In which we hear of cabbages and kings. And rodents.

Enough with the cabbage already, okay? Okay. More on that later. Now for the royalty, or rather, for royalesque adventures, or rather for exploring cloudy days. 

Cloudy day #1: Hafenrundfahrt. The Smith crew took a tour of the harbor on a classic gray day. We sat atop the biggest, prettiest (well, t'was nice) boat on the Elbe, imbibed hot chocolate, and ingested the exact specification facts of all of the tens of thousands of containers on each of the massive container ships, as well as the speed, weight, and capacity of each voluminous vessel. We regarded the magical-to-be Elbphilharmonie concert hall funktasticness from multiple angles. Expensive! Delightful! People-watching prime.

Two of those massive container ships collided a few days ago and almost made for some serious mischief in the harbor. There was some sinking involved, but also much bailing. Thanks to the fire department for putting out all that water.

Cloudy day #2: Bergedorfer Schloss. In addition to abuncha water and a hot red light district, Hamburg also has a couple châteaux to offer the world. Acting upon this offer, an expedition was made to cute little Bergedorf to see what treasure lay at the end of the railbow. The castle we found there had long ago been abandoned by its royals, though its nobility lives yet, namely via a pleasant regional museum inside. We watched a green uniformed cultural society parade through the park around the château from one of the second floor windows, complete with flutes and xylophones and cobblestones and high heels. Didn't actually learn much about the history of the building itself, but for this we have Wikipedia. 

The most entertaining part of the excursion, however, was discovering the secret of the waters around the Schloss: Giant Floating Hamsters. I kid you not. (Well, maybe a little.) Someone had the brilliant idea of devising a way to seal people inside clear, inflatable spheres, which they then set free to roll/scramble around the pond. I'll tell you what, those hamsters make it look easy.

We were eager to try it ourselves (I mean, come on-- how often to you get to roll around in a giant hamster ball on top of a pond outside a castle in Germany), but our predecessors had so much trouble with it that the idea of paying to be sealed in a plastic ball and thrown by your own weight across a pond started sounding less and less like a good time and more and more like a claustrophobic nightmare. My adventure buddies preferred to do their homework. I preferred to eat ice cream and wander around town. And so it was.