Hamburg, Germany: a guest appearance by Sista Kate & Cat, a nude bar slipnslide and a muck beach...among other things

July 25 - August 13

3 weeks in one place. Feels like forever! Hamburg was a great chance to catch my breath, relax a bit and spend some time with my sister, Katie, and her friend Cat. There were many adventures which are too many to include here but I shall try to share some of the highlights

I'm sure Katie's Germany book will do the details better justice (: hint, hint!

So we had a house almost all to ourselves in northern Germany for 3 weeks total, thanks to a house exchange arranged by my parents (see credits). Luckily the airport was not far from the Wendy's house because I took several trips there. A miscommunication brought Andy Wendy, the German family's son, and I to the airport the day before my sister and Cat were to arrive (he thought they were coming that day, and I thought we were going in the car to the harbor)

On the correct day we found Cat but discovered that Kate was delayed 5 hours...as if the trip wasn't long enough! Well it could've been worse because her airline, Lufthansa, was on strike. I suppose she was lucky to get off the ground at all. Cat and I were superb chauffeurs later that day except for the fact that neither one of us made a note of where we parked the car. I felt like we were in an episode of Seinfeld, welcome to Hamburg, Katie!

Our first evening was a relaxed one with the most exciting excursion being to the neighborhood park, only to discover that the Germans have MUCH better toys than Americans. The usual players were there - swingset, slide, merry-go-round. But would you believe they also had a zip line??? Amazing. Ask me how much fun we had in this park after dark with bottles of wine. The answer has something to do with Lots.

Over the next few days we toured the city on foot, by bus and by bike. Our bike tour included detours, some more scenic than others. Not usually a wise idea to poke around under the bridges over the Alster, we discovered as we happened upon men literally pissing the afternoon away in the river. Hamburg has charm!

There were 2 forays into the Reeperbahn, which is Germany's red light district. The first was cut short because we discovered that we'd turn into pumpkins stranded in the city if we didn't catch the last metro at a disappointingly PG13 Rated hour of 12:30. Bollocks. Fortunately this was not before seeing a stag party of Brits, one of whom decided it would be a great idea to strip down and slide down the bar naked. Looked more painful than sexy. During this evening we also noted the comeback of the fannypack as a rather saucy accessory. "Why are all those girls standing around wearing fanny packs"......Ooooh. Prostitots!

The 2nd foray into the Reep will warrant limited details, but had something to do with a vampire, a pirate's wench and transexuals. Boring.

Moving on. How great is the invention of GPS? Those that know about my sense of direction (actually would you believe I think it's getting better??) understand what a magical thing I think this is. Slightly more tricky when it's in German though. We took a day trip to a town called Schwerin to see a castle and had some interesting times trying to figure out how to work the damn navigation system. [PS Katie - After dropping you and Cat off at the airport I got lost on the way home (obviously) and figured out that the GPS can be put into French! After that, it was a breeze...if only we had known that the whole time!!)] The castle was amazing although I think I would prefer it they hadn't put so much work into restoring it. Okay, yes please make sure the walls won't fall in on me while I'm poking around, but why does it have to be made to look Brand New?

The Wendy's neighbor, Sabine, told us about a beach in a town called Tonning, where the tide goes out in the middle of the day and you can walk out where the water was. We took the train(s!) at 7am and brought a picnic to spend a day checking out what in reality was Much more interesting than a typical beach. It was a Muck Beach.

We sat and had our picnic in front of the beach, behind which was a wind farm with maybe a dozen wind mills. (These are very much a part of the German landscape in general. Last year the energy produced from the windmills provided 7% of the energy consumed by the country).

Afterwards I went in. The muck was mid calf level and definitely an interesting thing to walk in. But truly, the scenery was beautiful. The showers next to the beach along with a dock and slide indicated that it was normal to get in the muck...so. We did. We had brought bathing suits because it was a "beach", so why not? Katie decided to document the hillarity and Cat and I went all out. Head to toe. Rolling in the muck literally. Threw muck on the slide and slid into the muck. Had a muck throwing fight. Haven't had this much fun since I was 5.

A lot's missing, but anyway we had a great time with hillarious blunders. I'll leave it at that!

