Hamburg, reprised
It's late at night in a small apartment in Hamburg-Altona. One floor below us is a party going, and the music is pumping, even past 1 am. Very Un-German, somebody is just asking for the cops to bust up their party, but, alas, nobody does. I can hear the party goers shrieking their voices out to Paradise City by Guns n' Roses, the same song that made us jump and shout (and kept many people awake) years ago. The friend I'm staying with would like to pump up some music of his own, get a party war going. Temper, temper, I tell him. That, downstairs, used to be us.
Just before that, we did our usual tour of Hamburg. When you think of it, Hamburg might just have the smallest downtown of any major city you know, were it not for the water. Sure, the plaza in front of the town hall might look big, as does the town hall itself, of course, but how many streets really go through downtown Hamburg? You have the Alter Wall (Old Wall) and Neuer Wall (New Wall) Streets, and the Große Johannisstraße, but what then? Pedestrian zones, that's what. Which is really not such a bad thing. Can you imagine how much that property is worth? In other countries, city officials would be tripping over themselves to sell such valuable real estate, especially so much of it. Heck, they would drain the Inner Alster river, if they could get away with it.
The New Wall Straße, for example, might be life's closest answer to Monopoly's Boardwalk. Gucci, Armani, Louis Vuitton...fat chance you'll ever find a C&A around here. The rent for a month would exceed their profits for a year. Not surprisingly, the street and sidewalk are well maintained, a lot of these stores even have guards at the entrance whose job it is to keep the undesirable middle classers like me and my buddy outside. That's fine, though. I've never considered myself much of a Gucci guy.
We missed the Christmas market by over a week here. In Hamburg's downtown, you can see its charm. In Frankfurt, for example, where the Christmas market was, you have far less space than here in Hamburg. Not to be outdone, of course, would be the Reeperbahn, the Red Light District of Hamburg with a special Christmas market of its own, feaaturing strippers and Jack Daniels concession stands. That sounds about right.
Even with big, beautiful structures like St. Petri in downtown Hamburg, the church is mostly dead in Hamburg. My buddy can recall having attended 20 or so weddings in the past couple of years here without a single church ceremony. It is what it is.
Hamburg has a few narrow canals that will remind you of Amsterdam, they just happen to be more scattered throughout the city. We also take a peak inside the Europa Passage, which is a state-of-the-art shopping mall located right off the Inner Alster Area.
Further away in the Hafen City (the city area down by the port) is another building I have never seen, the now famous and notorious Elbphilharmonie, a glassy concert hall that stands over 100 meters and is supposedly one of the acoustic architectural gems in the world. Originally due to be completed in 2007, the Elbphilharmonie was finally completed at a cost overrun of over 500 million euros. But heck, even in Engineering Wonderland that is Germany, blunders can happen. Right, Berlin and your new airport that is not likely to be completed during our lifetime?
People often like to lament how cities are crumbling around their ears. Not so in Hamburg. Especially with Hafen City, it's a safe bet the city will only grow and prosper, actually be more aesthetically pleasing. And the parties haven't changed, either. The only difference now is that we're the ones who are being kept awake.
Just before that, we did our usual tour of Hamburg. When you think of it, Hamburg might just have the smallest downtown of any major city you know, were it not for the water. Sure, the plaza in front of the town hall might look big, as does the town hall itself, of course, but how many streets really go through downtown Hamburg? You have the Alter Wall (Old Wall) and Neuer Wall (New Wall) Streets, and the Große Johannisstraße, but what then? Pedestrian zones, that's what. Which is really not such a bad thing. Can you imagine how much that property is worth? In other countries, city officials would be tripping over themselves to sell such valuable real estate, especially so much of it. Heck, they would drain the Inner Alster river, if they could get away with it.
The New Wall Straße, for example, might be life's closest answer to Monopoly's Boardwalk. Gucci, Armani, Louis Vuitton...fat chance you'll ever find a C&A around here. The rent for a month would exceed their profits for a year. Not surprisingly, the street and sidewalk are well maintained, a lot of these stores even have guards at the entrance whose job it is to keep the undesirable middle classers like me and my buddy outside. That's fine, though. I've never considered myself much of a Gucci guy.
We missed the Christmas market by over a week here. In Hamburg's downtown, you can see its charm. In Frankfurt, for example, where the Christmas market was, you have far less space than here in Hamburg. Not to be outdone, of course, would be the Reeperbahn, the Red Light District of Hamburg with a special Christmas market of its own, feaaturing strippers and Jack Daniels concession stands. That sounds about right.
Even with big, beautiful structures like St. Petri in downtown Hamburg, the church is mostly dead in Hamburg. My buddy can recall having attended 20 or so weddings in the past couple of years here without a single church ceremony. It is what it is.
Hamburg has a few narrow canals that will remind you of Amsterdam, they just happen to be more scattered throughout the city. We also take a peak inside the Europa Passage, which is a state-of-the-art shopping mall located right off the Inner Alster Area.
Further away in the Hafen City (the city area down by the port) is another building I have never seen, the now famous and notorious Elbphilharmonie, a glassy concert hall that stands over 100 meters and is supposedly one of the acoustic architectural gems in the world. Originally due to be completed in 2007, the Elbphilharmonie was finally completed at a cost overrun of over 500 million euros. But heck, even in Engineering Wonderland that is Germany, blunders can happen. Right, Berlin and your new airport that is not likely to be completed during our lifetime?
People often like to lament how cities are crumbling around their ears. Not so in Hamburg. Especially with Hafen City, it's a safe bet the city will only grow and prosper, actually be more aesthetically pleasing. And the parties haven't changed, either. The only difference now is that we're the ones who are being kept awake.
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