40th Birthday Trip - Day 3 (Hamburg Germany)

This morning AA got up at 6:45 am to get to work by 8:00am.  He showered had breakfast and then headed back to the airport area to do his testing he came for. 

Lola on the other hand... stayed in bed, woke up for a few minutes when AA left, and fell back to sleep. She missed breakfast all together and woke up to housekeeping knocking on doors (11am), when she panicked as she didn't know if there was a do not distrub sign on the door.  So she got up and looked, and luckily AA put it up for her.

She showered, but doesn't have a brush (its in the suitcase that is coming), so hand combed her hair and put it up in a pony tail. 

Out for the afternoon, she first headed for some food.  She looked up a place not to far from the hotel for some sausage.  When in Germany, must eat sausage, and they say Curry sausage is a must.  So Lola found a place called Edel Curry.  She was a little nervous as when she got there she was the only person at the restaurant. She loves the smooth sausage, and the fries were so good!  Might have to go back.

Best hair she could get after a shower and now brush (in the "lost" suitcase).

During lunch Lola researched what to do... it was currently clearing outside, so thought walking would be ok.

Off to St Michaelis Church it was about a 1.54km walk that took about 24 minutes (was wondering) and taking in the sites.  It is Hamburg's biggest church.  It has been struck by lighting destroyed the first and second churches built on this site. In 1912 the construction of the church is what is standing today, although heavily damaged during WWII, it has been fully repaired.  The church is 132m tall with its clock tower (with the observation deck at 106m).   The church can fit 2500 people and has 5 different organs.  The alter is 20m high and the crypt (which Lola didn't go to), houses 2000 people below.

The church was amazing and so bright, the walkway around the outside was so neat, and wish Lola could have walked up.  She purchased the ticket to go up the tower after viewing the church inside.  Since she slept till 11, she decided that taking the steps rather than the lift to the top.  

Interesting things along the way up:

- Turnstyle with scanning your own ticket to enter the clock tower

- Neat plans of the clock tower

- every couple of floors there were different things to see..

- Lola is out of shape and heart rate was high as she got higher and higher....

At the top it was amazing views of the City, but wow was it windy. The rain kept coming and going as Lola was up there. She also waited to hear the bell tower ring 2 times :)

- She was going to take the lift down, but decided she would count the stairs instead.

She made it to what she thought was the bottom and counted 395 stairs.... then climbed another 54 stairs down to the turn styles.  For a total of 449 stairs... i wonder if it was really 450 stairs...  Lola wants to take AA back at night, hopefully we can make it.

After the tower, Lola walked towards the Elbe River.  took in the sites, and then quickly got drenched with rain.  She had a 30 minute walk back to the hotel, her phone was dying, and she was worried she wasn't going to make it back. 

Statue of Bismark

Hiding under a tree to try and get relief to take the photo.

She saw a grocery store and went and got a few things, then headed back to the hotel.  Her phone battery was in the red zone but she made it back.

Took off her wet clothes, but didn't have many clothes to put back on (need the other clothes for tomorrow), so put on her pj bottoms to try and dry off. She blogged and watched some tv waiting for AA to make it back from work.

AA made it back around 6pm, and we "debriefed" and headed for supper.

Lola found a steak house near by (as it was raining again), Block House.We both ordered the Hereford Rib-eye (as that is the kind of cow Lola's mom is all about).  It was very good, and the baked potato.  AA had the "special" sour cream.  We had an after dinner hot beverage, then headed back to the hotel.

Lola talked to her parents, and AA got ready for his work call.  Lola had to sit quietly during this call, it was 45 minutes... she has never heard AA do so much talking... all about the tests he witnessed today.

After he got off the video call he continued to work, and Lola finished blogging and watched a show recommended by here sister about Hamburg called "the travelling man".  She asked me a whole bunch of questions about Hamburg, she knew more about it than Lola did.

The time difference makes it difficult to talk to those back home, but we are doing well.

40th Birthday Trip - Day 1 and 2 (September 14-15, 2025)

Things changed quickly and we ended up going to Germany prior to our planned 40th birthday trip to Paris.  September long weekend we found out AA had to go to Germany for work, and since we had booked companion tickets we ended up having to go together, so Lola worked a lot of overtime to get all her deadlines/work completed 1 week ahead of time, and we booked new flights.

