Might as well be the 50's

Motel Hamburg
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Our train was a little late getting into Germany and so we had to layover at a tiny train station in the middle of nowhere. We went down to a café and ordered our first currywurst which was delicious. I notice as I’m writing this that I constantly talk about the food that I eat, but let’s be serious what tells you more about the culture of a country than its food? It really is an educated way to describe travel, not just me being a glutton!

While in the café we made a friend from Rotterdam who proceeded to sit with us on the next train all the way into Hamburg. He was a congenial fellow but after a while his idle prater was a bit onerous. Liz and I kept reading to drone him out and show that we weren’t all that interested. We finally arrived in Hamburg around 11:30 and instead of trying to find our hotel in the dark we caught a cab and soon arrived at our 1950’s paradise!

bombed out church and memorial
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Motel Hamburg was our newest residence and it was adorable. It was built like a 1950’s drive-in motel and the first thing the man at the desk said to us was “Hav you staid in zee haus before?” We got our room key and crashed hard in the best hotel of our trip.

The next morning we met up with Liz’s friend Matt who is on a Fullbright Teaching Assistantship in Hamburg for the year. He was a great guy and showed us all around Hamburg for a couple of days. That morning we all went to get coffee and chatted for a while then took in some great sights including the huge lake in the center of the city, a church that was bombed in WWII and an old Renaissance church. The Renaissance church was Protestant which was an interesting change for those of us who have been over-Catholicized for a few months.  The best part of this place though was going up the steeple which overlooked the whole city of Hamburg.

house reflections
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Hamburg is really modern compared to a lot of what I have seen and it is definitely more business-driven. For once people were really working around the clock to get things done. It is such a novel concept! After viewing the whole city from the top we took a boat tour of the harbor. Hamburg’s ports are one of the most important in Germany so this harbor had tons of containerships and huge cranes loading and unloading who knows what from big crates. I was just amazed at the size of everything.

three cool cats
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That night we went out to dinner at a traditional German restaurant and ate pork’s knee and drank fabulous dark beer. I haven’t had a really good dark beer since Prague and it was great to complement that with good friends and intellectual conversation. I think it was at this point in my trip that I realized how little deep intellectual exposure I have had since I’ve been in Italy. Don’t get me wrong, I have learned a lot about different cultures, lifestyles, and most importantly myself, but the bookworm in me has gone a little dormant.  All of a sudden that indifferent Italian attitude was turned off and the drive to know and read up on academic matters came back in full force. Post-dinner we took in another great brewery and then called it an early night.

the city below
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The next morning we met Matt at the main station in Hamburg because we were going to see a nearby concentration camp. Liz had never been to one before and I had only been to Auschwitz so we thought it would be a good experience. The train took us way out into the countryside where we then had to catch a bus but somehow we got on the wrong bus and took a gorgeous ride out into the German countryside. We got off the bus at the last stop which was definitely not our destination. Luckily for us, Matt is fluent in German and asked the bus driver how to get going in the right direction. The next bus for us would be along in forty-five minutes. Oh, well. So we climbed this little hill near the bus stop to wait it out.

swordfights
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It was here that we discovered the land of fairy tales. The little hill we climbed was actually a dike on the Elba River and below us spread the countryside dotted with thatched roofed houses and windmills. On the side of the river stood too old men in galoshes who were casting a line into the rippling waters. All of us just stood there for a few moments amazed at our discovery and then we began to play. We ran down the hill towards the water and climbed over rocks to a huge patch of reeds. The reeds quickly became swords and soon we were fighting both medieval dragons and each other. The old men just looked at us with curiosity as we laughed hysterically and spoke in a foreign tongue.   We thoroughly wore ourselves out and then plopped down on the hill to eat our pre-packed chicken and kraut sandwiches. Before we knew it the bus was rolling up to the stop and we were on our way to our previous destination.

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About twenty minutes later we made it to the NeunGamme Concentration camp. This was a work camp built to employ mostly political prisoners and many Polish people. The work entailed digging up clay trenches in order to make bricks. The major brick factory is still standing and is an eerie sight to see. The museum on this site is fabulous and extremely well done. We could’ve spent hours upon hours in there just reading the stories of individual prisoners. The camp had a very different feel from Auschwitz as well as Auschwitz-Birkenau but many of the same heinous crimes were committed there. As hard and almost surreal as it is to see these places, I really do feel that they are vital parts of the human experience that should bee seen by as many people as possible.

Once back in Hamburg we went out to Matt’s house and cooked dinner. He lives with a really intense family in the suburbs of Hamburg. After dinner we dragged matt back to our hotel so that we could change before going out and then we went into the club/bar district of Hamburg. The first place that we went was playing weird German heavy metal which was really funny to hear. Then we continued our journey into the 50’s with a swing and Mo-town bar that played awesome music. There was hardly anyone there except a group of middle aged men and we all danced around to the great oldies tunes. It was so much fun to hear that kind of music and just goof off. All in all it was a successful evening.

Friday morning we packed up from Motel Hamburg and made our way to the main train station to catch a train to Berlin. The automatic ticket machines here were much more efficient and we were able to hop on a last minute train without having previously booked a reservation. Once again we were riding the rails and carrying on with our adventure.