CREDITS in Order of Appearance

MelissahFoss
Andy Wendy

Katie Boss
Cat the Environmental Texan

Pissing German man
Sabine
Bonquishia
Stuart
George Gidget
Ralph aka Raph aka Rauph?
Confused German woman in Schwerin



Special THANKS To





Lufthansa
The Wendy's
PopSecret
BahnBikes
fanny packs
The Alster
Chef Mel
Schwerin & 007
a multi-lingual waiter at the Lokhaus
Tonning and its Muck Beach
the Reeperbahn
THE O'Neills

NO Thanks To

The Erotic Art Museum
German drivers on the Audobon
Schizophrenic German weather

Berlin...the first guest, the magic of Kreuzberg, sandy shoes and missed mass food fights :(

July 25 - 28

Luck be a lady. A lady named Siona Früh. A couple days before I left Prague I met a German girl who was staying in the same room in the hostel as me. We got to talking and it turned out that she had just signed up for Couchsurfing a week before. She hadn't yet hosted anybody and lived in Berlin. She mentioned that if I ever visited the city that I could stay with her, and I mentioned that I was actually headed there the next weekend! Perfect match, so we agreed to get in touch and that I would meet her in her neighborhood, Kreuzberg, in eastern Berlin.

What a cool girl, just 20 years old and she's already travelled all around Europe and just spent 6 months living and teaching in Ecuador. When she arrived there, she didn't speak a word of Spanish. This girl's got nutsfah.

We toured her neighborhood, one of the Best in Berlin, she informed me. Lots of charm with local shops, street art everywhere, bio stores and Turkish food thanks to the large population of Turkish immigrants in Germany, and in particular Berlin, but especially in Kreuzberg. We spent a sunny afternoon having a picnic in this huge park with two of her friends, Anna and Kitti and tons of other people all around. Talking, playing and music everywhere.

That night we all went out to this club that was basically a huge house. Each room, including the kitchen (with appliances and all) was a different part of the party. The entire yard was a giant sandbox...just try to keep that out of your shoes, your clothes after some drinks. Life gets gritty.

Normal touring of the city, a flee market, and people watching. Siona mentioned that Kreuzberg is also superior because of its population of "alternative peoples". Yes Berlin style is very unique. Some people look like works of art, truly. But it's open and it's creative which is beautiful no matter whether or not you like it personally. People in Kreuzberg sometimes enjoy pastimes which may include performing interesting coups against corporate sponsored neighborhood decoration. A massive new glitz n glamour concert venue just got plunked down in the middle of the neighborhood despite massive public outcry and Siona pointed out the guard that is stationed around the clock to protect a huge advertisement television screen. The apparently very real fear is that it will be color bombed with balloons of paint. The distance would make this difficult but I think maybe some kind of slingshot would get the balloons to their target.

The last day we slept in and accidentally missed the best day of celebration in Kreuzberg. Somebody has organized it once a year to have a massive food fight to determine the superiority between Kreuzberg and its neighboring hood. Well...we walked through the war zone after the fact and saw the unbelievable wreckage as well as some of the victims. What a great mess! This was a sad sad day to have missed all the action.. Sleep is for the birds.

Prague - a Bohemian wonderland (hostel charm, Brasilian friends and disappearing castles...but mostly architecture to made you a hazardous pedestrian)

July 23 - 25

Praha. After hearing so many people raving about this Eastern European city, I assumed it would be easy to be disappointed. But no, actually it truly is every bit as beautiful as everyone says!!

I stayed in a hostel again, which is always an adventure and especially when you discover by accident that the rooms are coed. ha. My new Brasilian friend, Rita, nearly had an interesting run in as I noticed and informed her that she'd been showering in the men's showers the whole time. Charms of hostelling.

Anyway, for a city that has been so entwined with historical upheavals, it's remarkable that Prague has somehow remained almost completely intact. There are examples of Baroque and Art Nouveau architecture everywhere. There is absolutely nothing plain about this city! Every building is so ornate, even the lamposts and sidewalks are decorative in some way.

I took so many pictures of buildings which I'm sure will seem pointless later, but everything was so amazing to me I couldn't help but play a shameless tourist. My head was cocked up looking at structures so much that I would forget to pay attention and maybe was a danger to myself a couple of times with traffic..

