New European Cities: Hamburg and Dublin

In November, I had the chance to visit both Germany and Ireland with many of my friends. These were wonderful experiences that I sometimes merge together because they happened in a 9-day span.

Here's a recap of both:

Dublin

We left for Dublin on Thursday evening but had an overnight layover in Barcelona. This decision was intentional for a few different reasons: It was the cheapest flight we could find, we would get into Dublin first thing in the morning, and (most importantly) we didn't have to pay for a hostel/Airbnb for that night.

Our first stop while we waited to check into

the hostel was the Guinness storehouse. This was one of my highlights of the whole trip. The museum itself was amazing and we got to see how the Guinness was made and everything that goes into it. My favorite part however was that we got "Stouties", which are Guinness' with your face printed on the foam, super fun for us (even though they messed up my photo!)

For the rest of the day, we walked around the city just sightseeing and getting food, and on the first night, we found a super cool bar with live music! It was just one dude with a guitar, and he was playing medleys of popular songs from different decades (English songs, which was a refreshing change). What made that night so awesome was the Guitarist, he would start playing one song and then move on to the second one, and then just as we thought he had forgotten about the first song, he would go back to it, and the crowd would go crazy!

The famous Dublin "portal" to New York

We loved that place so much that we went back the second night, too, after another day of walking around, checking out sceneries, and hanging out.

Hamburg

Hamburg was such an exciting trip, and I have tons of amazing memories from the weekend. There were so many fun activities and things to do. Our Airbnb was a little outside the city, so we had to take a train to get back and forth, which got a little annoying, but still a fun experience.

Me and my buddy Brendan got in a day earlier than everyone else and found a 10-dollar hostel to spend the night in before the rest of our friends came, and we could check into our giant Airbnb. The hostel was incredible- mostly because of it's cheap price, as well as the very helpful concierge. We went out and explored a little bit that night before going to bed and meeting up with our friends the next day.

The next day we checked off a lot of the "typical" Hamburg sights as our friends slowly poured in. The town hall, DOM festival, a beer hall, St. Micheals church, souvenir shops, etc.

After everyone got in, we got into the Airbnb, and then me and Brendan went to Aldi, and I got to pick out a few German snacks to try. We ate and drank and played cards while everyone got ready for the night and headed to a "sexy" Christmas market in St. Pauli. There were vendors, food, and drinks. It was also snowing- my friend Karla's first time ever seeing snow!

Saturday started off pretty slow, but some

of us walked to a coffee spot for some breakfast. We all got back and hung out as we got ready for a big afternoon/night. We went to the famous DOM carnival and went on a few rides. I dropped my phone through the crack of "The Twister" and I thought it was gone forever, but luckily got it back thanks to the staff working there.

Some of us checked out a giant WWII Bunker that was right by DOM Carnival, and I thought this was the coolest thing! It was supposed to get torn down after the Axis powers were defeated, but since the walls were like over 2 meters thick, it was just easier to leave it up, and they used it as a prisoner-of-war camp. It got repurposed into a shopping center/disco in the 1970s and has been open to the public since. Also, there was a soccer field down below that Brendan and I snuck into it to get some really cool pictures of the Bunker.

DOM Carnival, happens three times a year

After that, we checked out a couple more Christmas Markets around town before making our way to the red light district in St. Pauli. Apparently, this is the second biggest red light district after Amsterdam. It felt a little bit like Vegas with all of the Neon signs and lights.

Our train home got delayed for over an hour and then eventually was canceled, leaving us stranded in Hamburg since all of the trains stopped running at night. After another hour of trying to get an Uber, we finally were able to hail a cab and got back to the hostel around 3am... and of course me and Brendan had to leave for our flight back to Sevilla at 4:30am.

Classic Hamburg shenanigans.