Day 17 - A Day of Chance Meetings!

Hold onto your hats folks this has been an amazing day!

"Let's have a quiet day today" we said.

"We'll have a look around at my old haunts" Tony said and me nodding.

"Let's not have a late night as we have to drive north to the Danish border"  we said with both of us nodding.

Umm! that just didn't happen - the quiet day and the early night!

After a leisurely morning in our hotel room Tony took me, by car, on a sightseeing tour of Hamburg of all the places he lived  during his 5 year stay.  He lived at 4 places and each place had it's stories to tell.

At one place two men were fixing up the block of units which both of them live at so Tony had a nice long conversation about how he lived there 30 years ago.

Tony's second home in Hamburg

We decided to do some R&R at the Stadt Park (City Park) and I must say the parks in Hamburg are beautiful.  So green, spacious and huge it was time for lunch and a little snooze!

Some relaxation

The second last place Tony lived at was in a beautiful block on units.  We saw a girl riding her bike to the units and Tony went over and had a conversation with her about how he lived there 30 years ago and it turned out that she now lives in his old unit....truly amazing!  Tony wanted to see if a couple that he knew back then were home as they still lived there.  I was feeling really tired so I stayed in the car and promptly fell asleep.  Tony woke me up about 15 minutes later saying "They're home, come inside and meet them".  I met Hans and Madlon and they welcomed us in for tea and coffee and a long chat about what's been happening over the years and of course the big news to tell them  that Lisa got married.  Where do the years go!  

Cuteness!

Tony lived on the top floor

Tony with Hans and Madlon

On our way to Tony's next abode we stumbled upon Ohlsdorf Friedhof (Ohlsdorf Cemetary).  An amazing place to go.  Now, I love cemeteries - I know that sounds a bit creepy - to me I love it's history and past lives.  This cemetery is the largest in Europe and the total area is 3.9 km square. We only explored about a 10th of it and we covered a lot of ground.  The photos don't do it justice it is truly an amazing and peaceful place to go.

Memorial to the victims of the Nazi torture

Names of the Concentration Camps

It was starting to get late so we looked for a nice cafe to have dinner along the - The Alster (the huge lake in the middle of Hamburg).  

We found it was really hard to park and I said to Tony  "It's not meant to be schatz, so let's go back to that lovely little Greek restaurant near our hotel and have dinner there".  So we did.  There were people in the restaurant but it was not packed and of all the tables, the waiter put us with a lovely family -  Mum, Dad and son - and we struck up a conversation with them immediately.  It turns out that Jan, the son, has been to Australia and we had lots to talk about and he absolutely loved his time there.  I gave him my blog link so that he could follow where we have been on our holidays as he was quite interested.  His Dad, Gerard could speak English but his Mum, Regina, couldn't so we had a lot of english/german dialog going on and a little bit of Greek when the waiters joined.  

The German Martins

Now, if you've been to a Greek Restaurant in Germany you'll know they bring out a complimentary Ouzo but tonight was different - they kept bringing out many, many Ouzos as we had a lot to celebrate - life, good travels, Lisa's wedding and many more I can't remember.  As the Ouzos flowed I ask Jan if he was on facebook - I'm sure that was a silly question as most young people are on facebook.  I gave him my name and it turns out we share the same last name - Martin!  Now, who would have thought - of all the restaurants and pubs in town we had to sit next to distant relations of mine.  So of course, we had to have another round of Ouzos and toast to the connection.  

Don't forget we were going to have an early night to be fresh for our drive north!  But the German Martins know how to party and have a good time.  We promised to keep in touch and if they were ever in Australia to come and visit.  It was a fantastic day and we couldn't have planned it better if we tried.

It was a very Serendipitous day indeed.  Oh, and we got home at 1am but the Martins and Jensens are of tough stock and we woke fresh for our journey north to our next adventure.