Between Canals and Culture. The Wild Mouse

 

 

Morning began with the now-familiar breakfast routine. Saskia once again refused to take the exciting shortcut through the medical clinic, so unfortunately we had to use the boring, conventional lift like normal hotel guests. Apparently wandering past X-ray departments before coffee is only entertaining once.

Then it was time for Shopping Attempt: Round Three. I had done my research and found what were supposedly some of the best streetwear shops in Hamburg. Surely this would finally be a success.
We entered shop number one. Saskia looked at a few things.
“Nah, bro.”
Shop number two.
A brief browse.
“Nah.”
Shop number three.
Approximately seven seconds of interest.
“Bro.”
Excellent. Another highly non-productive shopping expedition.

We decided to regroup at a very pretty Starbucks, because apparently shopping performance is directly linked to refresher levels. After drinks, the situation improved slightly. Then we stocked up on cookies, which improved morale even further, and suddenly Saskia announced that she would now like to go to Urban Outfitters. Apparently this was the magic shop. She actually bought things, and I even negotiated an extra 10% discount for her, proving once again that my role on this trip is part travel agent, part logistics department and part procurement specialist.

For lunch we went to a Turkish restaurant, where Saskia had köfte and I had chicken. Both were very good, and for once our food arrived without a half-hour taco-related waiting crisis. A definite improvement on yesterday.

After lunch we returned to the hotel and spent a couple of hours doing absolutely nothing. We had late checkout, so there was no reason to rush anywhere. At 4 p.m. we finally gathered all our belongings, dragged everything downstairs and left the luggage in storage.

Then we headed to Hamburg’s summer festival. “Festival” makes it sound slightly more fancy than it was. Basically: amusement park + food + rides + opportunities to make questionable decisions. Naturally, it started raining. So we escaped into one of those fairground arcade/casino places, where Saskia managed to win herself some sort of fluffy bouncy ball. More importantly, we also confirmed an important law of international travel: There is an Estonian in every port. Or, apparently, every amusement park. The woman behind the counter heard us counting our points in Estonian and suddenly looked very surprised.
“Are you Estonian?”
Yes. Of course we are. And apparently so was she.

After that, Saskia chose a roller coaster that, according to her, was “not scary at all.” Teaser: it absolutely was. The ride was called the Wild Mouse, which already should have been enough information for me to make better life choices. A large part of the ride took place high above the ground, with those horrible sharp turns where the carriage seems determined to launch itself straight over the edge. Meanwhile, a young dude sitting behind us was screaming his little lungs out. Thankfully, we eventually escaped the Wild Mouse with all limbs and internal organs still approximately where they belonged.

There was initially another ride I thought of going, but once we saw that at some point they stopped the ride, gave everyone a plastic cup of water they had to hang on to with their teeth and started the ride again, we were like “Nah”. The water was spilling from cups and mouths left and right. But guess, who doesn’t want to have some spit infused water on them? Us.

After the festival, we went to a Japanese restaurant for sushi, then walked back to the hotel. At around 7:30 p.m., we collected our mountain of luggage, ordered a taxi and headed to the airport. We got to the gate, enjoyed some airport sunset and got on the plane. Flight was on time, took us exactly one and half hours and at 1am we met Gerli, who was picking us up.

Between Canals and Culture. The Sephora Girl

 

 

I forgot to mention one rather important detail from yesterday: our hotel room has an enormously heavy sofa. For reasons known only to whoever designed the room, it had been positioned in such a way that if you sat on it, you could enjoy a lovely, relaxing view of… the wall.
Obviously, this could not continue. I managed to drag the whole ridiculous setup across the room until the sofa was facing the window instead. Saskia contributed by moving one corner, which apparently gave her enough ownership rights to immediately declare the sofa hers. And that was that. I redesigned the room; Saskia acquired property.

Today, however, was officially designated Shopping Day. Our first stop was TK Maxx, which we reached by S-Bahn. We had reasonably high hopes. However, Saskia's TK Maxx shopping haul consisted of exactly zero items. Igot one rain coat for Gerli.

