Freitag (Friday)
My adventure to Deutschland began at Victoria Coach Station in central London.
I'd decided to take a half day off work so I would have enough time to get to Stansted airport for my 8pm flight. I'd read a lot of blogs and forums saying what nightmare it can be to get to Stansted and to fly with a nice cheap airline like Ryan Air...
I hopped on the "Express" Stanstead coach with about 60 seconds to spare after purchasing my ticket from across the road, about 60 seconds previously. The driver gave us a very quick safety brief and then said that the journey would be about 100 minutes - roughly... I laughed out loud as I had a sneaky suspicion that it would be much longer. Unfortunately nobody else seemed share the same humour as me.
We arrived at Stansted 2 hours and 20 minutes later, only 40 minutes later than predicted - not too bad. If it hadn't been for the road works on the way up we might have been sort of close to on time maybe...
Anyway, the check-in counter was about 2 hours shorter than what I had expected. It literally took 10 minutes of lining up. Woohoo! No more stress. There's nothing worse than being late for a plane and Ryan Air is super strict about checking in less than 40 minutes before the flight takes off - i.e. they tell you "too bad, so sad".
So, I had £6 on me and some time to spare. I decided to bite some time, literally, with some £2.50 sandwiches and track down one of my Kiwi (New Zealander for those unfamiliar with the term...) friends stalking me at the airport. Actually, she was on her way to Bremin, about 2 hours south of Hamburg so it was nice to have someone to hang out with at the airport.
I arrived at Lübeck airport around 10:30 local time - my first steps on the continent of Europe! Woohoo! A small step for mankind, a giant leap to a new culture for me.
I progressed through customs, got a cool stamp to prove I've been to Germany, collected my bags and stepped out to the waiting area to re-unite with my good friend Jaana (pronounced Yahna), and her awesome big heart melting smile. Jaana and I had both been exchange students in California back in 2004 (yes, another blog I'll try and finish one day!). We'd kept in contact over the past couple of years and now finally we were catching up in person again :)
We hopped into Jaana's car and drove to Hamburg, about 1 hour drive from Lübeck airport. As an added bonus we got to drive along the Autobahn! The plan was to stay with her step brother, Ingma (yes Jaana, I remembered!) and his girlfriend Claudia (pronounced Cloud-i-ya).
We arrived at Ingma and Claudia's house about 11:30pm and had a chat (he speaks fluent English) and a few beers... and said G'day to my first German Kaatze (cat). I think my mum would have been impressed as she's a cat lover. Anyway, the poor cat probably had no idea what I was saying to it as it's probably only heard German it's whole life.
Jaana with a Deutsch kaatze
Bed time was around 3am local time - silly me forgot to change my watch and thought it was only 2am - woops!
Samstag (Saturday)
Jaana and I drove to the centre of Hamburg for some breakfast and a day of exploring. Jaana actually lives about 1.5 hours from Hamburg in a place named Flensburg so it was a good chance for her to tour around as well.
We started off by having breakfast in a German pub - a traditional European breakfast platter consisting of fruits, cheeses, sliced meats and pastries. It was quite nice actually and quite different to a standard English or Australian breakfast.
We spent the rest of the afternoon walking around the bay in Hamburg which was really quite beautiful and relaxing.
We also ventured along the canals to the port of Hamburg. Jaana told me that Hamburg has more canals than Venice! Pretty cool!
At the port of Hamburg (one of the busiest ports in Europe), to our luck, their were three large passenger ships leaving the port together with a mass of people and some people singing German sea shanty songs.
The parade of ships also brought out many other boats honking their horns, a couple of boats spraying water and a few people waving to random people on the ships from the footpath. It's amazing that humans can be so friendly sometimes yet so completely opposite at other times...
The evening began back at Ingma and Claudia's house with the assembling of a recently bought BBQ.
After a little readjustment, we had a successful barbecue ready for some traditional German meats... and a few beers - even I had a short stint with the tongs (OK, so the photo was posed but we can always pretend that I cook an awesome German BBQ!)
We sat and talked and ate sausages, pork, some chicken thingy (Jaana can you please email the name of the meat that I ate) and steak!!!! It had been almost 2 months since I'd eaten a decent steak and I'm glad I found a good one in Germany.
After the eating we had some compulsory guitar playing from me, courtesy of Claudia's guitar.
Around 12:30, Jaana decided that we should get ready to go out. Holy moly! I hadn't realise it was so late! Woops! I was supposed to meet up with 2 other friends from Hamburg who had stayed with me in Sydney last year.
