Hamburg

 My alarm went off too early today. Why did I do that to myself? Maybe I should just go to sleep. I remembered the mission and pressed on with waking up. Hamburg has a historic fish market. During the summer it starts early enough to catch wayward barflies in search of an early morning snack. In the winter they delay the start. A lazy 7 to 9:30 in the morning. I was up at 7 to ensure I got to see it in full swing but before the damn foreigners (such as myself) woke up to ruin it all. 

The S Bahn ride over felt nice and homey. Two beggars asked me for money. Not like home they were both so polite about it. You decline and they move on to the next person, more efficient for them to ask more people quickly than press one for a nickel. The funniest one to watch was actually in search of pfand. Germans get a quarter to a half euro for returning bottles here, this makes bottle return serious business. There are small metal trash cans at each seat on the S Bahn and he was going from can to can, quietly opening and quietly closing them. Not disturbing the riders as he had his treasure hunt.

The fish market started as an auction years ago where the local fisherman would hawk their catch of the day to wholesalers. Now it is more like an early morning farmer’s market with a LOT of fish. You can still get the catch of the day here, for the tourist the key item is the fish sandwiches. Fish in every preparation you can imagine; baked, smoked, fried are tossed into a roll with some veggies and remoulade. A couple euro buys you one of these for breakfast and a cup of coffee to stave off the cold. To me, waking up early to eat fish and drink coffee in the cold sounded like hell. Turns out the Hamburgers got this one figured out. I had a fantastic time walking the stalls and snacking. One of the more unique things they do here is fruit bags. Vendors come in each morning with a box truck full of fruit. They get up in front of the crowds and lay out large bags. The vendors then pull out a flat of whatever they want, start talking about how fresh it is, and put some of it in each bag. Once the bags are full, the crowd buys them. This is also where I encountered the Hamburger Franzbrötchen. Essentially this is what the local bakers started to make when Napoleon ordered them to make croissants. Imagine what a bitter and frustrated German baker’s croissant looks like. Franzbrötchen looks exactly like that.

Goes for far

On a side note, visiting a city where everything and everyone that is of the city is called Hamburger has been very entertaining for my demented mind. Hamburger people. Hamburger bread. Hamburger art. Hamburger everything. Chuffed to bits.

My next mission was laundry. It’s a beautiful London spring day (read: cold and shitty), perfect for indoor errands. Luckily my hostel has facilities and I can knock that out while staying close to home. While the clothes tumble I work on my Indian visa. This one makes the Uzbek visa look like a piece of cake. More questions and worse technology to back it up. It takes all the time for my clothes to wash and dry before it is done and frankly, I’m still not sure if I’ve paid for it.

Getting that out of the way meant it was time for lunch and an outing. A German restaurant next door was convenient enough and full of people speaking German (probably tourists from Munich, a bad sign) this is always a good sign. Potato salad, herring, cream sauce, onions, and pears. Sounds like Hell, tastes pretty good. The beer washed everything down and I walked across the street to the Museum of Art and Industry. They have Hamburger focused collections of art and industrial design goods. Hilights are Dieter Rams’ office (so hilariously bland it must have been his) and the lunchroom from Der Spiegel.

I want it

For the rest of the evening, the plan was to wander Halfencity, then Rieperbahn, then dinner and drinks in Schanzenviertel. Halfencity is a new development built on bombed out warehouses just south of the city. Meh. It’s about as charming at the Boston Seaport. Then Rieperbahn, Hamburg’s red light district. Where Amsterdam’s is a healthy tourist attraction with plenty to do and see for the horny and lonely and drunk, Hamburg’s is being gentrified into oblivion. Most of the city seems to be okay with this. Walking through, I saw some bars that claimed to have nude dancing but no nude dancing. The brothels are long gone and so are the girls dancing in windows. Oh well. The most shocking thing was seeing the Christmas market and giant light up hearts where I expected to find debauchary. Odd.

Cold and shitty

My last stop, Schanzenviertel, is where I found the bar I liked last night. I went to a Vietnamezisch restaurant and nibbled at som noodles, reading a book. A man from England was one table away from me with a couple chatting between us. The Englishman asked the couple if one of them was speaking Dutch and the other German. They laughed and confessed that they were a mixed-language group. I joined the conversation when the Englishman offered up his travel plans. The four of us hit it off and so we migrated across the street. We had a beer. And another. And another. We talked about the issues facing our countries and our people. As much as Europe is suffering a self-imposed cost of living crisis, it is nothing compared to what we are seeing in coastal California. In return, they teased me for my county’s leadership. Fair enough. 

If you can read a little German, these stickers will tell you everything you need to know about St. Pauli

I got back to my hostel reeking of cigarette smoke. Ready for my next stop. Paris.