Hamburg Regional Day

Every so often is a day where all of the stipis in an area get together, along with their hosts and other previous stipis, and hang out. Since I live in Hamburg, I went to the Hamburg regional day, along with the others who lived around, except most of them lived further than 20 minutes. We all met outside the Hauptbahnhof, missing one because Helen missed her train. Together we went to a cathedral, and climbed billions of stairs to get to the top. (There were many stairs). We eventually got to the top, and although the view was amazing, it started raining. When we finally went back down, we found Helen and her host, and headed to the Rathaus. We split into groups then for lunch, and the stipi group decided to explore the Weihnachts market. Matthew and I were in charge, because we'd both been before, so I introduced the others (who wanted it) to apfel punsch. After wandering around for an hour or so it was time to meet up again with the others for our guided tour of the rathaus. We stood in the entrance hall for a little while waiting for the tour guide, and admired the architecture, watching as at least 3 couples had wedding photos. Although the tour was in German (and rapid German at that), I still managed to understand some stuff, and appreciated the architecture and gilded artworks that covered the building, much more impressive than our local council building I can tell you that for sure. After that was dinner, and we walked a while until we got to a restaurant on the harbour. The stipis had our own table, managing to squish all 6 of us where 4 were meant to sit. One look at the menu and it was easy to see what we would eat - I think curry had been sorely missed by many. That being said, the curries that we ended up eating were no where near as hot as they would have been in Aus, 2 chillies on the menu barely tickled the tongue. After dinner we went back to the Weihnachts market at the Rathaus, and we (the stipis) got lost, aka we were lagging behind the larger group and suddenly couldn't see the others anymore. Needless to say we were a bit worried, and wandered around outside the market for a while until we managed to ring someone. Turns out they had just gone inside the markets, and sent someone to pick us up. We ended up just hanging out alone anyway, finding the others when we wanted to go on a Maccas run. We were in fact allowed to go to Maccas, and enjoyed the 2 euro McFlurries until we realised one of the girl's train was leaving in 15 minutes. In panic we all ran to the hauptbahnhof, without telling the rest of the group where we were going, but managed to get there in time to put Lauren on her train. While we were gone the rest of the group slit up, so our hosts came to retrieve us from the station and we all went home, ready for sleep after a long day of catching up and getting lost. It was a really fun day, speaking with the others after so long and building friendships. It was weird, because most of the people I had only met one or two times (the Victorian stipis only at Abu Dhabi airport), but we all got along like we had been friends for years. I guess the shared experience, and being the only Aussies around really formed a bond. It was great fun none the less, and I can't wait to meet up with them again at Winter Camp!  

Stipi selfie from tower

View from cathedral tower 

Dinner selfie! Notice 4/6 wearing our GASS jumpers..