Hamburg, Day 4: Florencia Snake Class and the Botanic Garden

August 22 was my Florencia snake bracelet class, so I worked (if you can call teaching great students work) while Don continued exploring Hamburg.  Here I am helping Rita Lettau, my intrepid student who tackled a snake bracelet with no English.  Luckily, I had Marianne, a fabulous translator, to help with communication (plus notice Rita's phone with a German to English translation program on the table-we were covered!)

Photo by Freddie Ott.

The other advanced crocheters in the class were Joanne Ivey, who owns a bead shop called Cranberry in Australia, and Akiko Nomura from Japan.

My roommate for the  class space was Fran Griffith so it was a fun day all around.

Fran Griffith (photo by Freddie Ott)

 

 

Rita finished a snake soon after Beaders Best. 

 

Rita's photo of her finished snake

 

 

Akiko also finished hers and Joanne assures me she is not far behind.

 

Akiko's photo of her snake

 

I also took a few photos of some of the contest beadwork Friday night so here is a peak at some of the amazing beadwork.

 

 

 

I know the name of this artist who made the amazing necklace below, Kris Empting Obenland, because I was lucky enough to finally meet her in the real world. 

 

 

"Self Portrait" by Kris Empting-Obenland

 

 

 

This stunning necklace by Joanne Zammitis called "Atlantis" and yes, those are real sea urchins. 

 

Meanwhile, Don started his day by exploring a protected nature area that was about a 15-minute walk from the hotel.

 

 

 

He even found some mushrooms.

 

After that, he explored Planten un Blomen, the large green space in the city of Hamburg.  It has a lot to offer: plants (of course), lakes and ponds, fountains, a Japanese garden, miniature golf and more.

 

 

 

 

 

A vanilla ice cream cone that was so good it needed to be memoralized in a photo.

 

 

 

After the garden, Don joined me at the hotel and we had dinner there with many of our new and old beading friends.

 

 

 

Hamburg, Day 2

     Our next day was Museum day, as we visited 2 of them in one go. But first, here I am finishing a bead crochet sample that I needed for the Florencia class while waiting for the bus.

We got turned around trying to find the Hamburg Museum, and wandered by part of the Planten un Blomen (botanic garden).  This tv tower looked like it was straight out of the "The Jetsons."

We also wandered by a war memorial from World War II.

 

Finally, we made it to the Hamburg Museum ( Museum für Hamburgische Geschichte),  a collection dedicated to telling the history of Hamburg through a multitude of objects like canons, work tools, period rooms, statues, model railroads-all kind of interesting things. 

 

 

 

This is a pair of shears that were used to slice off fluff from fulled wool fabric.

Skulls of executed criminals would be nailed up for the public to see.  Not sure if these are real skulls or reproductions.

Since both of our families emigrated to the U.S. from Europe on ships, I was particularly interested in this cleaned-up reconstruction of the steerage section of an ocean liner (where our relatives would have traveled) . 

Reconstructed steerage section

Notice that the compartment is barely high enough for a man to stand up and has little light.  The wooden bunk beds were designed to hold 4-6 people and the straw mattresses were aired out once a week.  As late as 1887, passengers in steerage had to eat their meals  sitting in bed or out in the open on deck.   Food was the equivalent of  the meager sailors' diet: hard bread, legumes, cured meat, coffee, tea, bread, and butter.  Not surprising that many passengers brought their own food for the first few days of the trip.

 

This lump  is a pile of melted glass buttons.

Another item that caught my eye was a reminder of the "Great Fire" of 1842.  The fire burned for 4 days and destroyed a quarter of the inner city including 3 churches, the town hall, and countless buildings.  The fire killed 51 people and left 20,000 people homeless.  So among the items touched by the Great Fire was a pile of glass buttons that melted into this remaining lump.

Crocheted socks made for the German troops in World War I

Those of us who know something of the history of knitting or war are aware that English and American women knit clothing for "our boys at war," so I found this display interesting.  It is a pair of crocheted socks made for a German soldier fighting in World War I.  They don't seem too practical to wear with boot so maybe they were meant to be worn as slippers.

We took a break to eat lunch on the patio of the museum.  It was a lovely place to eat but the large number of bees that came to check out our tasty meals were a bit of a challenge.

