Hamburg

Sunday evening we went to the lab to prepare stuff. It's a huge building filled with exciting stainless steel equipment and tangles of wires. 

Look, it's some scientific equipment!  

We are shooting synchrotron radiation at some crystals to try and figure out what electrons are up to inside them. Or we would be if we hadn't found out the setup has a broken valve that means we can't start until tomorrow or the next day. Le sigh.

We glued the crystals to a bit of copper with silver paste so we can cool them down.

 I woke up brutally early and went into Hamburg. I bumbled my way through the bus and train system - with the kindness of strangers. Upon leaving the train station this was the first thing I saw:

Who doesn't?

I knew I was going to like Hamburg. Unfortunately I immediately stumbled across a little village of homeless men huddled in sleeping bags. Nothing like a bit of homelessness to get you down.

I walked to the Rathaus, which is the spectacular town hall. Since it was still way early in the morning, the huge square in front was pretty much deserted. When I went back later that afternoon it was buzzing. I think it was more majestic when it was empty though.

I found my way to St Nikolai. The whole of Hamburg was heavily damaged by firebombing at the end of the war. 35000 people died. While this is not comparable to, say, the 23 million Russians killed in the war, it's an annoying fact of life that two wrongs don't make a right. The wrecked church stands as a memorial to the atrocities of the war. It's beautiful and powerful.

There were lots of photos of the devastation in Hamburg, and they looked eerily like the centre of Christchurch after the quake. I thought about how the cathedral would be as a memorial of this kind, but since it's not so important we are all constantly reminded how lame earthquakes are in the same way as waging war, I don't think it would have the same gravity.

The Rathaus from the top of St Nikolai

Angel at St Nikolai

I don't think the Germans are actually that keen on hamburgers. It took me ages to find a place that sold them and it turned out to be a greasy trailer on the harbour promenade. However: chips with mayonnaise and a little fork! On my search I found loads of nice restaurants with cheap and delicious-looking lunches but I DON'T REGRET MY DECISION IT'S THE PRINCIPLE OF THE THING. 

The second in the series: "photos of disappointing fast food".

Despite the bombing, Hamburg still has loads of nice old buildings and I walked around all morning. There are also a lot of canals and tidal rivers. I found the artist's quarter, with sunny studios where happy and prosperous creative people painted and ate cake and made apps. Nice to see! Also lots of cool statues, but oddly most of them looked kind of unhappy.

"You don't ever think about my needs!"