Germany, meanwhile, is clearly fully prepared for Halloween. Pumpkins, skeletons, ghosts and all the usual cheerful signs of impending death are already everywhere. At this rate, I assume the Christmas decorations will be out in approximately two weeks.

After our spectacularly rather unsuccessful shopping expedition, we went for lunch at a Mexican restaurant and ordered tacos.
Then we waited.
And waited.
And waited some more.
Over half an hour for tacos.
At some point you start wondering whether they are growing the corn, harvesting it and making the tortillas entirely from scratch in a small field behind the restaurant. Eventually the tacos did appear, and afterwards we continued to a new shopping centre, where Saskia's shopping luck improved considerably. She managed to score some cosmetics and, equally importantly, a Starbucks drink.

This was also the moment I realised that the problem had never been Saskia's lack of enthusiasm for shopping. I had simply been taking her to the wrong shops. Apparently dragging her into cheap little DM stores was never going to work. She is a Sephora girl. My mistake. Now I know.

While we were wandering around the shopping centre, a girl suddenly rushed over to Saskia and asked where she'd bought her sweatshirt.
Saskia was wearing her red Pink Palm Puff hoodie. The only downside was that I wasn't wearing mine too. Had we both been standing there in matching Pink Palm Puff hoodies, our influencer era could officially have begun.

After shopping, we returned to the hotel, ordered sushi and had a short break before heading out again at around 8:30 pm.
Destination: Miniatur Wunderland.
And I have to say, I absolutely loved it.
Miniatur Wunderland is basically what happens when someone says, “What if we built a tiny railway?” and nobody has the sense to stop them for the next 25 years.
It is the world's largest model railway, but calling it a “model railway” really doesn't do it justice. The whole place is an enormous miniature universe covering around 1,490 square metres, populated by roughly 260,000 tiny people, more than 1,000 trains and over 9,000 vehicles.
You walk from miniature Hamburg to Switzerland, Scandinavia, Italy, Monaco, Las Vegas and all sorts of other places, with mountains, cities, harbours, beaches, concerts, emergency scenes and thousands of tiny details happening everywhere.
And then there is the airport.
An actual functioning miniature airport where planes taxi to the runway, take off, disappear through the wall and later come back to land again. Meanwhile tiny airport buses drive around, passengers wait at check-in and miniature airport life carries on as though this is all perfectly normal.
Every few minutes the entire place switches from day to night, thousands of tiny lights come on, and suddenly the cities glow, concerts light up and the whole miniature world looks completely different.
The best part is that there are ridiculous little scenes hidden everywhere. People getting married, people committing crimes, people having unfortunate accidents, people doing things that miniature plastic people probably shouldn't be doing…
Basically, you could stare at the same square metre for ten minutes and still keep finding new things.
I thought it was absolutely brilliant.
Saskia, meanwhile, politely accompanied me while occasionally yawning.
By the time we left, it was definitely time to call it a day. Back to the hotel, back to Saskia's legally acquired sofa territory, and straight to bed.

Between canals and culture. We came, we saw, we forgot the water

 

Our flight to Hamburg was right on time, and Mother Nature even provided the in-flight entertainment: we spent most of the journey watching a beautiful sunset outside the window.
 

Things became slightly less elegant after landing.
 

I had completely forgotten that at Hamburg Airport you have to go upstairs to meet your Bolt driver. By the time we figured out where we were supposed to be, our driver had apparently decided we were a lost cause and disappeared. Oh well. We ordered an Uber instead, which actually turned out to be cheaper. So technically, this was excellent financial planning.
 

Uber → hotel → bed. Day one successfully completed.

The next morning started with an unexpected adventure. The receptionist had explained the night before that getting to breakfast was very easy: just go through the door right next to our room, head downstairs, and voilà – breakfast.
There was indeed another door next to our room. So we used it. And found ourselves in the stairwell of what appeared to be a medical clinic. Instead of helpful signs saying BREAKFAST →, we had signs pointing towards X-rays and various other medical departments. Not exactly the croissant-and-coffee situation we had been promised.

