Rose City Abroad: Meine Reise in Hamburg

When I first arrived in Hamburg, my attitude towards the city was very different than before I studied in Munich. Not in a negative way, but that more of familiarity. I wasn’t excited to be back per se, but rather I just felt like I’ve returned home from a long trip abroad. So there is some comfort in that I guess. On my way to my uncle’s house I ran into Benadetta on the bus home from school. I think she looked back a couple of times, but didn’t recognize me, or was just too uncertain to actually make contact, haha. But we talked as soon as we got off the bus about her field trip to Kirchemichael. For the rest of the day we just stayed at home and relaxed. I was also shocked to see that they actually had an Xbox and wireless internet!!! Haha… I figured that they would enter the 21^st century once their kids got a little older. The next day I went into the city to get a new headset and the book, ‘extremely loud, and unbelievably close’. I then went to Starbucks where I ordered a 32 oz cappuccino and read for a while. I then decided to head back to the house, and went for a run later on that evening. For the rest of the week while visiting, I mostly went for runs around the garden houses that were about 5 km, and hung out with the family so long they were at home. I didn’t really want to go into the city that much because I’ve seen a lot of Hamburg already during my previous six visits, but just wanted to spend some time with the relatives. Once Beata and the kids left for Poland, I played a lot of Lips on the Xbox, drank a lot of coffee, and watched a lot of frauenfussball. On the 4^th of July, I made hamburgers, corn, and a hash brown casserole. The hash brown casserole turned out a lot better than I was expecting, especially having it being my first casserole ever. My uncle almost ate the entire thing, haha. I also watched the Patriot later on that evening before heading to bed. On my last full day in Hamburg I went downtown to see a couple of sites I haven’t been to, or been to for a long time. The first one I went to was Kirchemichael, which I chose to climb the hundreds upon hundreds of stairs up. For every ten people that went up to the top of the tower, only about one actually took the stairs up. From up there though, I could see the entire city which was pretty nice because we had great weather that day. Afterwards I went to the Old Elbetunnel which went under the harbor. Then after that I went for a walk towards the Reeperbahn along the St. Pauli hafen. Usually they have good food along the Reeperbahn, because of all the drunken up people that it attracts. The Reeperbahn is also famous for their fair share of sex shops and strip tease, but I couldn’t find anywhere to eat where I wanted. That and being harassed by stripper whorelords who were trying to push me into their clubs, didn’t lead me to want to stick around long. I went back to the city hall area where I ordered some Curry wurst and French fries and went along the Alster to eat. Afterward, I went back home, watched some more frauenfussball, and crashed. Next stop. Darmstadt.