Pfun over Pfingstferien

 View of Marburg from Marburger Schloss

Pfingsten, or Pentecost as it's known in the US, was the reason for our second long holiday weekend in May.  School was pretty busy the week before (post-Krakow), but I still managed to fit in an action-packed program for the weekend.

 Fish and Chips at Daniel Wischer in Hamburg

Saturday afternoon I headed to Hamburg to do a bit of sightseeing before meeting up with Megan and JJ to go see the New Pornographers, a favorite band of mine out of Canada, play at a small club on the Reeperbahn.  We grabbed a quick dinner in St. Pauli and a few beers before the concert which ended up being amazing.  They played at Molotow which turned out to be a pretty small club which meant a pretty small concert.  We were so close to the band that I could have reached out and touched Carl Newman if I had wanted to (but of course that would've just been creepy!).  We managed to catch the last S-Bahn to Stade and crashed at JJ's apartment happy and exhausted.

 The New Pornographers at Molotow on the Reeperbahn

Sunday morning I headed back to Hannover for just a few hours before getting back on a train headed to Marburg in the German state Hessen.  While in Bucharest, I met four German girls at my hostel who all study at Marburg University.  After hanging out for two days and partying together, we exchanged contact information and that's how the whole trip came about.  I got into Marburg around 6:00 pm and was met by two of the Marburger Mädels (as I've come to call them) before we headed to Doro's for an awesome night of grilling.  This weekend was one of the first truly nice (and pretty warm) spring weekends in Germany and thus a perfect time to grill well into the night.

 St. Elizabeth's Church

Monday was sightseeing day in Marburg, and I was given an awesome tour of the city including visits to the Oberstadt, Marburger Schloss, St. Elizabeth's Church (where Paul von Hindenburg and his wife are buried with hardly a sign marking the spot) and most of the neighborhoods around the Lahn River.  After a great dinner at Beck's place and after dinner drinks on the roof (the actual roof outside her apartment window), the girls wanted to play the American drinking game "Circle of Death" that I had taught them in Bucharest.  Afterwards we went to a local, popular pub for some Marburger beer and shots of the local speciality "rote Korn" (schnapps).  On Tuesday the girls showed me around the university campus before I headed back to Hannover early in the afternoon.  All in all, it was a great Pfingsten weekend!

Circle of Death on the Roof

Me and the Marburger Mädels!