who wanted them.
That coupled with spending the first four hours of my day attempting to find another place in Hamburg (including being rejected from one place that was listed as having open beds only to be told different when I got there) and discovering that pretty much everywhere else was apparently booked. I did however manage to find a place eventually and also after a lot of waiting managed to get reservations for the trains to Oslo.
The main reason for the reservations, as I normally don't need them to get from place to place, is that if I get up for a 7:30-ish train I can reduce my required travel time from ~23 hours (!) down to a reasonable-ish ~14h. Not only that, but I don't have to stay up all night to make sure I get all of the connections. The downside of course is ~14h of train travel and not really being able to get off. Still, it gets me to one of the major locations I wanted to get to: Norway.
Now, you may ask "Why Norway?" Its two things really, firstly because of a bit of family history and secondly because its supposed to be a gorgeous place. Plus I wanted to see the land that the vikings came out of and what was probably the closest thing to Canada in all of Europe (call it a bit of homesickness if you will. It really doesn't matter)
Anyways, after getting the reservations and looking around Hamburg a bunch I discovered the Hamburg museum of art and industry. Holy Frig! Early on it started off quite nicely, with one of the museum attendants cheerfully greeting me and pointing out their really quite nice new entrance. Not only that, but when another fellow (french or french canadian I think) came in right after me, there was a bit of joking that perhaps we were traveling together (as we looked about the same age and both appeared to be students)
After that I wandered through the place and discovered something that was freaking awesome: not one, but TWO halls filled with Pianos, their various precursors and a small smattering of other instruments including a harp, a antique clairinet and two instruments that looked very much like hurdy-gurdies! Now, there's very few things which will get me really excited but this turned out to be one of them. Then that got followed up with a fair bit of sculpture and some really neat other stuff such as antique keys and the most freakingly intricately decorated book I've ever seen!
Also really cool was when I wandered up a antique wooden staircase (was nervous I might have been walking on a display but it was labled as a potential route up to the third floor) and while going down one of the halls I came across a fellow who started talking to me in german. After I asked if he could speak english (in german of course, I'm trying to work on it afterall.) it turned out that he had worked at this place for the last 20 years and despite this had gotten himself all turned around due to all the rennovations going on. Eventually he asked me how I was enjoying the collections, there were a few specific modern ones whose names I didn't recognise but I was far too amused and having a good time to care.
Oh! Also checked out a ruined church turned memorial to the victims of war which was interesting but really was outdone by the museum in my mind.
That coupled with spending the first four hours of my day attempting to find another place in Hamburg (including being rejected from one place that was listed as having open beds only to be told different when I got there) and discovering that pretty much everywhere else was apparently booked. I did however manage to find a place eventually and also after a lot of waiting managed to get reservations for the trains to Oslo.
The main reason for the reservations, as I normally don't need them to get from place to place, is that if I get up for a 7:30-ish train I can reduce my required travel time from ~23 hours (!) down to a reasonable-ish ~14h. Not only that, but I don't have to stay up all night to make sure I get all of the connections. The downside of course is ~14h of train travel and not really being able to get off. Still, it gets me to one of the major locations I wanted to get to: Norway.
Now, you may ask "Why Norway?" Its two things really, firstly because of a bit of family history and secondly because its supposed to be a gorgeous place. Plus I wanted to see the land that the vikings came out of and what was probably the closest thing to Canada in all of Europe (call it a bit of homesickness if you will. It really doesn't matter)
Anyways, after getting the reservations and looking around Hamburg a bunch I discovered the Hamburg museum of art and industry. Holy Frig! Early on it started off quite nicely, with one of the museum attendants cheerfully greeting me and pointing out their really quite nice new entrance. Not only that, but when another fellow (french or french canadian I think) came in right after me, there was a bit of joking that perhaps we were traveling together (as we looked about the same age and both appeared to be students)
After that I wandered through the place and discovered something that was freaking awesome: not one, but TWO halls filled with Pianos, their various precursors and a small smattering of other instruments including a harp, a antique clairinet and two instruments that looked very much like hurdy-gurdies! Now, there's very few things which will get me really excited but this turned out to be one of them. Then that got followed up with a fair bit of sculpture and some really neat other stuff such as antique keys and the most freakingly intricately decorated book I've ever seen!
Also really cool was when I wandered up a antique wooden staircase (was nervous I might have been walking on a display but it was labled as a potential route up to the third floor) and while going down one of the halls I came across a fellow who started talking to me in german. After I asked if he could speak english (in german of course, I'm trying to work on it afterall.) it turned out that he had worked at this place for the last 20 years and despite this had gotten himself all turned around due to all the rennovations going on. Eventually he asked me how I was enjoying the collections, there were a few specific modern ones whose names I didn't recognise but I was far too amused and having a good time to care.
Oh! Also checked out a ruined church turned memorial to the victims of war which was interesting but really was outdone by the museum in my mind.