Germany Visit

   Back in January of this year I was sent on a business trip to Germany to spend a few days there to meet with one of our largest clients. It certainly was a long trip from Minneapolis to Chicago, then to Amsterdam, and finally landing in Hamburg. 

   While it was a chance to go to Europe for my first time ever, I was unfortunately very sick at the same time with a sinus and lung infection. This made flying very painful with the cabin pressure changes. I hope to never experience that again. 

So I will share some photos below from the trip staring with a few from the Amsterdam Schiphol airport. Likely one of the largest and nicest airports I have ever been to.

Holland Boulevard Lights in Amsterdam Airport.

Closeup of the inside of the Holland Boulevard lights.

Our connecting KLM flight from Amsterdam to Hamburg with the sun just breaking the horizon in the morning.

After the short flight from Amsterdam, we landed in Hamburg, very tired from the flight. We stayed at the Hotel Hafen in Hamburg with rooms in the tower over looking the harbor.

View from my hotel window.

View from my hotel window, ship in dry dock for maintenance in the port of Hamburg.

Interesting space saving bathrooms.

They even had a rubber ducky in the bathroom, but no bathtub. Not sure if was to be used playing in the sink. 

View of the hotel room from the bathroom looking over the desk and out the window.

View out the window with the fire escape, which was nice to catch some fresh air and some unobstructed photos from.

Clean room with cable set on the 

Small deer mount?

Every room has one of these, yes it is a real apple. As tempting as it was to have when I was sick, the apple was not in the best of condition.

Nice view of landungsbrücken and the port of Hamburg. I did not get to check it out, but there is a tunnel from here to the other side of the port.

Skyline view to the north east.

Across the port you there is a theater putting on the production of The Lion King.

After dinner Jay and I headed back down the walkway to our hotel.

Crepes of course!

Really great looking ship in the port.

Where we stayed, Hotel Hafen Hamburg. Apparently had burned down in the past. They had a beautiful interior and items we would consider delicate and antiques just part of the usable decor.

Another view of landungsbrücken.

Cargo ship moving through the port at night, I like seeing all of those cranes on the horizon.

Back to the Mainland

I know I posted a few images earlier of my return back from Vancouver Island, but there were a few more I wanted to share. I was up early in the morning while in Nanaimo and decided to go down to the harbor and walk around. It was kind of cool to get to watch the seaplanes fly in and land. It looks like a fun way to travel and very popular around here.

Seaplane landing in Nanaimo harbor, (No I did not go on a Seaplane)

Tswassen Harbor at night

BC Ferries Tswassen Docking station

Back near Maple Ridge, Tom took me out to Cliff Falls in Kanaka Creek Regional Park where we walked around a bit and took in the sights. We also ventured over to a salmon fishery where Tom has done some work teaching along the stream and knows the man who runs the fishery. We will be interviewing him Friday because that is where a majority of the salmon used to populate Stoney Creek come from.

Kanaka Creek Falls

Perfectly round hole in a volcanic rock made by circular scouring from the water.

Kanaka Creek

We also stopped off to hike up a path into the woods on a trail that was once railroad tracks to go check out the Cedar and Hemlock trees.

Tom explains to me what the notch is in the side of the tree, a place for the spring board to go in where a lumberjack will stand on and and cut the tree from there.

A Cedar tree now becomes the nurse tree.

Canopy of Cedar and Hemlocks

Maple Leaves

Cedar Forest

Tom took me out to a clear cut area that hard to tell from this but it is actually replanted with trees, but blackberry bushes and other understory foliage is out competing them for now.

Cedar Forest