Sunday stroll in Hamburg...chatting about Amsterdam?

Today, we didn’t do as much sightseeing. In fact, we decided not to do the sightseeing bus tour. It wasn’t because we didn’t want to, but we just felt we wanted to relax. But first, to the post office.

Sheilla needed to send some stuff to her cousin in Mainz, Germany. So, near Sandra’s apartment there was a post office which we decided to send off the stuff. As we walked there, there was a little shop that sold flowers and cool-looking vases. We thought that it would be a good idea to buy a vase and flowers for Sandra and her family, for being so kind and took us into their home. So we got several stems of Orchids and a red vase. Then we went to the post office.



The day started out sunny, which was a rare occasion at this time of the year in Hamburg, perhaps most of Germany. But by the time we got ourselves out into the city center, the sun hid itself already behind the clouds, which looked as if they were there to stay. So, we went to the Starbucks again in Jungfernstieg. We got cozy and comfortable, and we sipped our drinks while enjoying what vacation was supposed to be about, doing absolutely nothing. After caffeine and sugar had finally rushed into our bloodstream, to help us shake our bodies up a bit from the still-jetlagged tiredness, we made our ways back out into Hamburg streets and alleys, through more shops, of course making sure that we’d visit at least a shop and shop at least an item, which we did.





We came around a bend and into an open area just in front of the Hamburg city hall. The architecture was definitely old, and without any knowledge of building styles I would have assumed that it could be some sort of a large cathedral had it not been for Sandra to note that it was in fact just a city hall. It was huge!



After admiring it, taking pictures in front of it, then taking some more in the surrounding areas, we decided to head on to where we shopped the day before, in Mönckebergstraße. Our targeted building is Europa Passage, where a collection of more shops dwell inside. Effectively, it was a shopping mall. And yes, we did shop till we almost drop, as we realized that our cash begun to run low. With only less than 200 euros left and a dinner that we would need to have with Sandra, whom we wanted to treat. Time was also getting closer to the end of Sandra’s working hour, and I wanted to access the Internet somehow. After a couple of questions to some people, I found that there’s a super-mega-large electronic store called Saturn, that boasted a large number of anything electronic and fancies. It was a geek’s heaven. Best Buy, and even Fry’s Electronics would look so puny compare to this “Saturn”. But we were there entirely for the Internet café, located on the basement level, behind these rows of computer monitors of heavenly 17” sizes and up. They weren’t too expensive either, but I had to think twice.

We bought about 30 minutes worth of Internet time to post blogs of the past couple days with some pictures. Then we checked our respective emails, Facebooks, and other miscellaneous sites before it was time to meet up with Sandra for dinner.

The restaurant was back in Europa Passage shopping mall. It was called Cha Cha. It was suppose to be a Thai fusion restaurant, but they also served other food from nearby places from Thailand, like India. Perhaps for people who like the varieties other than what the restaurant was meant for. Anyway, I ordered chicken fillet with Indian curry sauce. Sandra ordered a similar dish. Sheilla ordered beef with some other sauce. They were actually quite delicious, mine being the best in my opinion. And for dessert, we went downstairs to a Starbucks and ordered a couple of cheesecakes and chocolate cake with teas. Not a bad end to today, I thought. We had many talks, primarily about Amsterdam, where Sandra suggested that I should consider moving to Amsterdam with Sheilla so she can finish her college there. Perhaps she was being serious about it, or just joking around, I wasn’t so sure. I said that I’ll sleep on it.