hamburg auf wiedersehen

My last day in Hamburg was mostly Business Related. Unsurprisingly, losing my US-Euro power outlet converter was a really bad thing to lose so I had to go find a new one in the Zentrum. I also visited the alledged Best Bookbinder in Hamburg, Zwang, which was pretty informative and awesome to see the space. Unfortunately I couldn't take photos, but seeing all the presses and stuff was really cool. People really do still use that stuff! Seeing stuff like the Zwang studio is why I'm here in the first place.

I walked around for a while around some random cool shopping streets, then went to look for the Saturn that supposedly carries the converters. Google maps lied to me about its location, but where it was supposed to be was very close to the St. Nikolai bell tower, so I went up because it was really cheap and good views are worth it to me. Turns out the rest of the church was demolished due to it getting bombed in WWII air raids, but the tower was the tallest building in the world for two years in the 1870s (!!)

 

I also went to the WWII memorial adjacent to the tower. Germany is pretty frank about what happened -- they don't beat around the bush with the actions of either side. It's really mindblowing to see where the bombings actually happened, walking along the streets that were completely destroyed by my country not so long ago. Completely different than reading about it or seeing photos in textbooks.

The power converter search ended successfully and I returned to the hostel. In the kitchen I met a girl named Tessa, who is from Auckland, New Zealand, and studies at Yale. She was kind of an awesome person, and not just because she basically told me what to do in Berlin (she lived there for two months, doing a German program similar to mine in Wien).