H(a)-H(a)-Hamburg*

Most people come to Hamburg to see:

• Musicals (for example Lion King, Rocky, Phantom of the Opera)
• Or huge container ships in the harbor
• Or historic hanseatic architecture
• Other people (aka us) come to see smilies…graffitied onto..everything J Or forks. Or really, really, really random mannequins.

Okay, we didn’t expressly come in order to see aforementioned things, but we certainly did see them. And laugh at them. And much more.

It all (pretty much) began with my taking advantage of a vehicular vacuum ** caused be an injured-person-transportation-platform (aka ambulance). We now have a GPS (navigation system) and we’re getting g used to how she rolls (besides literally on RRRaks 4 wheels…) We definitely have cause to chuckle at her direction to follow certain stretches of road for “a very long time”… (or “sehr lange fahren”) :)

Anyway in this specific instance we hadn’t been quite sure if that turn had been our turn and then –yup. Darn. It had been our turn. Now what?

We were on our way to the small company hired by the Indian consulate in order to turn in F’s visa application. But seeing as we’d missed our turn and were now headed in the complete opposite direction, we pulled over and F got out to walk. It was then my job to eventually turn to around and find a parking spot.

*enter aforementioned ambulance* He was driving in another direction but it held up the traffic so instead of having to drive for 5 minutes in the wrong direction before truning around, I pulled a nice U-y :)

Then I found a parking spot in the street next to said destination building. At first there were 2 portable signs saying we actually couldn’t park there for the day, but as I sat there waiting in the car a man came and rolled the 1^st sign away. Yippee! I waited briefly to make sure he came back for the second sign and he did. And I even showed up at our destination about 30 seconds before F :)

Passport photos--check. Form filled out--check. Bank statements--check. letter of invitation from the Indian university--check. Check, check, check.

After that we were free to go exploring. And as we said, we saw smilies) I’d already noticed them on everything at the main train station)

A fork (saved for a rainy day?)

And really, really, really random mannaquins

-  eyelashes sliding down cheeks
-  with glasses falling off noses

-  cardboard animal heads sticking to children
-  shoes perching on stilts

-  tiny straw hats resting on necks

But here in Hamburg it went even “on beyond zebra” (yay, Dr. Suess!) There were trashcans with big aspirations

"When I grow up, I'm going to be a dumpster" ...er...F says it actually means he'll be a "shipping container" ah well.

And other trash cans in neat little ecclesiastical fences

A cool decorative bike (in case Hamburg’s hipster cred was ever in doubt)

Yes, it is suspended in a shopping mall

Swapped legs

A monkey staying dry

An optomitrist trying to camouflage as a violinist (and FAILING. miserably. Just look at that bow hold!?!?!?)

Water fowl congregations

My literary aspirations

Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, 1729-1781 played a big part in the German Enlightenment

A less-than-cheery-maid (okay, in German that means “star maid”, but it still looked funny)

An abandoned mantra that is clearly not post-modern***

Oh and one of those actual tourist destinations—look! The city hall (and our noses!)

--bonus points if you can help us determine what architectural style it is!

Isn't he cute?

We saw Roman arches, pointy Gothic-esque things, very Baroque ornamentation, Greek pediments (okay..that I had to look up :) ), but yeah… (thanks Music Civ). Anyway, our pick is Neo-old-stuff (yes that would mean new-old-stuff…) And I'm sure that's the technical term :)

We visited this funky-looking church and got another spontaneous organ concert :) (the organ player was enjoying those low notes—I felt like I could see the sound waves reverberating through the chapel)

We also visited the historic Speicher Stadt (warehouse district)****, bought some ice cream the more economical way (i.e. 4 single servings at the supermarket—so no cone but four flavors!)

We also ate at a Chinese restaurant and were promised that we could “now pick up anything!” with the chopsticks. We would have photographically demonstrated our newly-acquired powers BUT the camera died. Ah well. Pick up ALL the things!

Here was another one of those literary figures..but I'm not quite sure I remember who it was...Oh--Heinrich Heine

*H(a)-H(a)-Hamburg. On German license plates the first 1-3 letters are reserved for the county. Depending on size (and therefore relative importance) and legal status each county has a unique letter combination. 3 cities however are special: In recognition of their long history in the hanseaticleaque, the following cities have “Hanseatic” as part of their official name. Thus Lübeck is not just Lübeck but “The hanseatic city of Lübeck”. Similarly Bremen is “The hanseatic city of Bremen” and Hamburg, being extra special, is “the free and hanseatic city of Hamburg.” All three cities have an extra H in their license plate abbreviation (HL, HB, HH)

That leaves  Hannover, although it is smaller than Hamburg, with the single-letter designation of H and the city of Heidelberg with the strange abbreviation of HD instead of the more intuitive HB..cuz that’s already taken by Bremen. Silly Bremen.

And now for the short explanation of what hanseatic means. These cities who arein the hanseatic league have special trading conditions. Now, you may be wondering if this a permanent status once reached. Once a hanseatic, always a hanseatic? Nope. You can get kicked out if you harbor pirates. (Like one fair city we know *cough, cough* Kiel…yup, we’ve got a cool city J )

Super cool door! It's metal..but it looks like fabric!

**As cool as a car-sized vacuum cleaner big enough to clean up the Sahara would be, this is not what we had. Neither was it a vacuum cleaner for a car. Rather it was an empty space created by the passing of the ambulance (albeit in a different direction) that allowed me to pull a U-turn.

***"Just be you" is NOT post-modern, because one of the basic tenants of post-modern-theory is that who "you" are is created/determined by your culture, environment, etc. So there's no "just" about it! And there's no "essential self".

****The warehouse district turned out be a district where special rules applied--i.e. Hamburg, as a hanseatic city, claimed the right to maintain a "your (tax) rules don't apply here" part of the city. Goods could be brought on land and processed without having to pay import taxes. Then, in their processed form, they could be shipped elsewhere without having to pay export taxes or the processed goods could then be imported into Germany with normal import taxes.