I made it out to Hamburg last Thursday after what was a great stay in Berlin. I really enjoyed hanging out with Miriam and Tobi, and all the friends of theirs that I met in the short time I was there. It was far more fascinating being in Berlin than I could have ever imagined. To cap off the visit on my last night in Berlin, Miriam, Tobi, his sister Andrea and I walked over to a local bar called “Tabou”. This was an authentic Tiki Bar in a nondescript Berlin neighborhood, with no tourists to be seen. Interestingly, it´s run by an American named April, who also hails from California. I was most impressed by her fine collection of tikis and other Hawaiian and Polynesian art. I haven´t seen a finer collection outside of Hawaii. The other thing that impressed me was their drink menu, which included the authentic Painkiller! Which was my drink of choice during my time in the Virgin Islands. It was a most enjoyable night. My only regret is that I forgot my camera so we couldn´t pictures of us drinking down our super-sized (and super-charged) concoctions. Each in its own gaudy tropical tiki style mug or coconut shell. Maybe if I go back to Berlin on my way back from Croatia, I can get a pic of the place then.
I started off my time in Hamburg getting to my hotel, which was a bit away from the city center where I came in with the train, thanks Orbitz! The metro got me there pretty painlessly, and I checked into Panorama Inn in a part of Hamburg called Billstedt. It’s a bit suburban in relation to the City center, but I got a really nice room for only 35 euros a night (about 40 bucks). It was a pretty good deal, despite the somewhat out of the way location.
I got a hold of Maike, my new Hamburg friend who I met while I was in London along with her friend Juliane. We were supposed to meet that evening after she got off work, but she ended up sending me a message that she had to stay until 11pm, so she wouldn´t be able to meet me that night. She felt pretty bad about it, but I told her no worries.
She told me about some places to go that night, so I hopped the metro into town and went to the part of Hamburg called the Reeperbahn. It’s fairly close to the harbor, and is considered the place where there are lots of pubs, bars, and such. The place is also… ahem… vice-laden. In fact, on my walk to the Reeperbahn, I had to literally fight my way through a live gauntlet of hookers. Who were all standing along side the sidewalk, in almost precise distance from each other. As you walk by each of them, they step into the middle of the sidewalk and grab your arm, or try to pull you towards them. I had to go into my kung fu stance a couple of times to ward em off. Wild stuff.
Despite all the sleaze, the hookers, the drunks passed out everywhere (LOTS of them) and the crackheads in this part of town, it still managed to have its own pulse. It also held a valuable piece of history.
Ok music history lesson time:
See, the Reeperbahn is where the Beatles got their chops in their early days. They got their first real paying gigs playing at clubs on the Reeperbahn as the “Silver Beatles”. The club where they garnered all their local glory was the Star Club, which is where a Thai “Lauf Haus” parlor now stands. It burned down in the 80’s. They played 5 nights a week at the Star Club for months at a time, building their sound and identity along the way. In fact, they replaced their drummer Pete Best with Ringo Starr while they were jamming in Hamburg, and they lost fellow founding bandmate Stu Sutcliffe while in Hamburg. He instead decided to stay behind in Hamburg and live with a local photographer, Astrid Kircherr, and become an artist. He died in Hamburg of a brain aneuryism not long after that. So you can pretty much thank the Reeperbahn in Hamburg for nurturing the Beatles into the super musical force that they later became. Ok, history lesson over.
I did finally find the spot where all the pubs and bars are. Because it was midweek, it was fairly quiet. But there were a couple of places that were rather hopping. I found an Irish Pub called Molly Malone’s that was jamming pretty good. They had a DJ playing retro and oldies, so it was an interesting mix, and everybody was dancing. It turned out to be a really friendly crowd, and I ended up staying until about 3:30AM. The place was still going nuts when I left with no sign of letting up, but I needed to head back and that was going to take a nightbus.
On my walk back to the bus station, I got hit with another hooker gauntlet. It was really late at night, and I guess business hasn’t been too good, so they were extra-aggressive if there is such a thing. While I was trudging through the street, I caught up with a bunch of American football players who play for the Hamburg Blue Devils in the European league. They obviously are out at the Reeperbahn all the time, and know the game pretty good. We talked as we walked along the street, and they were telling me about what they’re doing there, where they were from, and so on.
Considering I was the smallest guy in this group, they kept me more or less in the middle, so I was effectively “blocked” from the hooker gauntlet. The girls could not get to me no matter what they did. It was cool, I had bodyguards. Once we got through the gauntlet, we hung out by the bus station and talked for a bit. They offered to comp me for their upcoming game against Berlin that weekend, but I told them I was going to still be in Hamburg then. But I guess I could have hopped a train to check out the game and still been back in Hamburg later that evening. Oh well, now I think about it!
