After a very early start on Friday, 4.30 am to board my plane at 5.50, I hopped on and off three trains and in the end made it to lovely Braunsweigh and retrieved daughter number two.
Daughter number two enthusiastically showed me around all day and evening while I, desperately tried to hide that my only desire was to sleep and get rid of my throbbing headache .
The following morning, the throbbing migraine was still there but, as we already paid for breakfast, I ventured to the buffet and it actually turned out that, more than sleep and ibuprofen, I needed food. With the greatest amusement of myself and the couple sitting at the table beside us, I filled my plate three times and drank half a litre of coffee. Feeling so much better I was ready for another half day of hopping on and off trams and trains.
Unfortunately, unlikely the day before when everything worked at perfection, none of the public transport was on time and to make it worse we got off the wrong stop.
Not entirely our fault though, in fact, why in hell would you call the stop before Hamburg, Hamburg Harburg? Only to confuse poor Irish tourists.
Over two hours later than planned we made it to our hotel, checked in and headed back out for a concert in St Mikael church and ultimately to the Christmas markets.
Now, let me tell you: German markets have no rivals. Contrary to their trains that could do with some more punctuality, hard to believe, I know.
Back to the markets, that very weekend was the opening weekend and we got to see Santa arriving on his sleight. We also got to listen to his long speech, which I didn’t understand and couldn’t care less to be honest. I just wanted him to go and take with him half of the lower Saxony under-five overexcited and screaming population that came to see him along with their parents who swung around the crowd with massive buggies committing a genocide of unkles.
Finally, my prayers were answered and Santa took off leaving the markets to the adults who could eventually enjoy their mulled wine in peace.
Sunday was another full-on day. We had no breakfast at the hotel and found instead a lovely old-fashioned bakery where we still gulped down an absurd amount of calories that could easily keep us going till summer.
Once satisfied with having made the most out of our last day in Hamburg we went to get the train for the airport except there was no train due to some maintenance works on the railway but, the Germans being Germans had it all organised with buses .
Finally, three days, 7 trains, one tram and two buses later we boarded our direct flight to Ireland loaded with chocolate, liquours, tacky souvenirs and the best of memories.
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