"Ahh zis iz ze greatest country in ZE VERLD!"
Germany. Ahh sweet Germany. Providing the world with some of its greatest travellers and unleashing them upon the unsuspecting relative sanity of, well, every other traveller I suppose. On my many travels I have met a wide sample of these wondrous creatures from all different walks of life and I can honestly say that I have never disliked a single one. Man, woman, boy or girl they possess a sense of humour that is either alarmingly similar to that of ours, or one that is completely insane, incomprehensible, and too strange for words.
I've met German guitarists, pianists, stoners, hippies, Buddhists, climbers, snowboarders, professional skydivers, glass salesmen, TV presenters, drug dealers and many others from a number of other professions, and no matter how different their personalities, they all have something between them (apart from the language obviously) that screams "I AM GERMAN".
If you're a regular reader then it should be no secret to you by now that one of my very good friends is a German chap I met in Auckland. Unfortunately we had to go our separate ways in Thailand when he flew back to Australia, and I back to Blighty. I should have been the lucky one seeing as I had carefully designed my entire trip to squeeze every bit of summer out of the world as is possible for a year and a half but alas... Didn't really happen did it? Coldest British summer on record? Probably. I remember walking out of Heathrow dressed in t-shirt, shorts and flip-flops to be greeted by 10 degree temperatures and my father saying how "It's been lovely up until today". Typical. Regardless, Carsten and I had resigned ourselves to living on opposite sides of the world for a while, dreaming of the sunshine and lazy days in Thailand until he would have to come back and see his family in September... This would present me with the perfect opportunity to go and check out Germany, and visit another friend of mine on the way.
So, after purchasing a plane ticket to Hamburg and back from Berlin for a little over £40, I boarded the Stanstead Express armed with the tinest suitcase in existence and a large Cornish pasty. As I consumed this (while other eerily silent passengers read their papers and secretly wondered when I would stop rustling my pasty bag and making loud chewing noises), I started to get a familiar feeling. Yes I had burnt my tongue again. God don't you just hate it when that happens? Ok the one I'm really talking about is that of being a traveller again, if only for a short moment in time - excitement, elation, freedom and wonder all rolled into one, with a tiny smudge of trepidation just to keep you from drooling everywhere at the very prospect of going somewhere new.
On arrival at the cobbled runway and shed that is Lübeck Airport I rang Julia to find out where the hell I was supposed to go, hopped onto a shuttle bus, and made my way out to Hamburg. A shame really since Lübeck is apparently responsible for creating that wonder of all childhood dreams - marzipan. Who would have thought crushed almonds could be so amazing?! Another day perhaps.
The first thing I noticed was how organised the place is. I arrived on a Saturday, yet the traffic was moving smoothly around the city, lights would turn green as the bus got close, cyclists pedalled around corners without fear of instant death and people generally seemed quite content. Having Julia as a guide was a blessing. If I had to navigate the underground on my own it would have taken me hours to get anywhere. Efficient though it was, German place names must be among the longest in the world, with 'Kaltenkirchen Holstentherme' and 'Wandsbek-Gartenstadt' leading the way (try to remember those if you have no grasp of German). My favourite was 'Schlump' which, apparently, means 'smurf'. I can see I'll be needing that in future. The fact that we went everywhere on the tube also meant that I never really got a proper overview of what Hamburg was like as a whole, and so I'm left with a patchwork of different places in my head rather than any kind of relationship between them. This is good though, as Julia showed me all of the coolest places she could think of - a man-made beach on the harbour, the heaving nightlife of the Reeperbahn, a bizarre cinema where everybody starts clapping when they think the people in the film are going to get it on, the grungy, punky area of Hamburg where there is frequent rioting, the incredible view of the park from the balcony of her old flat... That particular day was incredibly hot, and her friend Jens kindly offered to lend us his rowing boat so we could enjoy a spot of 'messing about on the river'.
So after being shouted at by a mad German professor (think Doc Brown from Back to the Future) and much trial and error, we finally managed to work out how to row with the professionalism and finesse of Viking warriors looking for new lands to invade. We finally found them in the form of a coffee shop/bar on the lake, where we tied up the rowing boat (trying as hard as we could to look as if we had done it many times before) and sat down with a bunch of designer-wearing toffs for a cappuccino. We got back in the boat and rowed into the sunset.
Without writing pages and pages of stuff, Hamburg is a great city only made better by all the friendly, entertaining people I met in the few days that I was there. It was good not to have to consult a Lonely Planet for once and to be shown the places and cultures rather than trying to fit in as many sights as possible. I would recommend going there, if only to try the currywursts they sell. Mmmmmmmm.
It was finally Tuesday, and it was time to go and see Ze German. I said my goodbyes to Julia, jumped on the train and whizzed down to Wittenberg reading a £7 American GQ I'd bought without thinking. Euros have never really seemed like real money to me, I hope to God we never get it in the UK or I'll be permanently skint. Anyway, ONWARDS...
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