Europe - Day 5

Guten Tag!

How are we already leaving Munich? Off to Hamburg today for two nights... boy this is going fast.

We got up earlier today to catch a flight. The Munich airport was pretty cool, with a huge outside area, that was open but covered, so we didn't get wet in the rain. Then once inside... it's like a mall, actually for a minute it felt like I was walking through Nordstorm. Crazy.

Walking to Terminal 2 from the rental car drop off. Wonderful covered outdoor area. 

Cosmetic counters inside the Terminal... before the ticketing counters. 

Felt like being in a high end mall

New car anyone?

We flew on EuroWings from Munich to Hamburg and unlike our flight on Condor from the states, on this flight it was almost assumed you spoke German. [Editor's note: Well, it was a domestic German flight, after all..] But we are getting pretty good at saying "no German" and looking apologetic. And Hubby is rocking the German to save the day. [Editor's note: ¨Orangensaft für sie, bitte", because our daughter doesn't want to try to order for herself...] They of course make all announcements in German and English and the flight attendants all speak enough English.

Once in Hamburg we collected our bags and a new rental car, which looks a lot like the previous rental car, just a slightly different model. [Editor's note: The previous car was a BMW 5 series wagon, the new one is a BMW 3 series wagon. The new car is actually close to the class we reserved, but I'm really glad we had the higher-end model during the 8 or so hours of driving we did in that car. I kind of miss the heads-up display with the current speed and speed limit.] We headed to the Hamburg Zoo, officially Tierpark Hagenbeck. (Side note: we are zoo people, so you may notice we hit a fair amount of zoos in our travels.)
We got the combo zoo and aquarium tickets and headed for the zoo first. One interesting thing they do here is sell food for you to feed the animals. They ask that you don't feed the animals your food - so they have bags with carrots, lettuce and other produce. Now if I didn't know what animals they intended I feed with said food I would have assumed the goats and sheep... right? Petting zoo animals. But Nope!

Oh Wow! 

Can you believe this? 

Look at how they are standing on the fence! 

and a BABY! Sooo amazing!!!

Sorry I know... a lot of Elephant pictures... we can't help ourselves. We kinda like 'em.

Eventually we moved past them and saw the rest of the zoo. It was a really interesting zoo. With new and older style exhibits and a wide variety of animals. We snacked a bit around the zoo and had a few near misses with some yellowjackets who were out in force all over Hamburg today.
We didn't forget the aquarium before we left. Some really neat exhibits there too.

Ok, here is a huge and random generalization: German Architects hate elevators. I have no proof of this, but have yet to find myself in a building with more than two floors with an appropriate elevator. I understood at the Castle... I mean, its a historic castle built before most people were using electricity. The Deutsches Museum had elevators, but they were tiny... seriously wouldn't hold all four of us at one time. And today we were in two different parking garages.... and no elevator to be found...None! The airports have them, so that is great! I don't know if the architects think they mess with the lines of a building? or maybe its the unused space for the shaft? But I don't know what else to think. Hubby mused that it could be the sole reason why American's aren't as, shall we say - fit, as the rest of the world. Hmmm. Something to think on.

Last zoo pictures:  What's that in the box, you ask? 

Ring tailed Lemurs, of course. What do you put in your boxes?

Our hotel in Hamburg is in an Apartment Hotel. We had a hard time finding rooms with three beds in Europe. The bunk beds in the two previous places worked great. But isn't always easy to find. This hotel seems to fit the bill. The room is basic, but with plenty of room.

I noticed this evening the room has two radiator type heaters and well, windows... no thermostat. Ok. I haven't been in a hotel like that for a while. Hopefully the neighborhood will quiet down and we can get the windows opened up soon.

Since we have the space we decided on pizza in the room. Hubby ordered pizza online... in German no less - Rockstar! - then went and picked it up. And we enjoyed sitting around the table in a quiet space for a meal. Then we headed out to the downtown area. We have decided we need another suitcase. We tried soo hard to do this trip in two suitcases... but repacking to leave Munich was, let's say, challenging. So we found a luggage retailer chain with one location open late. (Most shops are closed on Sundays in Germany, so it was now or not.) Downtown was hopping! I guess it is a Saturday night. But we found parking and made our way to get the bag. With a few stops on the way back to the car to pick up some stuff from breakfast in the room tomorrow.
Hamburg is visually amazing. Old and new architecture! I kept yelling out (in the car) "Wow! Look at that".  Such wonderful textures.

We found out way back to the hotel and have all settled in for the night. We hope to do some laundry here in the hotel laundry room and are looking forward to a slow paced morning.

Auf Wiedersehen!