(Doesn't Know) It's Not A Real Boat: Goodbye, summer! See you in a year!

My summer is ending. I think in a month or so I'll look back on today as the last real day of summer - not because of the date, but because I'm off to V Festival today, last of the summer festivals (or first of the Easter ones, depending on how you look at it).

I guess I can't really complain, given that I've essentially had summer weather since about June last year, with just a few cooler days in Chicago in early October and in Canberra in November (the day we had snow there was kind of weird). But before that I had wintry weather (with just the start of the Australian summer) from May 2005, and now I'm going to go back into a similarly long cold (or cool) period, although with hopefully a short reprieve just before I go back to the UK in October this year.

This hemisphere-hopping really alters your season-perception.

Anyway, I thought I'd say goodbye to summer with some pictures from Planten un Blomen in Hamburg. I spent less than 24 hours in Hamburg on my way up to Denmark and Norway, which is a shame, because it's a city I really like. I had originally intended to spend more time there on the way back, but as it turned out, I was in a hurry to get to my next destination (Leeuwarden) and only had an hour at the station.

I had spent 2 1/2 weeks in Hamburg in the summer of 2003 for a uni course. I'd had an absolute ball - staying in the Schanzenviertel (a grungy Newtown-equivalent, but cooler) and wandering all over the city. This trip, I headed back to the Schanzenviertel for my overnight stay, intending to do quite a bit of wandering before I had to catch my train. As it turned out, when I woke up in the morning I realised I absolutely had to visit a doctor, and it might be better to do this in Germany (where at least I spoke a bit of the language) than Denmark. By the time I got myself sorted out, I only had a couple of hours, so I decided just to head to the Planten un Blomen, which are Hamburg's botanic gardens. My mum is now very loudly not saying anything...

Of course, my camera batteries ran out and I didn't take as many photos as I would have liked, but I did get some. It was really nice to just hang out in such a lusciously-vegetated place, even for just a short time, especially when I knew I was getting on a train a couple of hours later.