Hitting the Halfway Point

Wow. It’s hard to believe that six months ago I was sitting on the curb waiting with the cats while Larry raced to get the keys to our empty apartment before the management company closed!

Yesterday, over the course of six hours, it snowed three times, sleeted, rained, and somewhere in the middle, the sun shone brightly twice in a clear blue sky. I think it's a good representation of the unpredictable nature of our journey so far. :)

To celebrate this half-year milestone, I thought I’d share some more scenes of my Hamburg adventure to date.

This is the site of the original city of Hamburg. The white squares mark the area of the village, including its protective walls.

A city of contrasts:
modern telecommunications
tower, ancient church

This marker in the red light district
indicates the border between Hamburg and
what was the Danish city of Altona
 (now part of Hamburg).

This was a story in a local paper, print and online. The headline asks if the brothers who run Good Game Studios (where Larry works), are the worst bosses in Hamburg. Ouch.

For my vegetarian friends!
Do they have these in the U.S. yet?

An interesting character from the winter Dom (carnival).
Advertising fries, but I particularly like his hat
with the emblem of Hamburg on it.

I've been averaging a museum visit a month. Some highlights include:

• this Star Wars-themed display at the Museum for Fine and Applied Arts. (The others I think are obvious, the one on the bottom right is the "Death Star fruit".); 
• this case in the Spice Museum that shows items that have been found in spices brought into the Port of Hamburg, including magazines, toys, tools, and reptiles; 
• the Doll Museum, which was wonderfully creepy but also informative about how doll houses were used to instruct girls how to arrange and keep a home; and 
• the Museum of Ethnology, which had some rare artifacts from around the world.

Refugee relief station outside the
Hauptbahnhof (main train station)

Housing development specifically
for people seeking assylum

Neither rain nor snow nor sleet...
No matter the weather, mail is delivered by truck to central depots,
 where riders load up and deliver mail by bicycle.

 ...and this WWI monument across
from a neighborhood church.

There are reminders of war in unexpected places,
like this missile sculpture in a shopping area...

We don't know what the next six months will bring in terms of Larry's job and extending his contract, but in the meantime I'm thinking of my time in Hamburg not as six months gone, but six months still to explore!