The outside entrance to the patio where we ate lunch.

After we finished with the Hamburg Museum, we headed to the arts and crafts museum (Museum fur Kunst und Gewerbe), the one museum I definitely wanted to see.  It was a stroll through a variety of objects from many periods and styles.

The entrance to the Museum fur Kunst und Gewerbe

This is one of a group of expressionist costumes

 Hilt of a samurai sword

A glass peppermill

Then it was time to wander down to the Landungsbruken piers and the water.

We took the lift down to the entrance to the Old Elbe Tunnel for pedestrians and vehicles that was opened in 1911 to allow access to the south side of the Elbe River.

Entrance to part of the tunnel

Going down was fine but then I made the mistake of agreeing to walk up the stairs. Given my fear of heights, it was too scary to be out on those suspended stairways.

Part of the scary climb back up

Part of the decoration on one of the buildings on the waterfront.  We would love to know the meaning behind the iconography but, alas, there was no explanation so you will have to come up with your own meaning.

View from ferry number 62

 

We bought the Hamburg Pass the day before, which gave us free access on bus, trains, and the ferry so we were able to bypass the expensive tourist boats and hop on the Hadag harbor ferry for a ride on the Elbe.

 

After that, it was time to eat dinner because we were starving.  The Landungsbruken area is really quite touristy but we were too hungry to go elsewhere.  We avoided the Hard Rock Café and ate at Block Brau Hamburg, a very large brewpub with 3 floors and space for 500.  Luckily it was not terribly busy late on a weekday.  The food was pretty basic but fine (wiener schnitzel with potato salad, sausage with potato salad, etc.) and Don enjoyed the beer brewed on premise.

 

View of part of the Block Brau restaurant and some of the brewing tanks

 

Than it was back to the hotel to end a very long and eventful day.

 

Adele and Don's Excellent European Adventure: Day 1, Hamburg

     Now that I can remember what time zone I am in and what continent I am on, I can tell you all about why it has been so long since I posted.  As you know, I was scheduled to teach 2 classes at the Beaders Best show in Hamburg, Germany (held from August 21-23) so I have been busy preparing for the classes, packing lots of kits and some clothing, and then traveling.  Even more fun, Don was able to come with me-his excuse being that he had to carry the bags.

Florencia and her sisters were so excited to have their own class that they packed their little bags early and camped on my clothes to make sure that they weren't forgotten.

The trip to Hamburg via Schipol Airport in Amsterdam was long, but without incident so we arrived in Hamburg on August 19.  I had allowed an extra day in case of travel disruption (read rain that would shut down JFK Airport and delay flights for a day) so no delays meant that I had time to explore Hamburg. We were staying at the Radisson Inn that is a convenient 10-minute walk from the venue for the bead show outside of the city center, so we checked in and headed out to explore downtown Hamburg.



This was our first view of the city center.

We first wandered around the Binnenalster, a lake at the very heart of the city that covers an area of around 45 acres.  Notice all of the swans and ducks that are more than happy to congregate to be fed by people.

The Binnenalster with just some of the birds waiting for their next meal.

Don noticed that there would be a concert in a nearby church, so we popped into some large German restaurant for a meal of sausages, sauerkraut, and potato salad.  The waitress didn't speak much English and I remember very little of my high-school German, but we managed to order dinner.

The restaurant-too bad I can't remember the name.

Then it was off to Petrikirche, Hamburg's oldest parish church dating from 1195 and rebuilt after the Great Fire of 1842, for the  concert.

Petrikirche ( St. Peter's Church)

 

A view of the inside

Another view

The church had some lovely carved stone decoration.

One of the door handles in the shape of a lion's head.

After the concert, we continued wandering around the city center and ran across the Chilehaus.  Completed in 1924 and commissioned by a merchant who made his fortune importing saltpeter from Chili, the building contains more than  4 million red bricks and sports charming carved figures of animals with South American motifs.

One tiny corner of the Chilehaus

We were watched by one of the carved animals.

Then it was time to go back to the hotel because we could hardly stay awake.  Here was the train that took us to a bus that dropped us off near the hotel.  Luckily, being New Yorkers, we soon got the hang of the efficient public transport system.

The train.

Our train stop.

This was our view when we got off the bus to walk to the hotel.