This was our first big Hamburg day, and we spent the morning with Andrea and Peter: after a sumptuous breakfast, we headed out to the harbor area of Hamburg, specifically the so-called Speicherstadt, or “Warehouse City,” where tall brick storage / warehouse buildings directly on the canals from the harbor are still partly used for merchandise and partly for cafes, residences, and a few museums and exhibit halls. We went to one of these–the so-called Miniatures Wonderland, a huge multi-story model train exhibit that features a miniature Hamburg, parts of Germany, the swiss alps, major sights from the US, Scandinavia, etc. There was an airport with a recreated emergency landing, lots of massive crowd scenes, and lots of little “Where is Waldo”-style scenes all throughout where you could find funny little mini stories, like a crime scene with a water-logged corpse, a crystal cave with fairies, and a hippie campground, not to mention an underground area that had 6 little rooms dedicated to six popular conspiracy theories / stories (aliens/Area 69, the Philadelphia Experiment, and the Illuminati are the three I remember). It was a lot of fun, although Kai and I ran out of steam a little earlier than the others and sat in the cafeteria for a while (in train compartment seats, of course), while Mark, Andrea, and Peter admired the landscapes a bit more. After we got out, we had a light lunch in a little cafe nearby, which also featured a model of the overall area, the so-called Harbor City or Hafen-City, where a former duty-free zone has become a vast construction area for a new residential area for 25,000 people, with very nice condos and cafes and a harbor promenade. It is about halfway done, and still amazes me because when I lived in Hamburg in the late 80s, the area was a complete wasteland (not even officially part of the city, but a sort of no-man’s land for merchandise that hadn’t gone through customs yet). We left the area for now, though, because Andrea and Peter had to go back home and get some work done, whereas we went to the main bus station to meet up with our friend and former student, Lane Sorensen. Lane is a graduate student in Kiel this year and will return to the States in August; when we were in Kiel, he was out of town to visit his wife Jennifer, who is spending the year in Bulgaria, so we didn’t get to see him then. Instead, we spent the afternoon hanging out with him and showing him Hamburg, where he last visited (for more than passing through) almost 10 years ago. We had a great time–the weather was gorgeous, and we started our tour at the harbor, including the old harbor, the new harbor city, and a rid in the Ferris wheel that they still have set up there (we took it 2 years ago; it provides a fabulous view of the city and down the river Elbe). Then we took a train to the downtown area and the “Binnenalster,” one of two lakes, really parts of the Alster river, that border on the downtown / main shopping area of Hamburg. We also walked through the botanical gardens nearby, “Planten un Blomen,” where Kai especially liked the Japanese garden and the tea house. At the end of our walk, we found an outdoor cafe with fries for Kai and a beer for Lane, and visited the Lego store (which wasn’t as much fun as the one in Copenhagen). Back at the train station, we left Lane to meet up with another Hamburg friend, while we returned by subway and bus to Andrea and Peter’s apartment, had another lovely homecooked meal (including strawberries and ice cream for dessert), and watched the movie “Pacific Rim” on their huge movie projection system. I was tired enough that I fell asleep half-way through the movie, even though we had the sound turned up to movie volume! We didn’t go to bed until almost midnight, which is late for me!