I'm starting to realize that my posts are getting a little repetitive, but how else could I recount my days here? Well, here goes another day.
June 28, 2012
Apparently,the thing to do in Hamburg is to bike around the area, so when we arrived we had to look for a place to drop off our bags and then look for a bike rental place. We failed at both. Well, half failed dropping off our bags. We went to a hostel to see if they could watch it for the day. They said no. They pointed out that the train station has lockers. We walk back to the central station (I learned that central station in German is Hauptbahnoff =)) and thankfully the locker fits both our bags.
And then we embark on a fruitless journey to find a bike rental place. We tried to rent to city bikes about 4 times with no luck. Then we go to this hostel at another train station to see if they would rent out bikes. Nope they don't have bikes for another month What? Then why advertise? I was frustrated to say the least.
We gave up and decided to walk whatever we can instead of bike. It started out kind of cold but then got really hot! When we passed by a landmark called Chilehaus, we went towards it and to our luck there was a food market there! I was hungry and frustrated so this was a sign that things were looking better. I got a half chicken and Rach got Currywurst. Good deal I must say as we both spent under 4 euros. We didn't get a picture because I was too hungry and forgot but it looked good for street food. After we ate we walked around the market and bought some cheap but good quality chocolate. Rach got two bananas.

Our walk through the city can only be described with pictures. Hamburg is a nice place with many canals and bridges juxtaposed with old restored boroque buildings, but the overcast weather kinda made it less fun to see.

By dinner time we were supposed to board a train to Cologne. I ate McDonalds =). The Germany vs. Italy game was on at this time. The station was full of proud Germans in their fanware. Too bad they didn't know they would lose.
When we got to Cologne, we were greeted by very somber fans. We headed towards our hostel by train and tram and guess what? We got lost. Shit. We back tracked and on our back we run into very emotional fans who start fighting on the train. Ya fist fighting. Good start to Cologne. German vs. Italian I assumed.
Our hostel was Meininger, which has a good rep as a hostel everywhere including here. I guess we just ran out of luck. Our washroom smelled horrible and our beds were very dingy. I could feel every spring almost poking through the mattress. It looked very dirty too. If I were to get bed bugs on this trip, it would be here. Two guys come in at 3am and weren't too noisy. It was when the guys who actually were supposed to sleep on those beds that made all the noise.