After a late night last night that saw me go to bed for the first time after midnight since I arrived, I was up bright and early this morning.

I opened my eyes at 6:20am.

Only one thing to do…

Go Canucks Go!

Well, pop the Canuck game on my laptop of course!

The NHL playoffs started yesterday and their first game was tonight.

Of course, being here in Germany, the games don’t start until the ungodly hour of 4am which means I’m going to be missing pretty much all of them.

I was resigned to just waking up each morning after game day and watching the highlights.

But it was 6:20am and, you know what, those games last 2 1/2 to 3 hours which meant I could catch the tail end of the game.

I went online, surfed to a site offering a free stream, and turned on the game.

There was just over 11 minutes remaining in the third period and the Canucks were trailing 2-1.

I swear I didn’t even have time to curse the fact that we were behind before the Canucks scored to tie up the game literally 5 seconds after I turned on the game.

Like it was so instantaneously that my first thought was I was just watching a highlight reel.

But, nope, the game was tied.

I did a silent fist pump as I lay in my bed in the darkened dorm room

And, then, just 12 seconds later, the Canucks scored again to take a lead that they would never relinquish.

Okay, now it’s obvious to me that I was the deciding factor in this Canucks victory so you’re welcome Canucks fans.

They play again in a couple of nights and I will try to do the same.

Breakfast Buffet

After the game, I hopped out of bed, got ready for the day and headed down to the breakfast buffet that the hotel/hostel offers each morning.

The cost is €12.90 ($20) but it’s well worth it as there’s eggs, beans, cold cuts, cheese, cereals, pastries, fruits, vegetables, coffee, and juice.

I even was able to ask for gluten free bread and the girl working the buffet went to the back and toasted up some   bread for me.

The best part though?

I guess you’re supposed to pay at the little stand before you enter the room but when I came in there was nobody there so, yeah, I ate for free.

Shh!   Don’t tell anyone!

Anyway, needless to say, I’ll be back down there tomorrow morning even if I have to pay.

Inside a submarine

After a long breakfast where, along with eating, I also popped together yesterday’s blog, Shawn and I headed out to the brisk sunny day around 10am.

Our only plan for the day was a 2pm walking tour later on so we had all the time in the world to go exploring.

Our hostel was only about a 15 minute walk from the St Pauli area of Hamburg so we walked through the residential neighbourhood towards the waterfront.

Here, docked right on the water’s edge is an old U-434 submarine turned into the U-boat museum.   For €9 you can enter inside and explore from one end of the sub to the other.

Oh, and if you’re claustrophobic, well, um, you probably shouldn’t enter.

It was such a tight fit going through the circular hatches separating the different sections of the sub and, boy, if you’re tall, yeah, you’re gonna be bumping your head on all sorts of stuff.

Anyway, it was pretty cool to walk through the sub and I just can’t imagine what it would be like for sailors to live in those conditions for months at a time.

A pedestrian tunnel

Just a little further up the waterfront was the St. Pauli-Elbtunnel.

The Elbtunnel was built in 1911 and runs just over 400m under the Elbe river to the other side.

Up until 5 years ago it used to accommodate all means of transport but in 2019 they closed the tunnel off to cars and now it’s only accessible by foot or bicycle.

And, so, yeah, we entered a big wooden elevator that lowered us 20m down to the tunnel and then walked for about 10 minutes to the other side.

The thing you notice the most with the tunnel is how bright and clean it is.   It is so pristine.

So, after walking back and forth in a tunnel for no discernible reason, we were off to our next stop.

Erotic Art Museum

About a five minute walk inland is where you’ll find the Erotic Art Museum.

Now, to call this a museum is taking the word museum a little liberally.

It’s literally someone’s house where they’re showing off their collection of erotic art from the past.

Not to say it wasn’t worth the visit just that it was surprising to go from the main front room to the next room where there was a kitchen sink, a toilet, and a living room complete with couch.

Anyway, there was some pretty cool memorabilia from years gone by along with a wall entirely devoted to the evolution of vibrators over the years.

So, if you want to learn how women were staying happy back in the day, this is the place to visit.

Five guys with no buns

Lunchtime!

And on tap today, a hamburger of course!

