Thursday, July 29, 2010

In Hamburg sagt man tschüss.

And just like that, my grand adventures in Deutschland have come to an end. I left my fair city yesterday with all of my worldly possessions in the pouring rain and was nochmal warmly welcomed about four hours later in Detmold, where I've been sleeping, repacking, and savoring my last day of German and Germany with these wonderful family friends. Tomorrow morning I catch an early train to Frankfurt, where I'll be leaving on a jet plane north north north almost to the Arctic circle. Navigating Reykjavik solo with all of my STUFF should be an adventure, but after the first full night of sleep I got last night, I'm feeling prepared enough.

There are still lots of pictures and adventures that I'd like to document (including the three days I'm about to spend in Iceland!), so I'll keep updating until they've all been squeezed out. However, that probably won't be until I make it back onto aMUHrican soil. Until then, here are a couple final and fond memories from the last week.

All year long a group of us had been wanting to rent paddle boats and go toodling around on the Alster. Last Saturday we finally did just that. Propelled forward by Milka, we pedaled our way all the way across the lake to the Binnenalster, which holds my favorite view of the city. The only problem was that, unbeknownst to us, most of the lake was reserved for some sort of rowing competition, meaning we soon got kicked out of the prettier parts. After our pedalers got tired, we retired and found some gourmet hot chocolate somewhere to replace all the calories we'd just burned. Lecker lecker lecker.




On my second to last evening in Hamburg, I spent some time sitting by the Alster by myself before joining others to see the English sneak-preview movie at a cinema nearby. (The sneak movie turned out to be Inception, which was great, especially because we saw it before all other Germans AND Americans. BWAHAha.) The sky couldn't figure out whether it would rather storm or sunset, so what I witnessed was a pretty mixture of both. I'm such a sucker for dramatic skies.




It was a good, quiet time. Very special for my innards. I'm going to miss it so much.

Tuesday, July 27, 2010

It's all happ'nin' at the hahbah.

One of the traditional goals of Hamburgian hooligans, young and old, is to boogie down all through Saturday night on the infamously entertaining Reeperbahn and then go straight to the fish market along the harbor at 5am the next morning. The Hamburger Fischmarkt is like the Sam's Club (or Costco depending on which coast you're from) of farmers markets. People flock there even at the crack of dawn to buy massive quantities of pasta, giant fruit baskets, boxes of boxes of boxes of chocolates, and, of course, fish. Here are a few photos of one particularly chilly morning in early spring, which was not actually preempted by many hours of booze and techno. Well, not on my part, anyway.

Many of the vendors at the aforementioned Markt do their best to continue entertaining those whose Saturday night fever has not yet been quenched. They auction off their goods in the liveliest of spirits and occasionally hurl produce into the crowd. I think this picture was taken just before or after an incident involving flying bananas.

And like at any good German market, every other stand is more than ready to feed you from their bountiful plethora of Fischbrötchen. Pickled herring, anyone?

Although massive quantities of dead fish are always wildly exciting, the time the harbor really takes the spotlight is during the annual Hafengeburtstag -- the weekend-long birthday celebration for the harbor in all of its harbory goodness. During this time, the Elbe disappears under hundreds of hundreds of boats of all sizes and ages, from the cutest little tugboats to retired military submarines to the firework-spewing cruise gargantuans, such as the Queen Elizabeth II, which take up half the river by themselves. It's almost impossible to plow through the crowds of people along the docks who have come to enjoy the parading ships, shanty choruses, open ship tours, and other fun harbor-related activities.


We were checking out this rad eastern European beauty when our attention was drawn to a faux rescue operation, during which a man jumped out of a helicopter into the river and then climbed back up into it. Rad rad rad.

My favorite part, however, and my main reason for coming to sample the festivities on a most dreary spring afternoon, was the Tugboat Ballet. Ladies and Gentlemen, meine Damen und Herren, you have not lived until you have seen tugboats doing pirouettes.

Allow me to explain.

The Tugboat Ballet, or Schlepperballet, is essentially exactly what it sounds like. Loudspeakers set up along the docks blast appropriate Straussian works such as The Blue Danube while tugboats dance around in synchronized spins, sways, and general Boot-y shakings. (Excuse me while I laugh hysterically at my own sleep-deprived wit - das Boot is the German word for boat.) The fire patrol boat played the roll of the beautiful ballerina slash centerpiece as it elegantly sprayed fountains of tutu into the air around it.

And, what would a festival be without kilometer upon kilometer of over-priced rides and beer and leckeres festival foods?


In short: The Hamburgers love their waters, love their harbor, love their festivals, and love celebrating in general, even in the dreariest of weathers.

To conclude, here's moving on up from water to sky. This was the sunset out my kitchen window on the next day.

Monday, July 26, 2010

Insomnia gastromnia.

I can't sleep, so I'll just show off this flourless chocolate almond cake I made a few days ago, courtesy of Julia Child. Probably one of the most decadent things this mouth has yet encountered.

And in its defense, I'm pretty sure the baby slice my stomach gleefully gurgled about three days ago has nothing to do with the fact that I can't keep my eyes closed.

