It all started with a long s-bahn (street train) to the suburb of Blankanese (blawnk – a – nays – uh) a lomg ways west of down town. A walk to the beaches of the Elbe river reveal the wrecks of 2 old boats sitting on the sands for visitors to check out. I will copy and paste the storiees into a photo below. One is an old wood steamer, covered in slime, and the other a submarine.

Next was a visit down the (in)famous Reeperbahn Straße (which is now officially my favorite streetname, well, tied with Pirate Street in Newport Beach.) The Reeperbahn is also Hamburg’s neighborhood of…uhh…questionable promiscuities. But it is also the main street for travelling East an West, so tons of people take it. But off Reeperbahn on a connecting street is Club Indra. A small club, famous for one tiny little thing. The location of the Beatle’s first performace, at least in Germany, some sources say first performance ever, and some say only first in Germany. Anyways it was neat. Next was down to the Hamburg Museum, a cool museum focusing on the history and origins of Hamburg of a port city, continuing on with the nautical theme of the day. It has lots of cool stuff, including what is generally believed to be the impaled skull of famous 14 century pirate Klaas Störtebeker. Though he was a vicious monster, he is sort of romanticized and has several statues in his honor aound northern Germany. (DNA testing with the skull and his descendants tested ‘inconclusive’.) The skull was stolen in 2010, allegedly by goth people who wanted to use it for rituals, but it was recovered by police the next year.

Next, continuing on with the oceania theme was a trip to the famous International Maritime Museum. Its got 9 floors of fun, each floor focusing on  different aspect of the ocean. From early exploration, to ship evolution, deep sea exploration, ships of war and history of naval warfare. One of these exhibits was Großadmiral Karl Dönitz’ (who was the grand admiral of the Nazi navy and supreme commander of U-boat warfare) baton, which was a personal gift from Hitler. It also had floors for shipping freighters and vacation cruise tavel, a floor with lots of old paitings, and a floor with literally thousands and thousanss of little eensy teensy boat replicas. It had many guns as well, including an ak-47, it later explained about modern day piracy. Very interestingly, earlier in the day I walked past a store I had not yet seen its kind of. A gun store, with lots and lots of handguns in the window.

Then went back to visit the remains of th St. Nicholas church which was almost completelty wrecked in WW2. The only part that really survived was surprisingly the tall tower (which is currently undergoing heavy renovations.) The ruins now stand as yet another memorial of WW2, and is dedicated to victims of Nazis, and of violence.