I mean, how can you not eat a hamburger in Hamburg?!?

We tried to visit a German burger restaurant that offered gluten free buns but sadly they didn’t open for a couple of hours at 3pm.

And there, across the street, was the most non German burger joint you could imagine.

5 guys!

Although I wouldn’t be able to enjoy my burger with a bun, at least I could see what all the hubbub was about this burger place.

Yup, I had never gone.   So, in a way, this was kind of a new adventure for me.

Along with the burger, I also got a “small” side of fries which was humongous and a salted caramel and banana milkshake cause, ya know, vacation!

So good!   I definately give 5 guys 5 thumbs up!

Free Walking Tour

At 2pm, we headed back down to the water where the free walking tour was starting from.

Our tour guide Savvy was originally from India but was now living here in Hamburg.   This was his full time job and his English was perfect.

Only myself, Shawn, and a lady from Denmark showed up for the tour.

I guess this was going to be a small, intimate private tour.

The tour we chose took us through the St Pauli neighbourhood along the waterfront, up to the notoriously seedy Reeperbahn, and over to where the Beatles made their home playing here in Hamburg back in the 60s.

Things I learned:

Confiscated: There is a 990 million yacht, the Dilbar, docked across the river for a couple of years now.   It belongs to an Russian oligarch and was confiscated because of the Ukraine conflict.

Port city: Hamburg is the third largest port in Europe seeing about 12,000 ships passing through each year.

Grounded: Because of the shifting tides, about once a month a ship will become stranded and need to be towed back to the water.   This towing service costs the ship a whipping 10 million dollars.

The funny thing is, the ships don’t care and it’s priced into the budget.   Why don’t they care?   Well, let’s look at another note…

22,000 containers: Cargo ships can hold about 22,000 containers and each container is worth alot of money.

Savvy used an example of a container carrying iPhones.   That container would be worth about 500 million dollars.

That’s just for one container!   So, when you do the math, a 10 million cost is just pennies in the bucket for them.

Red light street:   There is a one block street near the Reeperbahn called Herbertstraße that is similar to the red light district in Amsterdam.

Here you’ll see scantily clad women sitting in windows offering their services.   No one under 18 and no women are allowed on this stretch of road.

If a woman does enter, she’ll be jeered and have liquids poured on her from above.

The reason the ladies working there don’t want to have women in the area are trifold: they don’t want the competition, the don’t want to be judged, and they don’t want the women to find their husbands window shopping.

German Drag Show

After hanging out in the hostel for a bit in the afternoon, we headed back out to Reeperbahn to visit the Pulverfass cabaret.

Time to take in a German drag show cause, hey, why not?

We were shown to our little table and over the next 2 1/2 hours were dazzled by a variety of song, dance, juggling, and stripping.

You know, just your typical drag show stuff.

I did have a couple cocktails along the way, each priced at €12.50 ($19).   Boy, have I come along way from $1 cocktails a few months ago in Cuba.

Overall, it was a cool experience and a nice way to experience what Reeperbahn has to offer short of going to a brothel or sex show.

Late Night Tapas

The show ended at 9:30pm and we made plans to head over to a small Portuguese restaurant near our hostel to grab some late night tapas.

Cause, ya know, when in Germany obviously you have to have tapas!

Sadly, by the time we arrived at 10pm, they were only offered a selection of their cold tapas as the kitchen had closed.

Oh well, we’d just have to make it work.

Their menu offered 9 different tapas for €17 so Shawn and I decided to do a share plate.

The menu was in German with the gluten free options marked.   By this time of night though, I had no desire to figure out what was what and what was gluten free and what was cold.   Basically, I didn’t want a bunch of time figuring out what tapas we could have.

So, I just asked our server to pick out 9 gluten free tapas that we could have.

Oh, by the way, our server?

Yeah, see was from Colombia of all places.

So, here we were being served Portuguese tapas by a Colombian server in Germany.

It was just so perfect!

The tapas, while cold, were still a nice late night munchy and I finished off with a slice of gooey, soft gluten free chocolate cake and some prosecco.

And, yeah, that was the day.

It was long.   We did alot of walking and we saw a lot and did a lot.

In my books, that’s always a good day when traveling!