Hamburg Harbour and other Water Pleasantries

Another week in Hamburg! I feel a little bit out of sorts with no structure to my week (no job, no planned weekly activities, etc.) so I think I'm going to need to start doing some things. Last week I called this woman named Veronika who sings in a choir that only practices once a week (as opposed to the Hamburg Monteverdi Chor, which practices Friday, Saturday, and Sunday of every second weekend for four hours each), but she never called me back. I also think a dance class would be fun, and might help me meet people! But I have no idea where they would list stuff like that. Google search is hard because I have no know all of the words in German that I want to search for! Once I get the internet at home I think it will be easier because then I can have my dictionary next to me, or I can install a quick worter-info thing where it translates the word if I hold my cursor over it. Lenny has one of those things; it's awesome!

So last week I tried to get out of the house a little bit more. On Tuesday, I headed into Hamburg to take a harbour boat tour, only to find out that the English tours don't start until March! The man selling tickets said I could take a German one for half price, but I would understand less than half so I chose to wait until March. At first I was super upset and I didn't know what to do with my day: it was really cold and I wanted to curl up on a boat and have someone tell me about history... it would have been perfect. So I walked around the harbour for a little bit, and listened to Elvis Presley, which reminded me of my mom. As I had my iPod on, I came across an accordian player so I let the song "Love Me Tender" end and turned off my music to listen to the busker. He was playing "Stranger in the Night" so I listened for a little while, then went to leave.... only to realize that the busker had started playing "Love Me Tender"! I listened to the whole song then gave him some change. It was really cool :) While he was playing a good-looking guy saw me listening and did a funny dance to the accordion, which made it even cooler!
After that I decided to walk up to the youth hostel, which is on a huge hill overlooking the entire harbour. There, the woman gave me some information on where some good pubs and bars were, although she couldn't tell me much about English tours (to help me find a job) or about a pub crawl, which would be fun and help me meet people! Oh well, maybe I'll visit another hostel. From there, I went to the Alter Elbtunnel which runs underneath the Elbe River right in the middle of the harbour. I walked to the other side (about 400metres) and looked at the view for a while, then walked back and ate a piece of salty raw fish on a crusty bun. It felt very Hamburg.
It was starting to get dark so I figured I should head to the museum ship Rickmer Rickmers, which is a Windjammer constructed in 1896, and was restored in the 80s as a museum! It was quite beautiful and I figured out how to use the timer on my camera to take pictures of myself... haha! It was interesting to look at a little piece of history but I was sad that I couldn't understand so much of the explanations of the exhibits. Oh well.
From there, I headed back to the train station. On the way, I passed by the accordion player again (he must have been freezing! I don't think he moved all day!) and he was playing "My Bonnie Lies Over the Ocean". Yes, you heard me! I just started laughing. By myself, at my own joke. It was awesome, like me and this accordian player shared a musical wavelength. Haha.

On Wednesday I decided I would find a pair of jeans, because when Lisa and I made our Ikea trip I definitely ripped mine. I tried on... oh, probably about 12 pairs of jeans (I hate jean shopping) and was feeling so ugly and uncool (I hate jean shopping) when I wandered into this little place selling super-discounted Italian fashion and Diesel jeans. YES, Diesel! I tried on another 10 pairs because the store didn't have the same style in different sizes, it just had random styles in random sizes so I tried on EVERYTHING..... and found the perfect pair. They're just plain dark-blue jeans with a little detailing on the pocket and a nice wide top (to fit wide belts) but they're DIESEL and they're great! They even had a tailor above the store who hemmed them for me, so I could wear them immediately! Lisa has a sewing machine but no table to put it on, so as soon as she gets a table I will be able to hem my own pants. Around dinnertime my parents called, so I found a little coffee shop with wood walls and floors and had some lovely green tea. It was a nice end to a stressful day.

So the fact that the Wedel Swimming Pool was such a shitty experience was really weighing on me, and the fact that I hadn't really gone for a good swim workout in over a month was putting me in a bad mood. So on Thursday when I visited Lenny (he stayed home sick) to do laundry, I asked him if he knew of any other pools. He said he didn't but suggested that the www.hamburg.de would say. So, we went there, and he left me to it... and I found two pools that would work! One, the Blankenese Hallenbad, is close, about 25 min by train, and had a 25m pool but also had massage jets! The other, the Alster-Schwimmhalle, is about 70 min by train but has a 50m pool and a whirlpool! So, I was very happy and decided to go to Blankenese on Friday. I spent about 3 hours in the pool, massaging my back, working out, and stretching, and by the time I was done I remembered what my body is supposed to feel like! Hooray! I decided that next Tuesday, I would take the long trek into the 50m pool.

On Saturday, my package from my parents arrived! I was so excited to have a cookbook and the beautiful mosaic'd coasters that Liesl made me, as well as some info on Rome from my dad! Lisa spent pretty much the whole day at Lenny's, then got home at 4pm and wondered why she didn't have time to finish all the things she wanted to, like handwash her sweaters and go to Altona to get a canvas, before we went to a Thermal Bath at 8pm. I was irritated with her bitching about it, because if she just spent less time at Lenny's she could have gotten everything done, and I felt a bit like she was blaming me for it.... the only thing I wanted to do was make Souffle, which takes about 2 hours. She said we only had time to have souffle or go to the Thermal Bath, and then she chose the thermal bath because I just told her to choose one so we could get going on it, and so we had pizza for dinner. I felt a bit irritated with her because I wasn't the one who chose to waste the whole day. Anyways, the evening made up for it, because we went to this Candlelit Thermal Bath called Bartholomäus-Therme and it was sooooo relaxing. The water was like a bath, and had lots of jets and bubbles and minerals and I just walked around and floated. We found that the jets created a sort of current, so we sat on noodles and just let the current move us around the pool. It was lovely! The place also had two steam rooms, one Eucalyptus and one Vanilla-Lavender, and I liked the Vanilla-Lavender one best because it smelled like tea. The Eucalyptus reminded me of when I get sick and steam my face to clear my sinuses (haha!). By the time we left at 11pm, when it closed, we were both so warm and relaxed and tired that we almost fell asleep on the train home. Lisa was worried that going to a pool two days in a row was too much water for me, but I reminded her that I am "accidentaly not a fish" and that settled it.

On Sunday again Lisa spent most of the day at Lenny's. I made put on the chicken bones from last week to boil a broth, then made myself a zucchini and gouda omelette, yum. In the afternoon I went on a long walk through the farm part of Wedel, and there were cool sheep. I also saw deer grazing with the sheep, and a heron hunting snails with the sheep, and a red kyte flying over the sheep. Oh sheep. When it stopping raining, the air was windy and fresh, and it was very pleasant. Then I went home to cook some more, and finally made my Souffle! The day was relaxing and home-y. Now I understand what my mom means when she says she's spent all day in the kitchen!

Last week we got a letter saying that our DSL and phone line will be set up on Tuesday between 8am and 4pm. I hope they're serious, because it means I can start getting pictures up!

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