Rachel's in Germany!: A beautiful day for a three-hour tour!

Today I spent the morning listening to Adventures in Odyssey and Mumford & Sons while I cleaned up my new (old) guitar. I only got it half strung though, because I had to leave for our afternoon activity. So right now it only has 3 strings . . . I'll finish it tomorrow.

This afternoon was our tour of the Rathaus, which is the main government building and the seat of the Hanseatic Senate and Parliament. ("Hanseatic" means it is of Hamburg.) We were originally supposed to go up the tower of St. Michaelis, the most famous church in the city, to see the view, but for some reason that part of the tour got canceled. (I guess everybody had too much partying to do afterwards. Whatever.) Anyway, we also had a boat trip on the harbor ferry down the Elbe River so we could see the harbor and the city skyline.

Leather wall covering

A teenager carved this!

Parliamentary room

The Rathaus was really cool! It has really elaborate carvings all over the outside and inside (think Baroque style) and some beautiful rooms. Our tour guide showed us the room where Parliament meets, the smaller meeting rooms for the Parliament and the Senate, and the grand hall where government dinners are held. In Hamburg the two sections of the government work separately but in conjunction, sort of like the House and Senate in the U.S. I didn't understand all the details of everything, but one thing I found really interesting was that the Parliament has plainer and more economical decor while the Senate has very elaborate and ostentatious decor. Our guide said that the Senate is the part of the government that spends all the money, so their decorations reflect that. One smaller room was completely covered in incredibly detailed woodwork that had all been done by orphans who were apprenticed to a woodworkers' guild to learn a trade. It was an effort by a senator to give them a chance to find a place in the world. Most of the orphans were between 10 and 15 years old when they made these carvings! It was unbelievable. There were also lots of elaborate symbolic murals on the walls and ceiling representing the history of the city, the ideal life of a Hanseatic citizen, the city's trade with other nations, etc. Some of the materials used to build and decorate were extremely valuable, like the onyx columns in the governor's meeting room and the wall covering made of leather in one of the Senate rooms. A lot of the precious materials were funded by wealthy citizens, not by the government itself. Am I boring everyone with this? Sorry . . .

The Rathausmarkt from the governor's meeting room

The harbor tour on the ferry wasn't super exciting, maybe because I live near Long Beach and L.A. Harbor and I have already seen this kind of thing. We did get some nice views of the city from the water, though, and thankfully it was a sunny day, so the wind didn't freeze us. (Everyone says that the weather here has been unnaturally good this week. I came expecting clouds, rain, and temps in the 30s, but it's been at least partly sunny every day!) We did stop at a really cool office building on the way back that is shaped like a giant 3-D parallelogram. It had stairs going up the side, and from the top we could see for miles. Definitely the best part of the trip!

Main staircase to Senate inside Rathaus

After we got back to the dock at Landungsbrücken, everybody else split up and went their ways, and since it was only just after 5 o' clock, I decided to take a quick spin by St. Michaelis. It was the part of the tour I had most looked forward to, and I still really wanted to see it, even if I couldn't go up in the tower. So I walked there on my own. When I went inside, I heard music and realized that the church orchestra was in the middle of a rehearsal up on the north balcony! They were playing something Baroque--I think it was either J.S. Bach or C.P.E. Bach--and it was so incredibly beautiful to hear it echoing through the huge space. The church is Baroque too, which means it has super-elaborate decoration. Despite the big crucifix hanging above the altar, I am almost positive it is a Protestant church; most churches in Hamburg--and in northern Europe--are, because of the Protestant Reformation so long ago.

St. Michaelis (aka the "Michel")

I stayed for probably half an hour, until the musicians were done rehearsing. When they got up and started to put their things away, I got up too. I walked back out the front door just as the bells were ringing 6 o'clock. They went on and on, and I could hear them for a long time behind me as I walked to the train station. After a few blocks, the sound finally got drowned out by traffic noise. It was getting fairly cold by the time I got to the station. I was really glad when I finally got back home into the warm apartment. Leftover soup for dinner tastes all the better when you eat it after a long, chilly walk!