Sunday, June 11, 2006
Rolf went out of his way to drop me off bang smack in the middle of the Reeperbahn, Hamburg's equivalent of a red light district, at around 11pm. Thank you, Rolf! As it was the opening weekend of the world cup, I assumed that everything would be fully booked or extremely expensive. I imagined I would spend a night awake at some football party, sleep for a few hours in a park the next morning, before heading off somewhere else...
Well, this is what actually happened: I didn't even have the chance to move off the spot where Rolf dropped me off before the Hamburgers Alke and Inken, and Mexican Gerardo came over to ask me if I needed any help. I didn't, really, but I still said I did, according to tradition. The four of us found a place that sold beer, which wouldn't have been too difficult to find on my own! Right next to where we sat down there was a big fluorenscent sign saying "hotel", so I thought I'd ask if I could leave my backpack there for the night. Five minutes later I came out, astounded, with a key in my hand, 22 euros poorer. Not bad during the world cup! Of course, the room smelt of piss, and as the temperature soared to 30-something over the next few days, it even smelt of warm piss (no air conditioning). If you like the smell of warm piss, I'd highly recommend the Alt Hamburg Hotel on the Hans-something Platz.
The multiplicity of existence... if nothing else, my hotel room did have a funky mirror.
I liked it so much that I stayed there for three nights, and I even got the room for 20 euros the second and third night! Apart from the smell, the reason for the price was apparently that this is one of the hotels the prostitutes are using.
Still, I couldn't help feeling disappointed. Warm piss, prostitutes, no toilet or shower, no air conditioning, loud music till very very late... but the sheets were almost clean! I mean... Hamburg - is that the worst you can do for 20 euros???!!!
Then I met the Hamburgers Sandy Pounder, left, and McRaffaela (mother from Germany, father from Laos):
The next day I made my way to the enourmous outdoor screen to see 'straaalia taking on Japan. (Can't believe the brave Aussies in the end got knocked out by diving Italian whimps...)
Australia 3 - Japan 1.
And I went for a walk around the centre...
The Rathaus
In the evening I met the Hamburger Big Nils With Bacon. I needed a partner for a game of "table football" in a bar... you know the one where you spin your sticks to shoot!
Actually, that sounds like the chorus of an imaginary heavy metal song... "Spin / SPIN (loud backing vocals) / Spin your sticks to shoot / Oh yeeeahh spin your sticks / SPIN / Spin your sticks to shoooooooot (falsetto)" And so on.
Anyway, I chose the right guy; Nils was a champ. He scored all the goals with the defensive players, all I had to was to not get in his way. Which I was quite good at. In Hamburg this is actually a serious game, not just a miniature golf type of reserved-for-holidays-only game.
Later on we met the lovely Hamburger Nancy Whopper, and the three of us went down to the harbour to roll in the grass and to experience the amazing light of the sunrise. After an overdose of nature & steel, we followed the river to what was apparently the birthplace, cradle and home of Hamburgerian.... er... some sort of hardcore electronic music. A place so genuine it looked like a squat, every square inch of the walls was covered in staples, writing, tags, grafitti, torn off posters etc. For the first time on this trip I'd left my camera in my room, chained to a bed post... Shame.
But my three days in Hamburg were really all about football, the whole experience was quite delightful. People were extremely friendly, the only ones (that I could see) who were out to cause trouble were Neanderthal-Brits, as usual. Even the police seemed relaxed - at times they spontaneously and genuinely joined in the celebrations.
More than 50000 people saw the first Brazil game, vs Croatia, on the BIG screen. Brazil won, the party was insane. All it took for people to go mental was a guy with a drum. That's when I realised that we are all secretly Brasillian somewhere deep inside, we are just suppressing it.
I've become a pappar-arsy! Ok, credit where credit's due: "Pappar-arsy" was once used in a headline in The Sun, The Newspaper That Is The Pride Of Britian.
The party is starting, the guy in the blue shirt won't know what hit him.
Beer from above, samba all around.
The Angolans crashed the Brasillian party.
Now imagine the film... A photo can't quite do justice to the DD swinging motion!
PS! Whenever you see a photo in the widescreen format, it's lifted off a film. A normal 4:3ish photo, like the one of Sandy and Raffaela, above, is a "deliberate photo".
On getting free internet access
Libraries are worth a try, but I've had mixed experiences. Few computers, unreasonable time limits, sloooow speeds.
Internet cafes can be bargained with if you only need a minute to check emails, but they are often very expensive. In some cities you're in the merde if you actually need a computer (for example for the downloading and transferring of files between various USB-enabled devices), not just a shell with some non-standard crappy internet browser.
So here's a great tip: Go to a fairly big hotel chain, not too luxurious, but still very service minded. Smile and explain how you're totally lost and confused, how you missed your flight or train or ferry, how you're desperate to find out about something important, how you could really need some help, "please please please I'll mention you on my website", etc. Most hotels have at least one computer they let their guests use for free. If no one's using it, they'd be pretty cold hearted to turn you down. As long as you're nice to the geniune guests and let them use it if they want to, you're sorted. In a hotel in Hamburg I stayed on a computer for five hours (!), no questions asked. For free. I just wish I could remember the name of the hotel...
Upwards and onwards!
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