After the conference, I did a little sight seeing. This is the "Television Tower", one of the tallest buildings in Hamburg. I really thought it would have a more interesting name...
Friday night, Bram and I headed down to the center of the city. There was a carnival going on.
We visited the St. Michaelis Church, one of the many cathedrals in Hamburg.
We climbed up the 132 meter tower. It was interesting because the tower caught fire back in 1906. You could still see some of the black markings from the fire.
The view from the top was breathtaking. We looked out over Hamburg right after sunset, at dusk, as the city was beginning to light up. It was breathtaking.
However, it was horribly windy. Bram was taking pictures with his iPhone, which he feared would blow right out of his hands and down to the city below. Sometimes it was so windy that you could lie into the wind and have it support your full weight. I tried photographing Bram.
Heading back down to street level, which we once thought was so cold, was downright nice after being in all that wind!
The next day, Bram and his friend Jessica, and her boyfriend Thijs, went down to the center of Hamburg. The first stop was the beautiful city hall, the Rathaus.
They were setting up for the Christmas fair, which would start next weekend. Santa would make scheduled "fly-bys" over the shoppers.
Bram and I.
Jessica and Thijs.
Our next stop was St. Nikolai Memorial / church. It was bombed during WWII, and now is a memorial to the Holocaust.
It is quite moving to see ruins in the middle of the city. They co-exist among modern office buildings, restaurants, and apartments. War sometimes seems so far removed, but to see ruins in the city, you realize how beautiful things sometimes are lost.
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