Lübeck

Since everyone was still getting back in and settled from Christmas vacation, five of us decided to take just a day trip to Lübeck, in Northern Germany, on the Baltic Sea. Lübeck, the second largest city in Schleswig-Holstein, and the largest German port on the Baltic Sea, is full of rivers and canals. It is also world famous for one of the largest annual ice sculpture exhibitions in the world, known as Ice World. Every year, Ice World is held in the Lübeck Convention Center, inside a giant refridgerated tent. Since the event was only showing between Christmas and the end of January, we figured this would be our last chance to go.

We woke up very early, and caught the 6:20 am train out of Braunschweig to Lübeck. At the train station, we ran into a friend and his girlfriend, who just happens to be from near Lübeck, and she said that Ice World was something that we did not want to miss. After a 4 1/2 hour ride to Lübeck (at least I got to see a bunch of deer in the fields), we finally arrived at the main train station. We asked for directions to Ice World, and started towards the Convention Center, which was merely 500 meter away. However, when we got there, the entire building was empty. Noone could point us in the right direction from there, so we took a lunch stop at Subway instead. Afterwards, we asked about Ice World at a nearby hotel, only to find out, that for some reason, the event was not taking place this year. They have it every year, just not this year. Go figure. Anyways, it was a nice day, so we made the most of it and walked around the center of town for a few hours. The town is beautiful, and we got to see the Holstentor, the town hall, and handfuls of rivers and canals.

Unfortunately, we had to head out pretty early, as we had a long trip back. The way back had four connections, and we had no problem up until the last stop. When we were about 1 1/2 hours outside of Braunschweig, we waited at the final station, but our train never came. It was listed as arriving, but it never showed up. So, we had to sit at the station for 2 1/2 hours until the next train, and didn't end up making it back until after midnight. To make it worse, one of the people on the trip with us lost her wallet on the train. So, it turned out to be a pretty unlucky day. But, the town of Lübeck itself was amazing.

At least we got rid of all that bad luck in one day. The next day, the Pats had no trouble moving on!!!!!!