The next day, I toured the harbor. They have a tall ship museum, the “Rickmer Rickmers”, which was a typical steel-hulled freighter square rigger that was in service in the late 1800’s until it was seized by the Portuguese during WWI. They then put the ship into service for a short time, and then mothballed it for decades. The ship was given back to Germany and then meticulously restored by a maritime society in Hamburg. And it stands in Hamburg’s Landgsbrucke harbor as a museum to Germany’s glory days in merchant shipping. The rest of the day, I spent checking other parts of Hamburg’s waterfront, and the Elbe River.
Maike is on the temporary staff for a major international bicycle race that´s happening here in Hamburg. So she has been slammed with that all week, so we wouldn´t be able to see each other very much. We did manage to meet out in town the next night, and we went over to a local bar that had a great special on caipirinhas. Not only were they cheap, but they were doubles. So needless to say, we had a few of those. I met a few of Maike´s friends there, including Miezi, Mirka, and Asja. The place was slammed packed with partying hamburgers (hey that´s what they call themselves). We stayed there for awhile but then Maike had to leave on account of the fact that she had to be up at 5AM the next day, poor thing. Mirka and Miezi hung out for a little while, then they had to leave as well. So again, I was forced to continue on through Hamburg on my own.
So I stuck to what I knew and took a metro back to the Reeperbahn and hit Molly Malone’s again. This time, however, I was wise enough to get off at a different metro stop so I didn’t have to walk through the live hooker gauntlet again. All I had to deal with was a small gaggle of hookers who were practically daisy chained across the street entrance where the pub was located. That was easy compared to what I had to deal with the night before.
Good crowd at Molly’s again, stayed there until about 3 AM. Had a great time. Even saw a couple of the football player guys, and had a lot fun talking to them about life in Germany playing American football.
The big bicycle race was brewing up, so things started getting really crazy in town. There were tens of thousands of people in town for it. This was a race that was on the same competitive level as the Tour De France. Poor Maike was going nuts with her work at the race, so I didn’t get to see her that much over the next couple of days. We met up during one of her breaks, but that was about it.
The weather the next couple of days were iffy, so there wasn’t too much to do outside. So I would find a nice cafe somewhere, and just hang out and read up on Hamburg. I usually hung out at a very eclectic neighborhood that had a strange mix of Turkish restaurants, shops, and bars. Again, lots of drunks walking around at all hours of the day. Especially by the train station. It was a tad disturbing seeing all of the people who just basically drink themselves through each day. Not that I haven’t seen this kind of thing in other cities I’ve been to, just not at this level.
Oh, and then I got kicked out of my hotel. They got fully booked, and they said I either had to pay 120 euros a night, or give up the room. Well, I said screw that, so I checked out, and spent a good half day back in town looking for a place. Of course, with my luck, there was nothing really available because everything was booked because of the bike race. I did manage to find a room at a very seedy pension in the Turkish neighborhood where I had been hanging out, but it was only 25 euros a night, and I was only going to be there 2 nights, so I made do with it. It turned out to be not too bad.
On Saturday night, I met up with Miezi and Mirka at another part of town called the Schanzenstrasse. Maike couldn’t meet us because of work. This was another district that had lots of cafes, restaurants and places to dance. We all met up at a nice bar, and had a few drinks. We then walked over to another bar that was absolutely packed with people, and very very hot. But they were playing a good mix of music, so we hung out for awhile. We then went over to the Reeperbahn and met up with some more friends of theirs over there. From there we went to a cool club called the China Club, and that’s where ended up staying until 5:30AM or so. It was strange when we left, because the sun was coming out, but there were still thousands of people partying in the streets, not necessarily going home or anywhere. Many of the bars and clubs were still open too. I haven’t seen anything like that since I was in Spain or Greece years ago.
Sunday was mainly recuperation day for me. I slept in until very late, then went online to make arrangements for my next stop in Prague. I didn’t do all that much, except go to the train station to make my train res for the next day.
I said my goodbyes to Maike, and her friends via phone since I was left by train early Monday afternoon. I got to Prague a few hours later, and didn’t take long to get situated. And what a city this is, but that’s a whole other posting…
Comment from: mietsie [Visitor]
I guess you’ve enjoyed those ‘hamburgers’, 🙂
Good on you!
Keep it up!
mietsie