Wednesday 30 July 2014

Ich bin ein HAMBURGER(in).

Hello everyone!

I'm here in the huge, crazy, busy city that is Hamburg and I've been here for about 10 days now, though it feels like a month. In brief: I'm happy, haven't been run over looking the wrong way when crossing the street (always a looming threat for me) and so far, so good!

Arriving in the city and having the lovely Diana waiting for me at arrivals set my trip off to a very good start! We headed straight to my new flat, which was much better than expected, if a bit boy-y. I quickly set about putting up all the pictures and postcards and trying to make my room feel like my own.

My new room.  (Paintings not mine)

Including roof terrace straight from my room!

Spot the Welsh flag and the postcards/pictures I talked about in one of my recent posts.

Erm, the half naked woman was definitely NOT my addition but I'm scared to taking it down and marking the wall, so I guess I will just have to get used to it xD


Kitchen! (Blinds aren't broken I just tie them funnily to try and get some light in). If anyone can explain to me how to get blinds to stay put at the top I would be very grateful.

Bathroom: spot the duck!

Anyway, I'm really comfortable and happy here. Apart from the kids in the apartment above. Are children always that loud?



A few highlights (or lowlights as the case may be) from my first 10 days in Hamburg:

Bike Hunting
As some of you will know, I'm of the mini persuasion, and standing at just over 5ft tall this has always posed a problem with bicycles. I will be needing a bike to get to work every day, so tracking one down was a top priority: after discovering I don't really fit on adult bikes, I found a "teenager" bike for sale for €30 in the small ads, rang up the woman and, after being told they would be there all evening, I set off into the city. Unfortunately, I had underestimated how ridiculously big Hamburg is (in comparison with Southampton, anyway) and having travelled as far as I could on the u-bahn and, stupidly forgetting to see if there was a bus I could take (there was) I set off walking the last bit, which was essentially just 1 street.

But what a street! It took 45 mins to walk down it. In that time I could have walked nearly the length of Trier, no word of a lie. Anyway, 2 hours after leaving my flat I finally arrived at the house, red in the face, dehydrated and with very little idea of where I was in the city. Luckily the bike worked and wasn't too big for my little legs so I bought it and then, er, set off pedalling in what I hoped was the vague direction of my flat.

My bike! Very old fashioned, no gears, back pedal brakes (not as terrifying as I thought) and it would be completely useless in hilly Wales but for €30 it more than fulfills my requirements.

Luckily my inner compass seemed to be vaguely working and I found my way to Berliner Tor, which is one of the nearest U-bahn stations to me. Phew.

Very obvious lesson learnt: Hamburg is big!

But I have a bike now, and yesterday I even fixed it with my own hands (rather oily afterwards) ready to start the two-wheeled commute next week.

Making Friends

One word: couchsurfing. I've talked about it before but more in a it-offers-you-a-good-place-to-sleep-and-a-nice-evening fashion. This time I've discovered it's a really good way to make friends in a new city, as they meet up every week in a bar and by definition the people there - whether they're from the city or just passing through - are open, interesting, sociable people.

It was pretty terrifying at the meetings just randomly looking around, picking a table/picnic mat of strangers who looked particularly friendly and asking "darf ich platz nehmen?" (can i take a seat?). Luckily, CouchSurfing has "invasions" where people from far away come to particular cities on particular weekends during the summer, and last weekend it was Hamburg! That meant more social events than I could actually handle and I met a lot of locals too.

I went to the Fischmarkt too, which is so amazing it deserves a post of its own!

Readjusting to German Life

This is both positive and negative, but mostly positive. There are lots of aspects to German life that I'd forgotten about, and so, thrown back into this society, I am constantly being reminded of them.

Firstly, I'd forgotten how German people can be simultaneously so kind yet so grumpy. Examples of kindness include:

  • A man who owned a car parts shop (nothing to do with bicycles) spending 15 mins helping me to find the tools I need to fix my bike seat.
  • A woman who owned a bakery giving me twice as many rolls as I'd ordered for the same price because "I looked like I needed it" (it had been a long day)
  • Many people helping, or offering to help, me carry my bike up and down stairs in u-bahn stations.
Examples of grumpiness include:

  • If you stand in a German person's way for more than 2 seconds you get grumbled at. Often they continue to grumble at you well after you have sprung out of their way - apologising profusely - and you can hear their dulcet germanic tones following you down the street. 
  • No patience! I was standing in a queue to register at the citizens office and they would regularly call out asking if anyone in the queue had an appointment. If so you were allowed to jump the queue. I didn't, so when at the front of the queue and they called out again I hesitated to check no one behind me was coming forward. The oma behind me decided this was unacceptable and started jabbing me sharply between the shoulderblades and shouting at me to go forward. A German person would have put her in her place but alas, the overly-polite Britishness hasn't left me quite yet and I couldn't even quite bring myself to glare at her. The shame.
That said, most of this probably comes more from living in a big city: the people in Trier were occasionally a little like the description above but to a lesser extent, so in this case I'll blame it on big-city life and not the Germans themselves.

I have so much more to write about but this'll do for now - I'm going to Körperwelt (like a scientific/art exhibiton about the human body) and then meeting a fellow intern this evening.

One final note: after registering at the Einwohneramt yesterday, I can now officially say ICH BIN EINE HAMBURGERIN. Woo! I actually really hope I stay one for a long time.

Tschüß!





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