And I’m back for the second part of my Germany thread! In the last thread, we covered Frankfurt, Rothenburg and Cologne. For this thread, I’ll be talking about the last two cities we visited in Germany. And so, let’s begin with… Hamburg I have to say this is my favorite city in Germany. There are so many layers to it that it almost feels like you’re in a different place when you’re really just in a different part of the city. I won’t get into detail about that since you guys can easily look it up but, as usual, I’ll share my take on it. It’s the second largest port in Europe and the second largest city in Germany so you can imagine how busy it is. Despite that, the city never feels congested at all. Walking around is a treat because architecture! Postcard worthy, eh? This is the Rathaus or City Hall of the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg, Germany. (The Hanseatic League is basically a 13th century merchant guild of the northern German towns) This fancy seat of the government was constructed from 1886 to 1897. It’s open to the public so if you’re up for exploring, you’re in luck! Now, Hamburg is known as a port city so we had to take a boat tour. The port is huge! Tons of shipping containers everywhere. Yachts. A battleship. Cruise ship construction (which was pretty cool but I didn’t get to take a good pic) and some canals. They even have this! Away from the busier side of Hamburg is its more “small town” area. (I actually had no idea where we were since I just tagged along) It seemed like a little town built on a hill by the water which reminded me a lot of San Francisco. We came across this little market and everything was really fresh and alive. This is a big deal for me because where I’m from, nothing is really fresh. Sob. I’ve never seen tomatoes as red as these were. They were a lot reddish in real life. Anyway, this got us hungry so we decided to eat in this floating restaurant by the pier. It was quite the experience and the food wasn’t bad either! I found it funny how the restaurant would sway a bit whenever a huge cargo ship would pass by though. Well, that’s what I got for Hamburg. If you’re there, do take the time to explore everything and admire all that architecture. I mean, how often do you get to see a Starbucks like this? And now we head onto my last German city and the one some of you have been wondering about! Berlin Of course, Berlin! It’s the capital after all. Lots of history and turmoil. But for this trip (this is my second time in Berlin), I had a very different agenda in mind. My cousin and I decided since we’re in Germany and Adidas originated from here, we should get some Adidas. (Quick Fun Fact: The name Adidas came from its founder Adi Dassler. After a feud, his brother Rudolf went on to create Puma) And so, like the brave (and cheap) explorers we were, we decided to walk to the shop he had in mind. After a quick google maps search, we set out on our glorious 6.5 km journey. It shouldn’t be too bad. Google said it was a 1 hr and 30 mins walk. Roughly. The beginning was fairly easy enough. I looked back at that long stretch of road past several embassies. My cousin led on and pointed to a sea of trees. Through there, he says. What we didn’t know when we entered was that this was Tiergarten, a public park which honestly was more forest than park. ”Are we there yet?” We ended up going around a bit confused with the paths and found ourselves on this street that bisected the park. Lo and behold, it was the Berlin Victory Column on one end. But we weren’t here to sightsee! We were here for rare Adidas shoes! We pressed onto The Forest Part 2 and finally made it through an open space. With lots of tour buses. But why? Oh, now we’ve come across the Reichstag. It seems the sightseeing follows us around, anyway. However, our focus must not waver. We’re on a serious mission. We cross over to what we think is East Berlin. We come across a bunch of graffiti and old buildings. My cousin starts to worry a bit and contemplates getting a cab. No! I won’t give in. I tell him he watches too many gangster movies. The super serious mission continues and - Ooh, ice cream. I mean, it is hot. Did I mention this was a 6.5 km walk? Fitbit buzzes. Congrats on your 15k steps! Ugh. 3 hours later… Trudging. In pain. We finally make it. Sneakersnstuff Berlin! Whoa, Adidas Boost sole table! Honestly, at this point, I was just “trying” a bunch of shoes so I could have an excuse to sit down. We managed to get some stuff here, at least! Pro-tip, though. Don’t use/bring a 500 euro bill to Europe. A lot of establishments refuse to accept it. Cousin used a 500 euro bill. Luckily, the guys were cool enough to accept it for us but this is the exception. Now, the plan was to actually walk back. At this point, I was at around 22k steps. I came up with a better idea that I now realize we should have done from the start. Yep. Berlin was quite the city to walk though! It truly has that big city vibe and I enjoyed my ice cream. If you do visit, do check out all the famous landmarks like Checkpoint Charlie and see where the Berlin Wall used to run. I also advise you see one of their memorials for the Holocaust because it’s a very sobering experience. And that’s it for Germany! See you guys next time for the third installment of my Europe travels.