Einleben/Settling In

This is the question I have been getting the most recently on this side of the Atlantic, "Und? Hast du dich in Hamburg schon gut eingelebt?" (So, how have you been settling in in Hamburg) I imagine if the people I see everyday at work are asking me about this, then you all are probably desperate for information^^
As far as Hamburg is concerned, things are working out really well. I have been getting to know the other people in my WG, continuing the recent trend of cooking dinner with Adrian and Caro, except now we always watch an episode of Firefly while we are eating. (My job as cultural ambassador has its perks, like getting to re-watch some of my favorite TV shows^^) Actually, one of the really cool things we have in the WG is that we always watch Tatort* together on Sunday nights. Not just the current members of the WG (which apparently the british refer to as a "flat-share" because that is what every German insists on calling it when they speak English.) but lots of former roommates, and friends of the WG. It's like a little mini homecoming when people who haven't lived there for a few years show up, and it's also a nice way to keep in touch with the people who eventually move out. In this case, it's Henrike and Stefan who are moving out, both of whom I have enjoyed spending time with the past 2 weeks, and I'm sad they are moving out so soon.
We had a nice litte Going Away party for those two on Thursday night. We made Flammkuchen, the Alsatian "pizzas" that I may have cooked for some of you already, but this time with the appropriate wine called Federweiser. It was a bittersweet evening, but somehow we managed to keep from crying, though it often came up in conversation.
While we're on the subject of parties, Friday and Saturday night were both part of the yearly Reeperbahn Festival here in Hamburg. Like Bourbon St. in New Orleans, most of the bars and clubs along the Reeperbahn** have live bands. During the Reeperbahn festival though, more well known bands are booked, and you get entrance to every concert with a festival or day-ticket. I went out both nights, but since there weren't any bands playing I felt particularly inclined to see, I decided not to pay the 25€ per day. On Friday night, I met up with some people I met on couchsurfing.com, a German girl, and her two Australian guests. We went to one of the bars that was hosting free concerts as part of the Reeperbahn Festival and listened to a few interesting acts, including one guy, Dan Costello, from New York. At the same bar I happened to run into Jessamyn and Lucy, two of the other American ETAs here in Hamburg, and we spent the rest of the night with them touring the Reeperbahn. I guess you could call it bar-hopping, but most of the places were so full that we couldn't have gotten to the bar even if we had wanted to...
When they say there's no rest for the weary, they are serious. This was especially the case for me the next day, as I somehow woke up at exactly the same time as Adrian and Caro, and we decided that it was time to make pancakes. Despite my protestations, Adrian decided we had no need of a recipe, and that just throwing eggs, flour, milk, and sugar in a bowl would suffice. It did, but the pancakes were far too flat for my taste. By German standards, however, they were relatively thick, so it looks like we got the best of both worlds. Having fortified ourselves with a hearty breakfast, we were ready then when Henrike asked us to help her with moving out. So, relatively tired upon Henrike's departure, I was considering taking a nap when I realized I had a voicemail from Suzanne (another American ETA). She explained that a fellow ETA, Andrew, was visiting from Bad Segeberg that night and was looking for a place to stay. Ever eager to help, I of course offered to host him, and asked what they were planning on doing (knowing full well what the answer would be...) "Oh, I guess we'll tour the Reeperbahn a bit, see what's going on ... we'll meet at midnight at the S-bahn station." Knowing that this was going to be a long night, I treated myself to that nap, and after navigating the perils of Schienenersatzverkehr** I made it to Central Station in time to meet Andrew and head off to join Suzanne and Katie. As it was the night before, everything was really jam-packed due to the Reeperbahn Festival, but we eventually found our way to a place that wasn't too crowded and had a decent live band. As the night (or rather the morning) dragged on, we soon realized that it was time to end the adventures in true Hamburg style, by going to the St. Pauli/Altonaer Fischmarkt (unfortunately only in German, but be sure to check out the WikiCommons album at the bottom of the page) when it opens around 5:30am. This we did, despite the fact that the temperature had dropped to about 40°F. We didn't stay terribly long, but it was neat to see all the different stands, the fisherman unloading their catches, all getting ready for the flood of people who would soon creep out of bed, or stagger out of bars to experience this weekly ritual.
As you might imagine, the next day was rather uneventful for Andrew and me, but we did make an amazing discovery, a restaurant near my apartment called "Qrito". It's what would happen if California Tortilla and Chipotlé had a son, and sent him off to Hamburg to make his fortune. As the only Americans in the restaurant, we were of course the only ones who endeavoured to eat our gargantuan burritos with our hands, which I am happy to say we were quite succesful at, despite the stares of silverware-wielding German customers. So now none of you have an excuse not to visit me here in Hamburg; even here you can get your Chipotlé fix whenever you need it^^
There's plenty more to say, but I want to get this post out there before I start getting nasty-grams from y'all exhorting me to update my blog! So I'll leave you now with a quote from the musical The Scarlet Pimpernel, "More to come, more to come! I said 'brief', not infinitesimal'!!"

