Hamburg: First Impressions

Hey there readers (who am I kidding, there's what - 3 of you?  Maybe?  Ha ha ha).  We've lived in Hamburg for almost 3 months now, and we've taken a lot of pictures.  Hamburg is a super beautiful place full of wonder and rainbows and fairies... the last of which is undocumented, but I KNOW it's true. So here's some pictures, and some explanations:

We moved to an area south of Hamburg city-center (across the river) called Harburg.  It's got very convenient shopping, a lot of ethnic diversity, and is located right next to a giant park.  We live on the 3rd floor (German - which means 4th floor American - check out the pic of the stairs, it's no easy climb).

This is a picture of some of the buildings on our street.  It's very "classic" looking, even though it's not the nicest neighborhood.

Are here are some pics from the parks near our house.  There are tons of tiny frogs everywhere, and rabbits too.

Here is the "Hauptbahnhoff" - the central train station.  I go through it every day to get to work, as do soooooo many other people (it can get pretty crazy in there). :)

Downtown Hamburg has a lot of historical amazing buildings (even though most of them had to be rebuilt after being destroyed during WWII), and is chuck-full of canals and other beauties.  Feast your eyes!

Hamburg Rathaus (town hall)

A huge church near Rathaus.

Inside the Rathaus courtyard

A pretty little area of Hamburg called Rodingsmarkt

This is a funny thing they do in Germany - couples will inscribe their names, and sometimes cheezy romantic stuff on a lock and clamp it to a bridge.  Some bridges are really popular and have hundreds and hundreds of locks!  It's a step above spraypainting "Sam + Jamilla" on the subway wall (though, that happens too. :) ). 

A crazy-looking building near St. Michael's church

Even the Starbucks looks old and classy (this is a starbucks...)

And now - St. Michael's church!  Aptly named after me - it's patron saint.

(I have no idea what this Easter Island head is all about.  Easter... religious holiday... huge church...? Seems like a stretch to me.)

This area of town is called the Spiekerstadt - it's the old "Warehouse district" for Hamburg.  Super pretty and cool-looking.  It should be a Mecca for all the steam-punk denizens of the world - it's very turn-of-the-century industrial.  The rooftops are just CRYING for a dirigible to land on top.  

AND... the best part... they have this awesome thing where they make ice cream that looks like spaghetti. Oh man... vanilla noodles, strawberry sauce, and white chocolate "cheese" on the top.  Whoa.