We left home at about 1:00pm to head to the airport with plenty of time. Checked our bag, and headed for some Starbucks before boarding the plane.

Since we booked 2 weeks before leaving, we had to change our nice flight with one stop, to more of a milk run.  We went to Toronto (1 hour layover), then to Halifax (with another 1 hour layover), to Paris (just over 5 hour flight).

The flights were pretty uneventful for us.  First flight we didn't get to sit together, but the rest we were in premium together :). We tried to sleep on the plane over the ocean, but it was so short we only got about 2 hours of sleep (inbetween "dinner" and breakfast).  On our flight the lady behind us got her hot tea spilled on her leg/foot, and she was suffering pretty bad.  Good thing Lola brought food on the plane as, all she got on the flight was a salad. But she ate her pizza, boiled eggs and veggies :)

Once in Paris (arriving the next day, September 15), we got our luggage, as we had to go from Westjet to Air France.  At Charles De Gaulle airport it was kind of strange. We walked off the plane with stairs (not as nice as getting off the airplane onto the tarmac like in Hawaii), then loaded onto buses.  Those buses took us to a different gate were we got off the bus and entered the terminal. 

On the bus!

We found our suitcase on the carousel, and went to go try and get on the earlier flight to Hamburg Germany.  We were there booked at 4:30, as we were worried our flights would be delayed, but turned out we couldn't change, and the flight we could change would have cost us 300 Euros, so we just checked our bag and went to find some lunch.

We found ourself at the Sheraton restaurant at the airport right by the train station.  Lola ordered citris fish with rice, but didn't get the rice till well after the she and AA had eaten their meal, but AA knew that Lola needed more food.  AA had a chicken ceaser salad.  It was very tasty.

We made our way to security, where we were put into a different line to weigh our carry on baggage.  Turned out you could only carry on 12 kgs (both her suitcase and personal item together).  We traded to see if we could get by, but Lola's backpack and AA's carry on suitcase was over 18 kgs.  So we had to go and check the bag.  AA was a little nervous as he needed the stuff in that bag for his work trip.  His work close and toothbrush were in there. But we really had no choice.   Once we checked the bag, we headed back to security.  Second time was much easier getting through. 

We headed to our gate, Lola went to the washroom, and then came back and fell asleep on AA's shoulder after playing a little Donkey Kong. We had 2 seperate reservation bookings, so AA went onto the plane first as he was in zone 3 and Lola was in zone 4.   Off he went, and Lola went after.

Once Lola got to the gate, she was puzzled that she had to go down some stairs and loaded onto a Bus... Another weird thing.  She sure was hoping that AA was on the plane when she got there.  The bus loaded and we got to the tarmack where our plane was parked, and walked back up stairs to the plane.  Thankfully AA was sitting there waiting for Lola :)

Air Traffic was heavy, so we had a very specific time we were allowed to leave, so we waited on the plane for about 20 minutes before taxiing. We arrived pretty quickly in Hamburg Germany, as AA and Lola fell asleep hard on the plane, we didn't even get drink service.

After we woke up...

Got of the plane, and headed for our luggage after AA found the washroom.  Once we got to the luggage carousel most of the luggage was unloaded, and people were gone.  We got our "carry-on" bag, but unfortunately our suitcase wasn't there.  We were ok, as AA had his work clothes, and Lola had put some clothes in there too, just not her brush, hat or sandals.

We headed to the luggage claim area, where the line was pretty long.  We waited a while, and then found out we had make the "claim" on the kiosk. Once we completed that we headed to the car rental place.  The lady was very surprised that AA was willing to drive a manual transmission, but continued to "upgrade" us to an automatic Ford Escape.

We headed to the hotel, and got there as it was getting dark. Arrived at the hotel around 8pm, and got checked in and put our stuff in the room, and headed to the Piano Bar  in our hotel for Supper. We were pretty exhausted but knew we needed to eat.

AA had a club house sandwich while Lola had a Hamburger (with no bread and no cheese).  The waiter didn't understand what a Bun was.... so had to used the word Bread (learnt for next time).

Its way more green than we expected.

there is a tower, Lola didn't know there was a tower.

it was raining when we got to the hotel.

Blurry photo of AA's club sandwich.... Lola must have been tired.

Supper was very good, back to the room for AA ironed his shirts for work, and we headed to bed. 

Travel day was long (with 4 flights), but we made it.