* Tatort has always been one of my favorite German shows (although it's something more like "Masterpiece Theatre" or "Mystery!", than a TV-show really) and with well over 700 episodes it's something you can pretty much always watch. I actually wrote one of my final papers in German about Tatort, which I would be happy to share with anyone willing to take on the challenge of reading it^^
** I hesitate to post links to other people's descriptions of St. Pauli and the Reeperbahn, because they invariably make it out to be much worse than it really is. If you have questions, concerns, etc. please comment on this post, and maybe we can start up a good discussion about it.
*** 25c. word for "Trains aren't running, you have to take the bus"

New Album, "Hamburg By Boat"

For those of you without Facebook accounts, here is a link to my album of pictures taken from the #62 Ferry.
Hamburg by Boat

Teufelskreis

I don't update this blog as often as I would like to. When I don't update in a while, I feel like I need to write about everything that has happened since the last time I post. It takes me a really long time to write about everything, usually resulting in new stuff having happened before I finish writing about older stuff. This only ends in two ways: incredibly long posts that try to make up for lost time, or me not posting about things as they come, because I haven't yet written about older stuff. These all lead back to me not posting the way I would like to. A vicious circle, or Teufelskreis in German, hence the title of this post.
Because of this, dear readers, I am going to apologize now, and only now, for the periods in which there will be relatively few posts, as I know they will come. There will be gaps in this record of my life here, gaps that will be filled with both exciting and mundane things, but gaps that I will make no attempt to fill. I do this not to hide things from you, but merely to free myself from the responsibility I feel to constantly and completely report on my life here and the guilt, which comes from not doing so and, in turn, fuels my inability to report even incompletely. This may not make much sense to anyone but me, but that sort of comes with the territory with blogs, doesn't it?
So, time for me to say auf Wiedersehen, and for you all to look forward to new, guilt-free blog posts coming down the pike!

New City, New Title^^

Hi all, sorry for the long silence, but things have been really busy around here recently. As you read in the last post, I found a place to live in Hamburg, and through some pretty interesting coincidences! A few weeks ago I had several appointments in Hamburg, looking at various apartments. The night before a particularly busy day, I got an email from one particularly interesting group of roommates, informing me I had been selected as one of the top 10 on their list, and should come over the next evening to introduce myself. I hadn't even remembered writing this particular group, but I added them to my calendar. I was a bit skeptical as I looked over at the bright orange house right on the train-tracks, but as I walked in and was greeted by all the roommates, offered a spot on the comfy couch, and was handed a beer, my doubts started to melt away. To make a long story short, despite having a nice night with this group, I wasn't offered the room that was becoming available. I was saddened by this, as I had enjoyed the company of these folks a lot, but continued my search, as I had been doing after every disappointing appointment (diss-appointment??).
After our orientation conference in Altenberg (near Cologne)I returned to Bad Oldesloe growing increasingly desperate for a place to live, not because things were bad in Oldesloe, but because I didn't want to get into a comfortable routine at school, only to have this interrupted by moving once I finally found a place. Anywho, on the very same night I got back from Altenberg, I got a call from Maria, the main renter of the apartment. She explained to me that she and her husband were moving to New York for 6 months, and the girl who was going to sub-let their apartment had just canceled on them, just three days before they were going to leave! They asked me if I would be interested in the big, fully furnished room with the group that I had wanted to live with anyway. I jumped at the chance, and moved in last week, fully half a month earlier than I would have been able to had I been chosen to take the smaller, non-furnished room! Pictures are on Facebook, here (viewable even w/o a Facebook account)
The first night in the new place was a great start, got my stuff all unpacked and set the room up a bit. Went shopping with two of my new roommates, Adrian and Caro, getting the blitzkrieg tour of the neighborhood while we were at it. Afterwards we cooked dinner (spaghetti bolognese!) and, thanks to the internet, watched the new film "District 9." I decided to make it an early night, knowing that 6am would be coming along very soon, and having never done the HH-OD** commute during business hours before. The commute really isn't bad at all, I never have to wait more than 4 minutes for the S-bahn at Dammtor, and when I get to the Central Station, it's just up and over 1-2 tracks. The travel goes by even faster when you happen to have a good book along, in my case Tom Clancy's Without Remorse which I highly recommend, even to people who don't usually like Clancy and his penchant for lengthy and highly-detailed descriptions.

** HH=Hamburg, OD=Bad Oldesloe (KH=Bad Kreuznach) These are the abbreviations used on German license plates, but have become common in daily speech as well. I will probably use them from time to time here on the blog or in emails, so consider yourselves warned!

Success!!

I have a room in Hamburg! Details to come!