Sunday, Dec 18
We attended the 10 o’clock service at St. Petri Dom. I felt like a little girl from a story book. I could understand next to none of the words so I spent the time studying the figures in the stained glass; the most interesting part was watching the organist; and I wondered how the two ladies singing up front could make their voices go so high. But my feet could touch the floor so then I knew I was still grown-up Canadian Grace. We sang O Come, O Come Emmanuel in German, of course. Otherwise I did not recognize any of the hymns. The only words I understood in the service were ‘himmlischer Vater.’ Heavenly Father. The congregation said the Lord’s Prayer near the end of the service, recognizable only by the cadence of the words. After the service we took a quick gander through the Schnoor again, then past some ancient downtown buildings before heading back to the hotel. Hans, the massage therapist, came at 12:30, then R&J and us found a crepe cafe for lunch.
Mid afternoon and we were humming down the Autobahn toward Hamburg. Beside the Hamburg Dungeon in a sandstone building built in the late 1880’s is the Miniature Wonderland. This museum showcases a mini world with over 1000 moving trains, 130 000 trees, 263 000 tiny people, 9250 cars, 15 400 metres of track, and 4340 buildings. We saw the mini alligators in the Everglades. Walked the passage to South America, a pedestrian walkway across a canal to another building to see a soccer game in Brazil, slums that looked identical to what we’ve seen in Puerto Rico, and palm trees everywhere. There was a container ship stuck sideways in the mock waterway in the passage. Saw Neuschwanstein Castle in the state of Bavaria, Germany. Switzerland took two stories to get the full impact of train tracks at various levels through the Alps. The Knuffingen airport took more space than North America, with planes rigged to take off and land, baggage carts zipping around on the tarmac, and taxis coming and going. On the freeways we watched tiny semi trucks change lanes and enter/exit the autobahn, pass other tiny cars, and tried to comprehend the computer servers running this entire shebang. It’s mind boggling. At one point we walked past a control room. Basically it’s toys for big boys. Grown men on computers controlling these match box cars on the roads, driving up logging trails, FedEx trucks zooming, and racing on the freeway. The overhead lights would dim and night fell. Lights came on in the tiny buildings. Camp fires half a centimetre high would flicker, fireplaces came to life, and vehicle headlights illuminated roadways. https://www.miniatur-wunderland.com/
The cafe had booths with airplane seats. We got ice cream and Apfelschorle before making the drive back to Bremen. We were hoping to snag some more cannolis at the market before going back to the hotel but we were a few minutes too late. Ordered fries with horseradish mayo up to our room and ate the day’s accumulation of bakerie goods: Berliners, braided pretzel bread, and some rolls with seeds on top. Always delicious. Fresh pomegranates with coffee to finish the day out strong.
