Sunday in Hamburg

Sunday morning I woke up late and enjoyed breakfast with Torben and Johanna in the garden. German breakfast is typically coffee, hardboiled eggs, brown bread and whatever you choose to layer on top: anything from meat and cheese to butter and marmalade. I LOVE eating meals in the back on their terrace. Molly (Johanna’s mother) is really a professional gardener and I always felt like I’d jumped into a home and garden magazine.

After breakfast, we drove into the city to walk around downtown Hamburg through the remains of the morning triathalon. While most of the buildings are not very old, being destroyed in either the great fire of 1842 or bombed in the Second World War, they are very spread out and grand. Hamburg is so beautiful and abnormally green for a large city...AND right on the water. Apparently, it has even more bridges than Venice. I KNEW I was in a foreign country when I noticed how diligent people were about following pedestrian laws. Even if no cars were coming, until the light turned green and they were given the signal, not one person crossed the street. Amazing.

Stopping for coffee, we enjoyed the added benefit of a view of sailboats on the Alster river. Once again, I felt as if I had stepped inside a postcard.

Later, Torben and Jo dropped me off at the Hamburg Projekt for church. This is a mission my church and dad faithfully support and I was anxious to connect with people there and see what all the fuss was about. I especially like that the church meets in a music bar. Jo and Torben couldn’t understand why they were dropping me off at a bar when I said I was going to a church service, but I kind of enjoyed the added irony.

Daniel Bartz, the pastor had told me to get there early and he would be waiting outside of the church. I arrived on time, but he was nowhere to be found...or so I thought. I had only seen one picture of him, after all. I picked up a program which proved pointless since its contents were entirely in German. I tried to act like I knew what I was doing while others surrounded me deep in conversation with dear friends. I have ever been so awkward. Finally I asked a random guy if Daniel was there and turns out I asked just the right person. Jens said he had just gotten off the phone with Daniel, who had asked him to look out for me and show me around. Thanks God! After he introduced me to a few people, we bought cokes and took our seats in the “VIP section” of the church where he translated the entire service for me. The leather armchairs and suspended blue lighting reminded me a little bit of McLean Presbyterian ;)

Jens and I were the very last people to leave the church since he was busy with music technical stuff and I was busy meeting really fun, interesting people. Afterwards, a bunch of us headed to what Germans call a “beach club.” This is such a cool concept: a manmade beach in the middle of the city. We crossed the sandy path and found seats on the “boardwalk” to enjoy currywurst and Beck's beer with lemonade (my new favorite summer beverage). We closed it down and I made the metro just before the last train to Reinbek J