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.