My new friend Rita was a really great part of this short visit. She's from Brasil but has been living in Ireland for 2 years. It's really amazing the connections that you can have with someone that you've just met. Just a couple days of wandering around Prague together and I felt I'd found a great friend. One of the most beautiful things I have found during this time is to find out all the fundamental things we have in common despite cultural, political, economic, or any other differences. The most important matters of life and of the heart transcend all of these.

We spend a day together in search of Prague castle, which, despite being a famously large castle, was extremely difficult to locate. Or that's what it seemed. According to the map, we were walking around right where the castle was supposed to be, but there was not a "castle" in sight. The buildings were beautiful and we were marvelling at the unique architecture everywhere...but no castle! Actually it turns out we were IN the castle. It's so huge, there's no one building that is the castle, the entire are we were in was the grounds of the castle. You can laugh all you want, but I was not the only one mystified.

Unfortunately, I suppose my visit to the Czech Republic was relatively tame comparatively, but maybe that's a good thing! I wish only that I would've had more time. There are plenty of people who don't mind having a whirlwind 2 day trip to cities, but to me I much prefer having more time to wander and get a feel. Also I just have to say that staying in a hostel just can't compare, and I struggle against the feeling that I'm not seeing anything this way compared to the experience I'd have staying with a local!!

A last adventure in Budapest: I wonder what the punishment is for fleeing from Hungarian authorities?

July 21 - 23

Unfortunately, before I could leave Budapest, just to keep things interesting, I had a run in with a Hungarian man in some kind of position of authority.

I had my pack and was taking the metro to the train station, with just enough time to make it. Having purchased the right ticket for the metro, I thought it no problem when the Hungarian controller stopped me to ask for my ticket on my way out of the metro at the train station. I gave it to him and after looking at it, he started to say something to me in Hungarian. When I asked him if he spoke english, he said yes and told me in perfect english "this is not good, miss. you were supposed to validate the ticket at the transfer. you owe me 6000 Forint".

"I'm so sorry, I didn't realize. It was an honest mistake. I've just been here a few days and am catching a train to leave the country in a half hour". I tried to be respectful but he was not swayed and replied that it was my problem and that I owed him the money anyway. "There are signs posted everywhere", he said. I was getting ready to leave Hungary so didn't exactly have an abundance of their currency on me. He so kindly mentioned that there was a cash machine up in the train station, and that he'd be happy to take me there.

Lovely. He obviously was preying on tourists, and my backpack made me an obvious target. I didn't like his attitude (obviously) and kind of felt like he might be taking advantage of his position, but what could I do? He escorted me safely up into the station and lit up a cigarette outside as I went in to this shop to use the ATM. I was fuming. I walked inside and saw only tellers and no ATMs and decided to go back out and plead with him once more. I apologised and asked this cocky bastard if there was any way he'd consider giving me a warning this time.

He took his cigarette out of his mouth long enough to say, "It's not my problem. It's yours."

So I walked back into the shop and noticed through the mental fog of rage that there was a back entrance to the shop that let out in the other side of the hallway of the train station. I didn't think about it, I just walked out. Figuring I had maybe a couple of minutes before he finished his cigarette, I started walking towards the other end of the train station with my passport and my train ticket in hand.

I showed my ticket to another controller who pointed me in the general direction of my platform. If I can just get onto the train, he won't be able to find me, I thought. So with this hope I entered back into the main area of the train station, where he had been moments before. I walked along the walls and thought to myself...I wonder what will happen if he finds me? Maybe he'll charge me a double fine. Or if he's legit, I wonder what kind of punishment they would give me here in Hungary?

Finally arriving at my train, I had 15 minutes to ponder whether or not I had told him where I was going and if he would be able to figure out which train I was on. Paranoid for these last few minutes I decided to hide out in the bathroom until the train left the station. These are times when I wish I had witnesses to see me in my finest moments. There I was huddled in the WC, paniced about my fate and whether I would ever get to see this beautiful city called Praha..

But the train left the station, and I emerged from my hideout to find my seat waiting for me with no catch. Safe at last.