Augustfehn & Hamburg

Tuesday August 5th

We think that we maybe finally set our internal clocks to the time zone here. We went to bed last night around 10:30 or so, hoping to sleep through the night (I sound like a newborn) and woke up at 9:00!! We were planninn to leave for the lake at 9. Russ & I both thought that we would naturally wake up pretty early so we didn't set alarms. But Mika was knocking on our door at 9:10 waking us up! I had been planning on a morning run in this cute little town, but finally getting some sleep was a good trade haha. (The only downside of the night was the 20 minute coughing attack I had in the middle of the night. We've both had little colds/sore throats since last week. But this coughing was awful, I think it woke Russ up before I woke myself up! I thought I might cough up a lung but luckily I'm fine haha eventually it stopped & we slept a long time)

Within 5 minutes we were off to the lake with Christian & Mika. Unfortunately all pictures from that are on our camera, not a phone. But it is a cute little lake. A main beach section is just for swimming, they have a little waterslide into it and a little island about 50 yards in. We went early so I thought the water would be freezing. It was slightly chilly at first but actually really nice! Not icey like our mountain lakes in Utah. We swam for like 40 minutes and I could have stayed longer. Turns out that how they got the lake was they needed dirt/sand for building the Autobahn and they took a lot from there. It must have been an Aquafor or something because the water naturally comes up through the ground! So it's sort of man made, sort of not. It had very soft sand, virtually no rocks, and was actually pretty clear. Mika goes Nordic walking for an hour every morning and then goes for a swim in the lake to cool off. How fun right?! 

After getting showered and having breakfast (with some yummy herbal tea & honey that felt awesome on our thoats) we went on one last little outing. They took us to a forest just a few minutes away. First we went to where we could catch baby frogs.

I mean really really baby tiny. Haha they looked like tiny gummy frogs or something.

There were also tadpoles all over. 

This was at a different little lake than where we had gone swimming. 

Then in that same forest they showed us an ancient monastery site. It was there roughly between 1100-1500 A.D. and at the time this area apparently had no trees! Hard to imagine since now there a good sized trees all over the place. 

With this monastery the foundation/remains etc were found in the last few years and what they've done is plant hedges in the outline of where walls used to be! I thought that was pretty cool. Apparently hundreds of people were also buried there. 

This shows a vague view of all if it: 

This map shows the whole thing. They had markers explaining different areas etc.

This view is just the chapel. The rock down at the end represents where the stand/altar was.

So in the 1500's (I believe) when Germany's religion changed from Catholic to Lutheran this monastery was destroyed. And now it's just represented by these hedges in the middle of the woods. Like buried treasure eh? 

I just loved being in these beautiful trees. It felt a lot like Oregon. In this particular area, Mika was telling me there is a kindergarten (which here is like a pre-school) also kinda funny kindergarten means kid-garden in German and that's why we use that word in the U.S.! But there is one that has a building right by these woods but they basically do everything outside and spend a lot of times in this area:

There was a little fort/shelter around one tree you could tell had been made for a game. They do it 3 days a week for 3 hours a day, even in the winter! How great?! Now that is my kind of school! 

Eventually it was time to say goodbye to the Finke family and head for Hamburg. It was sad to leave; they were so kind, welcoming, accommodating and fun! We really loved spending time with them. Hopefully we'll get to see them again one day! 

Headed For Hamburg

Getting to Hamburg was just a train ride, most of which gets spent like this:

but I have to say I was so impressed with a bathroom in the train station! (Sounds ridiculous but hear me out) It cost me 1 euro to use (most cost just 50 cents) but it atleast had some extra perks. First of all a special stall for moms with kids, so smart! It had a normal toilet and a smaller one for kids:

And yes, I took a picture in there haha.

But that's not all! (There's more...if you call in the next 4 minutes we'll include...haha) The normal toilet was no normal toilet. It flushed and then this center piece popped out and the actual seat started turning! I was like "what in the world?!" It cleaned the whole toilet seat! 

Normal:

Cleaning mode:

Now all you germaphobes out there tell me that's not awesome! 

In general I'm still impressed with the level of cleanliness so far.

 

Hamburg

We made it to Hamburg,

Russ spent a good chunk of his mission here & absolutely loves the city. I've been hearing about it for years so it's awesome to finally be here!

After getting settled at our Air B&B place (which is very nice) we headed over to the church to meet up with a member and his wife. On the way we stopped to walk around a cathedral, St. Gertrude

As usual pictures don't do it justice. 

The LDS chapel is just around the corner from this. We ran into a family Russ knows, as well the current missionaries. Eventually Pascal & his wife Julia got there, they are like 28 & 24. He is from Hamburg and she is from Austria. They speak pretty good English and we had so much fun with them! We played fusball & pool at the young single adults center that is part of that same church building in Hamburg. Then we went to dinner at this Hamburger place, you've got to get a hamburger in HAMBURG right? Haha I actually had this yummy chicken salad, but everything there was great! 

Last of all we went to this beautiful park with Pascal & Julia (I want to go back in daylight to see the rose garden...wow) for a music/fountain/light show. Kind of like the fountains in front of the Billagio but it's in a park and tons of people show up to watch it.

It was like half an hour with a few different  classical pieces, some Tchaikovsky & Rachmaninoff mostly. It was great!

It's definitely fun to hear Russ speak a lot of German. I just listen, try to pick out the few words I know or all the cognates and guess what's going on haha it's like a game! More and more I find myself thinking in Spanish. I even accidentally said "hola" to someone today! Oops. 

It's great to see Russ enjoying being back in his mission and with people, missions are such a special time. Being here also makes me excited to go back to Argentina. 

Overall this trip is just a dream and I can't wait for tomorrow's adventure!