Hamburg and Dublin

I'll continue this one chronologically:

I really enjoyed my day alone in Hamburg. I bought a day pass for public tranport and explored bits of the city we didn't do there last time. I took the S-bahn out to a cute suburb called Blankenese where I found a little market selling flowers, meats and cheeses. I bought myself a sausage, chatting to the lady in German but I ended up eating it with mustard because there wasn't help-yourself ketchup and I couldnt remember what it was in German. It was really nice to wander around the suburbs, it felt really genuine, I didn't see a single other tourist out there. The weather was terrible but I was starting to be used to it. I also bought myself a comic to help practice my German, its the Donald Duck XXL-Winter-Spass book. Has cute duck comics and children's puzzles in it which are useful for my level of German.

Then I went to the famous harbour and following directions from my guidebook took a few ferries to get a decent tour of the harbour. It was really nice in the cold and mist to sit inside the boat with my iPod and just chill and watch everything go past. Hamburg harbour is pretty memorable - its not particularly cute or scenic because it is a real functional harbour, I saw tons of tugs and container ships and machinery which was interesting.

Back at the hostel I met some other people travelling alone and we got on really well. There was Nelson, from Darwin, and Riley from Vancouver. We ended up all going out Friday night to an Irish pub, it was a good fun night and it was nice to have some people to talk to after spending the whole day alone.

The next day I was up reasonably early to catch my flight to Dublin. The airport was a serious hike from the hostel - the bus took over an hour getting there. Services at the airport were terrible because I was flying on a budget airline from a tiny airport. The flight crew were Irish which was really bizarre after struggling with foreign languages all year. After arriving in Dublin airport I took a sandwich break and ordering in English felt so so wierd. I caught the bus to my hostel without problems. It was a green double decker :D

I am staying in the Kinlay House which is a giant hostel in a really cool part of the city. I am in a 6 bed dorm with people who arent particularly interesting, but hey, you cant win em all. The hostel has free internet which is incredibly useful. It also has breakfast, tv, dvd player with a massive movie library and a shared kitchen. So there is no shortage of things to do here. Last night I ended up chilling here and watching some movies with the other travellers. Not knowing anyone here it was hard to find people to go out on Saturday night, unfortunately.

Today I had a bit of a wander around the city and got my bearings. I had lunch with Tim (the Canadian I met in Paris) and it was nice to see a familiar face. We had bangers n mash with Guinness (trying to be as Irish as we could) but I thought the Guinness tasted terrible. I'm back at the hostel now for a short break (I might finally get my laundry done) but I'm going out tonight with Tim and Mikaela (who is arriving here this evening from Paris!). We're going to go check out some Irish dancing which I am pretty excited for. No more Guinness for me though.

I had a look into walking tours here and there is a serious lack of good ones. They are all very expensive and area or theme specific, leaving a perfect spot for Sandeman to open up. They'd do well here.

One of the things that strikes me here though is that its even harder for me to meet people, which is counter-intuitive, I thought the English speaking would have made it easy. But in Holland and Germany, the English speakers cling to each other at the hostel and its really easy to find people to chat to. At the hostel here I've met Germans and French and Spaniards, but I don't know where the English speakers have all got to!

That's my travels up to date!
I might post again tomorrow, but if not, until Salzburg!

xoxox Amanda