Of birth places and sex orgies

10 July:
AFTER THE SECOND NIGHT at the guesthouse I again get lucky. A small ground floor bedroom -- the only one with internet plug-in -- becomes available. I move... in a hurry. I now can post these scribbles with snapshots again, even in the middle of the night, if I wish.

When my mother was pregnant with me after the war, she was warned about high infant mortality statistics at the hospital in Bergedorf where she lived, so off she went to deliver her baby just outside the boundaries of Hamburg. Today I am checking out Reinbek, this small town where I was born. First stop, the local hospital nestled at the side of a forest, a 20-minute walk from the train station. "Sorry, we only keep records for 30 years," an administrator says (I must look a little older than that). "Try city hall back in town -- the civil registry office." Sure enough. There in an old ledger, carefully handwritten in black ink on yellowing paper, are my vital statistics: date, time, location... But as I leave the building and thank the receptionist for earlier directing me to the correct department, I mentioning that the location on my birth ledger says "auxiliary hospital." She explains that was actually not the hospital as it is known today but a different facility. "It's located right across from the train station. I was born there, too!" she says.

Later in the evening I meet with my old friend, Michael. We started school together in grade 1, and in our teens he was responsible for introducing me to such rock 'n' roll legends as Cliff Richard and the Shadows and the Beatles. But imagine trying to recognize someone at the agreed-upon rendezvous spot "in front of the church" if you haven't seen him for 37 years, with the only clue a photo he's sent you perhaps 15 years ago. Actually, it wasn't so difficult. The plaza wasn't busy that time of day, and all we had to do is look for another (almost) old man helplessly searching the faces of strangers around him!

Michael takes me for a jaunt in his car along the winding roads of the Vierlande, a large farming area criss-crossed by dikes to keep the nearby Elbe River in check. This fertile marshland is still as I remember it with picturesque thatched-roof half-timbered farmhouses around every bend.

And talking about stepping into the past. The old school where I spent all but two years of my childhood education is still there, almost unchanged, except it has a different name now. The poplars that lined its front path are gone but the massive copper beech tree has remained and everywhere else the surrounding greenery has matured. Out back I peek into a separate brick building that housed our gym -- still there, just slightly remodelled inside. The soccer field -- still there; behind it (and here I actually exclaim, "I don't believe this!") the same old weed-encrusted long-jump pit!

11 July:
STANDING ON a temporary platform for press photographers in the city square was as close as I ever got to Hamburg's huge city hall. The occasion was Queen Elizabeth's visit to the city around 1966. Just before the motorcade's arrival through the throng of tens of thousands I had been waved onto the stand by some official who perhaps mistook me for a cub reporter on account of the rather impressive looking camera equipment slung around my neck. Today, I decide to have my first look inside this place while a guided tour is being conducted in English. Hamburg is a city state, and this building is the seat of both the city council and the state parliament. Talk about ornate! Fine carvings, exquisite metalwork, felt and leather wall coverings, medallions and murals on walls and ceilings, inlaid floors, imported onyx and polished granite columns... It all shows what a wealthy merchant city this centre of the medieval hanseatic league has always been. However, I learn that -- with a birth rate of 1.3 children per family -- the city population has remained unchanged at 1.8 million since my school days. Neither do a hundred thousand people crowd into the square out front anymore to cheer the likes of the Queen or General de Gaulle. Instead, this weekend the place has been transformed into, of all things, a championship beach volleyball venue!

A few steps from city hall is the city's lake, the Alster, which connects through a grid of canals and locks with the harbour on the Elbe River and -- 90 km to the west -- the North Sea. Ready for a break from walking, I hop onto the first bus which luckily takes me to the north end of the Alster where I have lunch at a lakeside restaurant, then hike along the shore walks lined with opulent villas and views of the downtown skyline with its many church steeples.

My evening's entertainment is Shakespeare's "Othello" at the state theatre, the Hamburger Schauspielhaus. The place is sold out for this final performance of the season and I am lucky at the ticket office around noon to get a choice single seat in the first row of the first balcony. It doesn't get much better than this! The production is a rather free interpretation of the bard's work with actors appearing among the audience, pop song-and-dance routines by the Moor, film images projected onto the stage for fast-paced transitions to move the action ahead, a knock-out of a set on a huge rotating stage platform, a generous dollop of nudity involving Othello, Desdemona and Bianca, all culminating in a hot sex orgy deathbed scene. Apparently, the young actor playing the lead is somewhat of a teen idol here, which doesn't hurt the production's popularity among young audiences.

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