 
Even better: we couldn't get back into the hotel. So there we were, wandering through a clinic hallway in search of breakfast before eventually escaping outside, walking around the entire building and entering our hotel again through the actual entrance.

 
Breakfast, once we finally managed to reach it without requiring an X-ray, was absolutely superb.

 
After breakfast, we headed out to explore Hamburg. First stop was the iconic Wasserschloss in Speicherstadt, followed by a walk to the Elbphilharmonie. We went up to the viewing level, admired Hamburg from above and then continued towards Starbucks for coffee.

 
Somewhere along the way, the weather decided that sightseeing had gone far too smoothly and unleashed a proper downpour.
Luckily, I had brought a rain coat. Unluckily, Saskia hadn't. Which meant Saskia now had a rain coat and I… had wet hair.

 
Fortunately, Starbucks was right next to our hotel, so after coffee we could make a quick dash back to the room.

 
The afternoon plan originally involved some shopping and then going to a festival.
We did the shopping. Well, I did. Saskia scored zero.

 
But instead of the festival we returned to the hotel. After a very necessary nap, we ventured out again in the evening with one simple mission: go to DM and adter that buy water.
We returned to the hotel. Without water.No body knows how two people can specifically leave a hotel to buy water, successfully visit a shop, and return without the one thing they went there for, but apparently we have this talent.So  I went back to Edeka.

 
For dinner, we decided we had already achieved quite enough for one day and ordered sushi to the hotel.

Here in London Town. Butter Butter Baby

 

The morning began with breakfast at Caravan, conveniently located across the river — because calories consumed after a scenic walk count less. The area had that effortlessly cool industrial vibe: old brick, steel, warehouses pretending not to be trendy while being trendy.
Breakfast? Excellent. Like, consider-ordering-everything-on-the-menu excellent.

As an early birthday surprise (or just exceptional hospitality), I was presented with cake complete with a candle. After I had eaten my way through half the menu.

Speaking of surprises: I forgot to mention yesterday that I received a lime body scrub from Lush for the occasion. Naturally, we also bought bubble bath because our hotel room had a bathtub and apparently I’ve entered the stage of life where soaking in hot water for 30 minutes feels like peak luxury. I spent half an hour floating there yesterday, enjoying my lemony bubble bath.

After breakfast, we wandered through Covent Garden, then headed towards Big Ben, with ambitious plans to continue to the Sky Garden. London Underground, however, had different plans for us — proving once again that no itinerary survives public transport.
So instead of panoramic skyline views, we simply walked. More walking. Endless walking. At some point, we found ourselves watching a cute squirrel, which in London somehow feels like an official tourist activity.

After lunch, we explored Leadenhall Market, before continuing to Barbican — an architectural masterpiece depending on who you ask, or a giant concrete Soviet fever dream depending on your mood.
Honestly? It’s ugly. But also weirdly fascinating. The kind of ugly that circles back into cool.

Dinner on the other hand came with drama.
We had plans to eat at Swiss Butter, so we walked there. Upon arrival: a queue of approximately 50–60 people outside.
Not a simple quick queue.
A banana queue. Like something out of Soviet times where rumours spread that oranges had arrived somewhere and everyone immediately abandoned their plans.
After about 45 minutes of waiting, we finally got a table.

And honestly? Worth. Every. Single. Minute. The menu was wonderfully short and uncomplicated: choose your protein and then surrender to the glorious fact that everything comes drowned in their famous Swiss buttery sauce. Simple. Dangerous. Incredible.

We finished the evening chasing sunset views because apparently exhaustion isn’t a real concept while travelling. The internet declared Primrose Hill the best place to see London at sunset, so naturally we rushed there.

We admired the view, both agreed that yes, this was lovely, and then promptly went back to the hotel to collapse into bed like two people who had accidentally walked half of England in a single day.