Eddycation | Spencer Hollander

Today the group took a city tour through Hamburg. As we were walking through the Rathaus square, I couldn’t help but notice the astounding architecture and engineering behind the buildings surrounding us. The idea that Hitler held gatherings of 20,000 people in this square for Nazi gatherings was stunning. We met our tour guide named Eduardo (Eddy) who was an American from Miami, Florida. Eddy moved to Hamburg for the free education and loved the city so much that he decided to become a permanent resident. He first brought us to the Rathaus BaussheleI, where most of the 43,000 millionaires in the city shopped. Being the largest port city in Germany, there is a ton of old money that has offered many opportunities for people to become very wealthy. I thought it was very interesting seeing all of the expensive Mercedes Benz and BMW cars driving around, since not nearly as many are seen in the states. One particular laugh was seeing multiple smart cars parked perpendicular with other parallel cars. We really didn’t understand how it was possible to park that way but somehow, they managed to fit.

Eddy then brought us into the Rathaus, or the town hall of Hamburg. This is one of the very few buildings that survived the second World War due to the Nazis building a made-up town hall a couple miles away out of logs, and camouflaging the real building from the allies. It was ironic that the town hall was connected to the Hamburg stock exchange building. One interesting fact is that all of the members of the parliament have everyday jobs. Once we toured the inside, Eddy brought us over to the St. Jacobi Church, which has served as a trading symbol for Hamburg citizens for thousands of years. The church stood on the highest elevated part of the city in order to be closer to God. I found it interesting that it was originally Catholic but later changed to a Protestant church because Catholics don’t believe in bank interest.

We then headed to other particular spots around the city, such as the St. Nikolai Memorial. This memorial represented an old blown up church that Germany left as a tribute to WWll for people to see a glimpse of the city after the devastating bombing. Standing in the middle of a church brought everyone a great sense of respect for the people who lost their lives in Hamburg during the war. 9,300 tons of phosphorous rubber bombs were dropped on Hamburg during WWll and it became one of the most devastated cities. Many people don’t realize that Hamburg was bombed more heavily than Berlin and Dresden. Lastly, we visited Speicherstadt and the Elbphilharmonie. The Elbphilharmonie was just completed in 2017 and is considered to have the best soundings acoustics in the world. The main theater sits on top of a spring-loaded system that doesn’t absorb sound like cement columns do. Overall, the city tour gave us an incredible factual understanding of Hamburg and a clear understanding of why Hamburg is the second largest port city in Europe and the thirteenth largest in the world.