Hamburgers in Hamburg

It's been over a week since I last posted, and I've kept busy. I've been so busy, in fact, that I'm really exhausted now, but I'll write about my past week, perhaps with slightly less detail than usual.

On Wednesday (the 4th of July), after work, Rui and I caught a train to Hamburg (which is 40 minutes away by train, not counting the commute by bus to the train station). We met up with some other RISE students in Stadtpark for a 4th of July/Canada Day (there were actually probably more Canadians there) BBQ. We took an s-bahn from the train station, but the directions I wrote down weren't the best (we got off a stop too early), so we had to walk over a mile to the park, but we eventually found the other RISE students (and some RISE-wannabes, one actually didn't get into the program but independently organized an internship with the same supervisor he wanted to do RISE with). One of the other RISE interns in Hamburg is also an engineering student at Pitt.

I brought some bratwursts, and the Hamburg interns brought a tiny disposable grill, steak, beer, and "American-style hamburgers" (which were awful). I can now say I've eaten hamburgers in Hamburg, but those American-style hamburgers were probably the worst I've ever had. German grocery stores seem to like to sell really cheap products labelled as American-style. They often sell really cheap white bread under names like "America's Finest." Even chocolate-chip cookies are sold as American. Despite the bad burgers, it was nice meeting all of the RISE interns in the nearby city of Hamburg, and it was nice to celebrate the 4th of July (and Canada Day) with a group of other North Americans. The brief visit to Hamburg was also a teaser for the following weekend.

On Saturday morning Rui and I again travelled to Hamburg to see more of Germany's second biggest city. We picked a good day to go, because this weekend was the Schlager Move festival, a huge festival for Schlager music, a type of pop music associated with the '60s. People at the festival wore colorful costumes, which seemed to blend hippie and disco culture, consisting of bright neon wigs or afro wigs, sunglasses, and various disco-style suits. The festival was near the Reeperbahn, which is Hamburg's red light district. Although risque, the Reeperbahn is the most vibrant part of the city, and perhaps the most popular destination in the city. While most stores in Germany do not stay open very late at night, the Reeperbahn is lined with bars and clubs that stay open all night long, and the area attracts so many people at night that even the grocery store is open 24 hours. This is also the area where The Beatles used to play before they became big, when they were only 17-18 years old. During the early afternoon we explored the Reeperbahn area before watching the Schlager Move festival for a while (which was larger than we imagined, it looked like there were at least three simultaneous parades).

After leaving the festival we walked to the city's botanical gardens. We got caught in a thunder storm and took shelter under a bridge by the gardens for a while, but then the sun came out again, and we saw lots of flowers covered with raindrops. We found really cool games at the gardens: one where you had to use a mounted water gun to push a ball suspended a string into a basket (kind of like basketball), and another one that was like soccer (or I guess water polo), and the water guns had to be used to push a ball in the pool into a goal.

After the botanical gardens, we took a subway back to our hostel, which was not far from the Reeperbahn area. We tried to find dinner near the Reeperbahn, but the area mostly only had bars that seemed to only serve drinks, and fast food type places, and we already had döner for lunch. We decided to take another subway to the downtown area near the central train station, where we settled on a Chinese restaurant.

After dinner, we headed back to the Reeperbahn, and met up with Taylor, another American RISE student, and Jakob, a RISE student who is originally from Hamburg (but moved to the U.S., making him eligible for RISE). The four of us visited several bars and clubs in the area. Of course Germans nightlife doesn't really start until 1 AM, so it took a while for the clubs to fill up, but the area was still crowded because of the Schlager Move festival. Because Europeans tend to party so late, a popular thing to do in Hamburg is stay up all night at the bars and clubs and then head to the city's famous fish market, which opens from 5-9 AM on Sundays. It seems that the market is only able to thrive at such an early hour from people that have been up all night long, because few people would be able to get up in time before it closes at 9 AM. Some people have suggested not even bothering to get a hostel in Hamburg, since it is so common to simply stay up all night long, but I assumed we would not have the energy to do this. However, I was right, the vibrant community really does make it pretty easy to stay up all night long, and the fish market is a great way to end the night. If you're concerned about safety, I did not drink too heavily so that I could make sure my friends and I stayed safe and aware, and the area really did seem very safe, simply filled with a lot of people wanting to have a good time. We had fun dancing in the club all night before having our morning fish sandwich. After the fish market, Rui and I headed back to the hostel to catch some sleep. We had to check out by 11 AM, and we probably checked out at about 10:59 AM after getting as much sleep as we could. We then headed back to Lübeck because we were still too tired to spend Sunday continuing to explore the city. Despite not spending Sunday afternoon in the city, we still got to see most of the city on Wednesday and Saturday (plus the day I arrived in Germany), and I think staying up all night in Hamburg was a great experience. You can see my pictures from Hamburg here.

Yesterday in Lübeck I met four Russian medical students who moved into my building. They are some of the friendliest people I have met, but only one of them speaks English. The other three speak German, and one was making a serious effort to pick up English last night despite not studying it, which really impressed me. By then end of the night we were communicating pretty well despite the language barrier. I met them when they were eating dinner in the kitchen, and they offered me some of their extra food. Later we played some card games, which were ideal for people not speaking the same language, and was a lot of fun. One used a special set of cards and involved matching similar looking shapes and racing to grab a wooden totem, which was fun and easy to learn without everyone speaking the same language. The other game was a variant of B.S. using a regular set of cards, and the Russians were able to count in English, which made it easy for us (although we probably should have tried German), although some of the Russians kept getting confused with the words king, queen, and jack. Overall, it was a fun night hanging out with these new friends. On one hand, I was getting used to the fact that everyone in this building spoke English, and most also didn't speak German. But I also had very few friends here (most people who live here are quite a bit older, they're mostly all PhD and MD students, and many of them already have families), so it's nice that there are some really friendly people living here now, despite the language barrier.

Today my lab took a day off for some cross-country cycling, archery, and a barbecue. A week ago I finally went ahead and purchased a bike, but it's pretty embarrassing. It's pink, only has one gear, and the back brake works by pedaling backwards; there's only a handle brake for the front wheel. Despite this bike being terrible, virtually everyone owns one here, and it's nice finally having one as it makes it a lot easier to get around. However, my bike was not designed for the trip we took today. We biked through farmland and woods to a lake south of Lübeck. The trails we biked on really required a mountain bike, and mine is about as far from a mountain bike as it gets. However, my bike and I somehow survived the trip (although I had to push it through some muddy trails), and we eventually ended up at an archery place near campus. Here we had an archery lesson (most people had never done it before), and at first, despite not doing it in about 4 years or so, I was pretty good. However, the people giving the lessons then told me I was doing a few things wrong, and I seemed to get worse after that. The fact that we were drinking beer probably didn't help so much either. At around 5:00 we finally had the barbecue that I thought was going to be for lunch. I bought some bratwurst to grill, but most people brought steak or chicken. They sell pre-marinated chicken here that looks really good, but I expected bratwurst to be normal barbecue food here. I also brought some chips, but I learned that apparently bringing chips to a barbecue is an American thing. While I couldn't take any pictures while I was on the bike, I took a few pictures during the day, and added them to my Lübeck album here.


Now I'm looking forward to Friday, when I'll be leaving after work to head to Copenhagen for the weekend with Rui, Akshay, and Sam. I found out another RISE intern, Vishal, will be going too, and we'll be meeting him in the train station when we get to Copenhagen.