Papers done. Application shenanigans finally up-to-date. Now to continue the drawn-out process of goodbye. But first, goodnight. (Please.)

Friday, July 23, 2010

Grayscale at the Dom.

Hear ye, hear ye!

Let it be known throughout every ear in every land that Margaret hath completed her thecond themester of her junior year of college. Papers = done. JUCHHUUUU!

However, application doohickeys = still looming. Also, packing. I'm leaving Hamburg in five days? Codswallop.

Aber jetzt ist die Zeit für eine kurze Pause.

I just looked through these three-month-old photos for the first time, which just goes to show how updated I am with my German adventurings. The event is the Hamburger Dom, which is the big fair that comes to Hamburg not once, not twice, but three times a year. What amuses me about this title is that "Dom" actually translates into "cathedral," because I guess the first fairs were held in an old cathedral that no longer exists. (Something like that.) They like to brag that it's the largest Volksfest in this corner of the world, which, unlike the Renaissance festival I recently attended, I believe. It's huge. It's free. It's full of expensive loopdy-loops for thrill seekers and Bier, Wurst, and Schmalzkuchen for the gastronomically inclined. It is a feast for the senses and positively rampant with photographic possibilities. Here are a few from various visits.






Monday, July 12, 2010

A quick pause for feathered contortionists.

Quick update: all is well in the Land of Hamburgers. I'll be sure to go into more detail as soon as I'm done pounding out the end-of-semester papers. Until then, I give you: swan yoga.


Tuesday, July 6, 2010

For my favorite Swedish princess.

My gallivanting was put on pause just long enough for some shut-eye and mooching food off my housemates before heading north. As excited as I was to be going to Sweden, I really needed at least a week to digest all my Turkish adventures (and resting my footsies) before boldly going to yet another place where no Margaret (except for Maggie and probably maaaany others) had gone before. But time was of the essence, so off we pounced.

Kassia and I flew up and up out of Germany on a rather nice day and I got great pleasure out of the squares of highlighter fields that speckled the general flatness of that part of the world.


If Joshua were ever to read my blog, he might have appreciated all the offshore wind farms that we flew over.

And then, Sweden. That beautiful beautiful utopia of naturally wonderful wonderousness.

Our royally blue clad Ryanair flight personnel deposited us at one of Stockholm's more remote airports, where we got pretty play money from the ATM and got ourselves on a city-bound bus. It was a lovely, cloudless day.

Well, for the first few minutes, anyway.

The hour-and-a-half-ish-long bus ride turned into an almost 3 hour bus ride when an accident on the highway got us stuck in 7 kilometers worth of traffic jam on toast. The charming and witty bus driver alerted us of the situation and said he would venture with us on another road into "unknown territory." It was great to see more scenery and all, but delay cut out a good chunk of our city exploration time. Once we finally arrived in the city o' islands, we located a friendly tourist map and aimed for Gamla Stan, the isle of the pastel old town. I got a little trigger happy.







I don't usually take pictures of statues, but it's necessary whenever dragon slaying is involved.

I didn't notice this until Kassia pointed it out, but all the soldiers were slurping on ice cream cones. If Swedish military service only involves wandering beautiful places and eating ice cream, sign me up.


Unless a sign about an eco-friendlier car wash, I'm guessing this is to be avoided.

Across from Gamla Stan was a big old schooner that had been converted into a youth hostel. We wanted to go play, but they were pretty disagreeable when it came to letting strangers in. Apparently there's another hostel in a converted jumbo jet at the main airport.

My aim was a little off on this one, but I was racing a crowd of people that were about to crash my shot. And the sun was bright. So there.

Lookit where we didn't pay a visit to the royals! We thought about it, but figured they were busy preparing for the upcoming wedding.



This is what happens where you're in the right place at the right time. I think it's completely fun and whimsical.

We weren't meeting our couch surfing host until late that night, but luckily the sun didn't set until after 11, which gave us ample time to wander.

As it turns out, our host was a wonderful fabulous generous great person with much tea and friendliness. She babysat us all day on Saturday and showed us around her lovely part of the world and the giant forest cemetery.



We cooked a delicious dinner together that night, including American brownies - which we took to her friend's Eurovision Party! Watching all the fantastical and mostly ridiculous performances of pop songs from countries all over the world with a fun group of Swedish folks couldn't have been more more entertaining. What made it even better was when Germany's song contestant won. DEUTSCHLAND!!! (Except that I actually wanted Moldova to win. Here's why. Mostly for the saxophone.)

The pre-dawn was already glowing in the not-so-frozen north as we made our way home around 1am. After just enough sleep and breakfast, we had put an end to our wonderful weekend away by heading back to the airport.

It was a short visit, but thanks to our wonderful host, we learned lots about Sweden and it's culture and people. I could easily see why Lady Maggie is so enraptured with it, and I hope to return and see more of the landscape (with her) in the future. Actually, everyone should go. Yup.

I believe that concludes the big travels for this kid. Well, for the time being anyway. Maybe my next post will be about Germany again. Just maybe.