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Back from Hamburg! Our first "proper" family vacation (elsewhere than with other family) in several years, it was nice. We had a tour at the Elbphilharmonie, the new concert hall, which looks great and is architecturally very interesting, and walked up several hundred stairs to the tower of St. Michael because the elevator at St. Nikolai was broken, and had an argument which town hall looks more impressive, the one in Hamburg (mom) or the one in Vienna (everybody else) – we could only judge the outside because sadly there was an event and we couldn't get a tour. We also spent several hours in the world's largest model railway miniature world, which spans several rooms and countries and continents; my favorite parts were the ice bears walking up the dam, the penguin in the bouncing castle, the Easter bunny school, and other fun details like that.
And we saw The Lion King! The costumes and staging etc. were amazing (the giraffes! and elephants! and birds! and antelopes! Etc. etc.), and "Circle of Life" almost brought me to tears. My favorite was Zazu, the puppet was amazing. (Though, German language note: Zazu addressed Mufasa with "Sie, " usually the polite address in German, but by far not polite enough for a king, he should have used "Ihr. " That bothered me more than it probably should ^^ ) I also loved the scene where he's kept in a cage by Scar and has to sing for him: idk if he picks the same songs every time, but in our version he started with "Nobody knows the troubles I've seen, " and when Scar wanted something "with more oom-pa-pa" started "Atemlos durch die Nacht, " the entire theater cracked up. Zazu providing background vocals for the hyenas shortly afterwards was also hilarious.
The adaption was very faithful to the film! And maybe seeing the musical in German helped not to make too many comparisons. They added some things I didn't like as much, like Scar trying to woo Nala, and some I liked, like Nala's song "Shadowland. " The first half was stronger, story-wise, in the second I was reminded too often that it's a children's story, and/or started overthinking things. ( e.g. )
More notes on Hamburg: the traffic lights are terrible. Way too often I started crossing the street right when the light went green and it was already red again before I finished crossing. No blinking phase either. How do slow people manage? Public transport at least seemed good (but most of it looked inaccessible to wheelchair users…) There are many pretty buildings, and I also enjoyed the boat tour. (As citizen of a landlocked country, I'm not used to paying attention to the tides!) We also had a guided tour through St. Pauli, very much 18+, which was, idk, interesting but not fascinating I guess.
So that was vacation number one, and I leave for Dublin in about 24 hours *excited and anxious flailing* Sure I still haven't planned half of it but it'll be great.
And we saw The Lion King! The costumes and staging etc. were amazing (the giraffes! and elephants! and birds! and antelopes! Etc. etc.), and "Circle of Life" almost brought me to tears. My favorite was Zazu, the puppet was amazing. (Though, German language note: Zazu addressed Mufasa with "Sie, " usually the polite address in German, but by far not polite enough for a king, he should have used "Ihr. " That bothered me more than it probably should ^^ ) I also loved the scene where he's kept in a cage by Scar and has to sing for him: idk if he picks the same songs every time, but in our version he started with "Nobody knows the troubles I've seen, " and when Scar wanted something "with more oom-pa-pa" started "Atemlos durch die Nacht, " the entire theater cracked up. Zazu providing background vocals for the hyenas shortly afterwards was also hilarious.
The adaption was very faithful to the film! And maybe seeing the musical in German helped not to make too many comparisons. They added some things I didn't like as much, like Scar trying to woo Nala, and some I liked, like Nala's song "Shadowland. " The first half was stronger, story-wise, in the second I was reminded too often that it's a children's story, and/or started overthinking things. ( e.g. )
More notes on Hamburg: the traffic lights are terrible. Way too often I started crossing the street right when the light went green and it was already red again before I finished crossing. No blinking phase either. How do slow people manage? Public transport at least seemed good (but most of it looked inaccessible to wheelchair users…) There are many pretty buildings, and I also enjoyed the boat tour. (As citizen of a landlocked country, I'm not used to paying attention to the tides!) We also had a guided tour through St. Pauli, very much 18+, which was, idk, interesting but not fascinating I guess.
So that was vacation number one, and I leave for Dublin in about 24 hours *excited and anxious flailing* Sure I still haven't planned half of it but it'll be great.
