I know myself. God, how well I know myself. This will most likely remain the only blog entry I’ll manage to make no matter what I tell myself.
BUT! Arriving in a new city is always suspenseful and exciting and also a tad lonely, since you generally don’t know a single soul well enough yet to hang out with or call up.
Also Day 1, Day of Arrival, is usually either very hectic or pretty chillaxed since you don’t have anything to do but arrive and settle into your new place (or temporary place, as in my case).
Which means plenty of time to collect first impressions and pass the time with some documentative blog writing.
I think I just made that word up. “Documentative” doesn’t exist, does it?
So here we are. yaaay.
Living in Hamburg Lesson #1:
When you walk around, be aware of the red stripes on the side walks. Those are Bike lanes. In any other place I’ve been to so far bike lanes tend to be on the car side of the street or are entirely separate lanes. Not so in Hamburg. They are literally on the side walk. And bikers WILL make use of their absolute right to ride on there & run you over without warning or scruples if you stand around on their territory for too long (or walk onto it at the wrong moment without looking). They apparently don’t care for warning bells or any kind of warning signs for unsuspecting pedestrians and are all in all silent stealth assassins just waiting to happen. And there’s A LOT of them. Had a few close calls today. Apparently I learn slowly.
Living in Hamburg Lesson #2:
I sort of knew this already, since its common knowledge for German speakers but German German is NOT the same as Austrian German. This was evident today when I went to go eat at a lovely little place in the Schanzenviertel called “Bullerei” (which is very hipster but very comfy and they were playing blues. Always a good sign.) There I spotted the first few “mystery items” on the menu: “Secreto vom Iberico” - does not sound German, but I have NO clue what that is, “Tartar Stulle” - “Tartar” is obvious, and I have heard the word “Stulle” before but do not ask me what the hell it means, and something entitled “Unser Pulpo” - errrrrr… our what now???
This will no doubt be an ongoing linguistic adventure. It now occurs to me I should have enquired after the mystery items. Massive failed opportunity. Ah well, I might eat there again. It’s really comfy and close.
I’m pretty knackered to be honest. Nothing new either though, considering I never manage to get to bed at a decent time the day before I travel for widely varying reasons.
It’s pretty frickin freezing right now, but I do love that when I arrived, Hamburg greeted me with blazing sunshine and decent warmth. <3
Charls, the hostess of the Air BnB I organised myself for the first month until I found myself a more permanent dwelling, greeted me warmly and showed me around before hopping off to catch a plane to Paris. I already love her. She’s from Toronto, and although that’s literally on the other side of the country from Vancouver, having a Canadian hostess gives me all sorts of warm and fuzzy lovey dovey feelings. :D
When I first arrived in front of the apartment building I was a bit apprehensive because from the outside it looks… a bit rundown and there’s graffiti everywhere in this area (and not the pretty kind). The front door is an ugly shade of nondescript brown plastered with stickers and tags and yeah.. well.. doesn’t look very inviting.
But after dragging my 23kg suitcase up two musty smelling flights of scary but kinda awesome old wooden twisty staircases, I was greeted upon entering the apartment by a lovely safe haven filled with a quirky collection of rustic old wooden furniture, stucco ceilings, glass chandeliers, a comfy looking bed and a glass door in my room opening up to a nicely sized balcony looking out into a backyard of sorts with a huge tree that had sunlight filtering through its leaves and brush my warmth starving cheeks. Including a table, chairs and ashtray. Smokers paradise. Someone in a different apartment evidently hung wind chimes on their balcony, you can’t really hear the busy street out front and the whole place is an oasis of calm and sweetness. Purrrfect.
Obviously I immediately plunked down in the sunshine to smoke a much needed cigarette before I even considered touching my bursting suitcase. I was rewarded a few minutes into my sunbathing with a brief visit of one of the only birds apart from pigeons, crows and magpies I am able to recognise on sight because it has a special meaning to me: An “Eichelhäher”.
