To Hamburg...eventually

We didn't make it to the Sunday Blomberg flea market. We had meant to, but we got busy packing up and forgot about it.

Unrelated to the flea market, Cristina loves these lamps.

The original plan was for us to leave Blomberg this morning, but with us not expected in Hamburg till dinner time, we had more of the morning/afternoon to spend at Marion's. Harry and Sören already had plans to help a friend out of town, and Marion was going to study all day. But we went over to their house after we were packed to wash another load of clothes (and use their wi-fi) under the stipulation that Marion would be studying and not visiting.

It didn't quite work out that way.

Cristina has been painfully dealing with some kind of pinched nerve in her back/neck area, and Marion has been giving her treatments, which have greatly helped. She gave Cristina one more adjustment, which has Cristina almost feeling normal again.

Then Marion took a tea break and sat on the porch chatting while I used her printer to print off driving directions from Copenhagen to Hamburg, as well as the car rental info.

Then we ate some lunch.

By the time we were finally packed up, Harry and Sören were home. We hit the road at 4:30.

Google said two and a half hours. The Volvo GPS said 2:45. Harry said 4 hours due to holiday traffic and construction. The final answer was somewhere in between. We arrived at Martin's place around 8 pm.

New record. I got to 185 (115 mph), but Cristina missed it with the camera. Some slow person made me come off of cruise.

Parking at Martin's flat was a bit tricky. It's basically parallel parking in the sandy strip between the road and the sidewalk. And there weren't many open spaces. I finally found one, but it was going to be a tight fit, and my parallel parking skills aren't nearly as keen as Cristina's. The Volvo has a nice sensor system for the front and back, telling you with loud beeps (and varying intensity) and a dashboard diagram how close you are to something. I was maneuvering between a bike pole and another car, and ended up too far off the road for my liking (blocking the sidewalk) but I didn't have much wiggle room. So I kept going back and forth, slowly inching the car sideways closer to the road. My window was down, and the sensors are going off like crazy, because the car is fitting into this space pretty snugly. You put it in drive and the front sensors scream. You put it in rear, and the rear sensors go crazy. It was like that scene in Austin Powers where he tries to do a 3 point turn in the little cart. A guy was walking by and I said quietly "Don't judge," as I continued this absurd sideways dance. But considering the look he gave me, he judged. The parking maneuver wasn't quite this bad, but it felt like it.

After all that work, I didn't want to move the car till the next morning. We carried all our stuff into Martin's apartment.

Packing is always a chore, but we're pretty efficient at unpacking and getting settled. After everything was inside, I made dinner while Cristina got organized. We watched Mr. Bean's Holiday while we ate. Martin's new roommate, Viktoria, watched it with us. She is relatively new to Hamburg, so she couldn't give us any tips for sightseeing. And though there was wi-fi, we did not have the key (nor did Viktoria).

I got ready for my Copenhagen excursion and went to bed.