We went to a couple of places with Ingma and Claudia and then Jaana and I caught a train to the famous Reeperbahn - home of adult entertainment including a lane where only males are allowed to walk down and all night pubs and night clubs.
The place was absoutely packed with people. There was an additional excitement in the air because Hamburg had earnt it's right to play in the Europen Football (Soccer) Cup and locals were going crazy - randomly chanting the football team's song really really loudly.
Jaana and I went to a couple of pubs and had a few beers until around 5:00am. I even ordered some beers in German! (OK so "ein bier" is probably one of the easiest phrases to say but anyway...it was exciting for me)
The scene when we got outside was quite unusual for me - it looked like the finalie of the Sydney Mardi Gras - broken bottles, rubbish, food and drunk people everywhere - and sunshine?! I thought it was quite funny. Everyone seemed quite well behaved - even though most were totally under the weather and still had a bottle of bier or two in their hands.
On the way home Jaana and I bought a Durum - like an Australian kebab but much nicer with yoghurt-mint sauce and a nice tasting wrap. I think, dare I say it, these might actually be healthy?
The night ended around 6:30am after a short train and cab ride back to Ingma and Claudia's house.
Samstag (Sunday)
The day began pretty late - around 1:30pm in fact! Woops! Well, I think the sleep in was well deserved considering the big day before and the fact that I'd jam packed my head with plenty of new things - especially the many many new German words, phrases and language rules...
Jaana, Ingma and I went to a lovely Biergarten for "breakfast" named Roxy's. It was really really pretty. I managed to order myself "ein Wiener Schnitzel mit Hünchen und ein grosse Cola" (a wiener schnitzel with chicken and a large coke). BTW, anybody who has never spoken German who can pronounce Hünchen correctly will receive a free pint of your choice when you get to London. I even received a "sehr gut" from Ingma and Jaana on my excellent food ordering skills.
After an extremely scrumpscious meal I stepped up to the challenge of asking if we could pay - "kürnen fir bitte tsallen?". The waitress seemed to know what I was getting at so I was pretty happy about that.
The rest of the afternoon included wandering around Hamburg, meeting one of Jaana's friend's Jenni and watching people feeding the swans on the bank of the canal. A lovely relaxing way to spend the weekend!
Eventually the time came when we had to return to Lübeck airport. Jaana drove me back along the Autobahn. She was averaging around 130 km/h which is a safe slow speed whilst BMW's flew past us at well over 200 km/h. It was pretty awe enspiring but I think to be honest I preferred to be in Jaana's car - unless I was driving of course. Mum, never, ever let me behind the wheel of a car on the Autobahn, I'd probably set a few land speed records but never actually make it back home alive...
The plane flight home (hmmm, am I actually calling London home now?) was fairly normal until I hit Stansted. I had initally expected that the airport would be empty and that I'd be home around 1am. Nope! The airport was jam packed with people and it took around 15 minutes before the luggage even showed up in the carousel. Plus, there was a massive queue at Customs for EU citizens. Luckily I'm still an Aussie alien and get to go through the "Others" queue.
The coach ride back to Victoria Coach Station was much quicker than on Friday, however I still had the joy of catching a night bus back to Tooting Broadway station and a 10 minute walk to home.
I eventually got to bed around 2:30 on Montag morgen with a 7:30 wake up to look forward to and back to work - no rest for the wicked!
Over all Hamburg was a really really beautiful, charming and relaxing city. If you ever get the chance go and have a look and it's only a couple of hours drive from Denmark. The people seemed quite friendly and relaxed and the food was extremely tasty.
It was a great opportunity to see my close friend Jaana again and to spend some time with a German family. A special thanks goes out to Claudia and Ingma for their hospitality and to Jaana for organising a place to stay, for being my tour guide, for being a great German teacher and for being a wundebar freunde!
Points of Interest
I found out whilst talking to Ingma and Jaana that Germany has not been allowed to fly their flag openly since 1945. It is obviously some fear left over from the remnants of the Second World War of Germany ever having any self pride or ever gaining power in the world. It has only been since the Football World Cup last year that it has been socially acceptable to fly the flag. Ingma informed me that if you had a flag outside your house previously your neighbours would look at you as if you are doing something wrong. But, luckily, all that is slowly changing and Germany is slowly losing the stigma it's been carrying for 60 years.
Jaana and I holding the German flagOn a lighter note, it seems that around 99% of taxis in Hamburg are Mercedez Benz. I went past a taxi rank and saw around 15 Mercedez, all painted a cream colour, lined up together - as taxis! Pretty crazy considering that in Australia those vehicles would be worth well over $1 million!
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