The Eichelhäher, apparently simply called “Jay” or “Eurasian Jay” in English, is an unassuming yet gorgeous bird of a lovely shade of brown with blue streaks in it wings. Unfortunately it was gone too quickly for me to snap a pic, but wait a sec, let me steal an image from google. There you go:
Oh, did I mention the perfectly functioning free wifi access that has a reach to ACROSS THE FRICKIN STREET? I was walking back from my first exploratory walk of the Schanzenviertel and obviously not knowing the area well yet I was about to walk straight past my place on the opposite side of the street when my phone scared the bejeezus out of me by vibrating with a Facebook message. Took me a good confusing minute to come back to planet earth from my dreams of “free wifi all over the city” and realise I was just in front of the apartment. But on the OTHER SIDE OF THE MASSIVE DOUBLE LANE STREET. Remember too, the place is up two flights of stairs in an old european high ceilinged building. Talk about good connection.
Anyway, “Eichelhäher” is the name of a Robin Hood type character in one of my all time favourite book trilogies. They are called Tintenherz, Tintenblut and Tintentod (Inkheart, Inkspell and Inkdeath in english) written by the amazing Cornelia Funke. Don’t be fooled by the fact that they are considered childrens books, there’s plenty of suspensful, scary shit and death happening and it’s beautifully written. I’m still angry Hollywood butchered the motion picture adaptation of Inkheart to a degree where they didn’t even get to film the second and third books. ah, well.
In the English version they call him “Bluejay” as I just found out. I like it. It’s a totally different bird but no matter.
I think I will like it here. It’s probably stupid but I’m taking the sunshine, the fact that out of all the air BnBs I picked one from a Canadian without knowing, and the Jay that means so much to me when it’s just another bird to most anyone else, as good omens that I will be happy here and good things are waiting for me. But I can't help it. <3
Check out a few pics from my walk:
I really like this city too. I may not have seen much of it yet but I like the “feel” of it, if that makes any sense to you. I think people who have travelled a lot or moved city a couple of times know what I mean.
Every country, every city, every town, place and every house and apartment, every continent even, have a different kind of “feel” to them. It’s like a unique and specific perfume. And like a perfume, it has different layers of different intensities and strength. For example, you will only know the “feel” of being in Europe versus being in North America versus being in Africa, if you’ve been there before and it’s most noticeable when you have JUST come from one larger land area to another. The further away the most noticeable of course, because the perfume only gradually changes as one place bleeds into the other "feeling wise". But within those areas every country and every city feels different too. Paris and Vienna and Berlin and London all “feel” totally different but there’s still the underlying note of “being in Europe” (even though I know, the British don’t consider themselves European. Sorry to break it to you my friends but you are part of this continent, so suck it up. I love you.)
And Vienna and Salzburg feel different although you still have the “europeanness” but also this “Austrianness” to it too.
It’s like an energy signature. Or, I don’t know.. maybe I’m not making much sense but I can’t explain why for example I’ve loved London from the moment I set foot in it but didn’t like Manchester at all from the moment I landed. And I hadn’t even seen anything of the city but the airport yet! Same with Berlin. Arrived at the train station: didn’t like it. not one bit. And I hadn’t seen anything yet. But my feelings about those cities never changed. It can be more complex than simple like and dislike too: when I arrived in Tokyo with one of my besties Bianca for the first time I immediately was in love but I knew I could never live there although I’d previously entertained the whimsical idea of maybe moving for a year or so some day. All I’d seen at that point was Narita airport and the train. But I knew. Like I knew, landing in Vancouver, that I would be happy there and that I would love it.
Ah, but I’m rambling like crazy here.
Point being, I like Hamburg. I hope she likes me too. I’m looking forward to getting to know her better. I have a good feeling about this coming year. Please don’t prove me wrong Universe. That would suck royally of you and be pretty embarrassing for me.
Peace and Love,
xxx
Jill
Ps: I think I need to procure myself a bike. This is clearly a bike city. They’re everywhere. Trying to kill you with stealth mode. And also getting places. And looking like they've just been thrown out of a window...
I mean seriously. WHY?!
PPS: One of the house mates is currently listening to the Imperial March from Star Wars. Yes, I think I am going to like it here.
