A stint in Germany's second city

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We arrive in Hamburg after a very comfortable and easy three-hour bus ride, quite refreshing actually when one's used to crazily crammed death traps that rattle along pot-holed roads for 15-32 hours towards a destination where you are greeted by scams, touts, backstabbers and all the other usual tourist trail-flotsam and jetsam.
In our case, we make our way to our new hosts' place, which turns out to be a spacious old appartment directly out of a 70's Woody Allen-film. The ceilings are high, the floors wooden, and the location central, no wonder its tenants Christine and Johnny have a perpetual smile on their faces. It could also derive from their jobs: Christine is a yoga teacher and Johnny a jack-of-all-trades; primarily woodwork artist and mover of rental cars within Germany, but he seems to have his fingers in a lot of different pies. Or it could be their nutrition; they follow a mostly macrobiotic vegan/vegetarian diet, and there is so much food in the house that upon beholding it I immediately feel a pang of envy. Just their collection of oils must be worth €100, and everything on the shelves, in the cupboards and fridge seems to be organic wholefood. They enjoy the privilege of buying most things wholesale, which makes it a lot easier on the budget, but still, as Christine puts it: "We don't understand why people always try to save money by buying cheap groceries. For us, it's the most natural thing in the world to spend our money on quality food, and we do spend most of our money on it indeed."
They are in their early fourties and seem to be perfectly happy with how their life has turned out; a good enough reason to ask questions like "How?" and "Why?".

As we wander about the centre, everything feels so much more different to Berlin, albeit how 'tis not easy to grasp. It's something about the air, the wind, the water, maybe it's the fact that Hamburg has always been an important trading port, it feels as though there's more money here, and things might be less prone to change. Take the town hall, for instance: why would Hamburg need a town hall with more rooms than the Buckingham Palace? Why such a grandiose, marvellous, humongous building? Most parts of Berlin scream history, on a world scale, that is. Hamburg is different in that; history - yes, but more as a means to its own end. While Berlin is busy making world history, Hamburg is busy making money. In the harbour, there's constant toiling, constructing, moving, navigating, negotiating - 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. It has always been like that and it will stay as long as the world keeps turning.

Back in the flat, we have dinner, conceived through a combination of Dunja and all the best vegan ingredients you can think of. She cooks spicy seitan goulash with onions, hijiki seaweed, udon noodles and salad, and we greatly enjoy this veritable feast.

The following morning, we go by car to the Elbstrand, which is a bit out of the city. Personally, I wouldn't want to swim in the river, seeing that the heavy machinery at the adjacent harbour is noisily working and potentially polluting the water. While sitting on the sand, we see a group of twens approaching and taking a seat not far from us. More than half of them are obese, and they all have that special look on their faces, a blend of self-righteousness and frustration about a repressed sexuality bestowed upon themselves that makes me conclude that they MUST be Christians, of the Catholic variety. To please Jesus, they organized this little trip to the beach, bringing food with them to fuel their way back, as treading in the sand is strenuous, and most of them are already sweating and breathing heavily. They carry the bowls of food containers with two hands like offerings to a hungry, jealous God. As soon as they sit down, they start eating voraciously, and one of the comparably skinny guys, who seems to be the mouthpiece of the gang, addresses a hopelessly overweight blonde chick: "So, Frau Poltmann, jetzt zeigen Sie uns doch mal den Kuchen, den Sie mitgebracht haben!", which makes me crack up with laughter, for it both reveals the petty bourgeois and serves as a covert sexual reference. In reaction to this, Frau Poltmann takes out her goods and proudly presents them to the admiring and lecherously lip-licking audience.

The rest of the day, we roam around the centre of the city, taking a glimpse at the pompous Rathaus, disapproving of the noisy construction site that is to be the new posh quarter 'Hafencity' and applauding the historic Speicherstadt, the old warehouse district with its distinct architecture and many beautiful bridges.
We pass the posh shopping streets near town hall, a majestic Russian Orthodox church and finally arrive at the fringe of alternative Hamburg, a street lined with cafés, organic supermarkets, hippie shops, piercing and tattoo shops and record stores. We are in Schanzenviertel now, which is probably most well-known for its violent May Day clashes between Leftist demonstrators and the police. This year, when we pass the area around the infamous squat 'Rote Flora', there's already some stuff burning on the street, and armoured policemen with big batons and shields are lined up, facing rioters and troublemakers, most of whom are definitely not politically motivated, but just there to stir up some shit. As we're not very interested in the goings-on or keen on getting caught between the lines, we quickly move on.

After leaving Christine and Johnny's place, we meet our new host Midsch, who lives in Altona, the neighbourhood next to Schanzenviertel. He's an old punk in his fourties, and over the years he has not only amassed a huge book and record collection, but also considerable experience in alternative living and defying the forces that want to kill your energy and eat your soul, and thus turns out to be a highly interesting and pleasant conversationalist.

We spend the rest of our time in Hamburg visiting a couple of museums, including the uninspired yet overpriced Haus der Photographie and the really good Kunsthalle, currently housing a worthwhile Pop Art exhibition, which cures me of anything Andy Warhol and Keith Haring, and also sit around in cafés a lot to escape the rain and the cold. I guess I didn't do anything that typical; didn't go on a boat ride, didn't go to the fish market, no pictures of me drunk on Reeperbahn, didn't throw bottles at angry riot cops. Still, Hamburg always makes for a pleasant little trip, despite the crappy weather.
On my last night I walk into a crowd watching a publicly broadcast game of football in the streets. Local heroes FC St. Pauli are competing against some Bavarian team, and every goal is celebrated enthusiastically. In the end St. Pauli gets the win and with this collects enough points to be promoted to First Division, which prompts half the city to party in the streets drunk with joy. I don't care all that much about it, and go to bed early, as the next day marks my farewell to Hamburg, and a triumphant return to Berlin.

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