Lübeck

As promised, here are some pictures from my adventures in cities around me. Lübeck was the second major city i visited (Hamburg came first and there are way too many pictures for me to sift through right now, so Hamburg will come later) and I did it on a Thursday. I am done with classes at 10 on Thursdays, so it is perfect for shorter adventures. It takes about an hour to two hours (depending on what train you take) to get to Lübeck from Lüneburg and also includes switching trains in Hamburg (which is about a half hour north).

A little information on Lübeck... it is in the state of Schleswig-Holstein and is known for the Holstentor, which is a really big gate that was left over from a time when the entire city was fortified and you could only enter through any one of four sets of gates.

Other than that, I have no knowledge of Lübeck, other than there are very pretty buildings and the city is very old (this is my standard for German traveling. Everything is very pretty and most things are very old(this is where you get into tricky waters. Most of the main cities, like Hamburg and especially Hannover, were destroyed in World War II, so there are either very very old buildings, or very very new buildings throughout all of Germany. I haven't been to Hannover yet, but I am told there are still ruins from the bombing, not because they were too lazy to clean it up or even because they are preserved as monuments, but because the city had to be rebuilt and there simply has not been time to return and clean everything else up yet. There are also many places, including Hamburg, where it isn't always safe to drink the water because they are still dealing with the consequences of the war. The city I live in has been established for somewhere around 1000 years and is completely in tact and the water is 100% tasty!)

If you want to know more about Lübeck, here is the wikipedia link (hopefully in Enslish)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lübeck

Lübeck was a lot of fun. I went with two Americans, Mike and Nicole. We studied on the train (we have exams every Friday, so we studied on the way to and from Lübeck) and explored Lübeck for fun, food and potties, all of which we found. We ate at a restaurant called Feuerstein which had incredible service, but only okay pizzas. Mine was incredibly greasy and salty, probably because of the meat, but it was still good.

Then we worked our way back to catch the train back to Lüneburg. As part of our program, we can travel anywhere in Nedersachsen (which is Lower Saxony, not Upper Saxony, sorry for the error in an earlier post. They happen) and to some major cities that are not in Lower Saxony, like Hamburg(which is a city-state attached to Lower Saxony) and Lübeck. It was on this trip that we learned that you can, in fact, ride from Nedersachsen to Lübeck for free.... as long as you don't stop anywhere in Schleswig-Holstein. It was a tough lesson to learn (and expensive, €3 for something that should have been free, but it could have been much much worse), but now I know there are three stops between Lübeck and Hamburg that are not free for me, so I just have to make sure I am not an a train that stops there.

Well, it is time for me to get some lunch. Enjoy Lübeck!!!!