Hamburg

(Not only am I getting worse at remembering to write, I am also getting bad about posting what I have written. This Hamburg bit for example is two weekends ago.)

This past weekend we made the trip to Hamburg, and though it meant a difficult Monday (and Tuesday), it was well worth it. The weekend started on Friday night when we visited the Imtech Arena and watched Hamburg win an important home game against Bayer Leverkusen. We have seen a few games this year but this was our first Bundesliga game and it was a whole new level, it surpassed all of our expectations.

We had heard of currywurst before this trip and though we were skeptical about what is simply a sausage in curry sauce, we tried it for the first time and I would have it again. Sometimes I think things taste better when you eat them outside, we had this experience in Munich at the Christmas market eating our way through the streets and the currywurst gave me that familiar feeling. Another highlight was the Fish Market on Sunday morning (which is much more than just fish) but for us it was also breakfast, your choice from a wide variety of fish on a bun. I had herring to start (how Danish of me) while Gus ordered smoked salmon (lox) and Jesse and Leanne ordered the same fish, which we later learned was mackerel. Gus and Leanne switched part way through and the mackerel was so good I got myself one too. Next time (I will be heading back with my Dad in May when we go take in the Hamburg vs. Bayern game) I want to try the smoked eel and I have done my homework, I will now recognize the word for eel though I can’t remember it without seeing it. I read somewhere that it is a good one and the eel salesman at another stall was entertaining enough (despite the fact that we couldn’t understand him) that I want to try the eel, maybe I’ll bring some home.

Hamburg is a working city, a busy port and this makes for a lot of water and we enjoyed the canals and the river views. We have recently come to accept that we will not make it to Amsterdam so we saw the waterways of Hamburg as something of a consolation. We also paid a brief visit to Hamburg’s red light district – Reeperbahn – but Leanne and I seem to be past the age (or maybe we’re just boring) where such neighbourhoods hold any allure, the boys were wide eyed and amused by the drunks unable to open the taxi doors at 9:30 in the morning and the sex shops advertising creative attire. We had a coffee and then hurried through the pee stink subway station to the trains to whisk us away to another area of town before we checked out and headed back to the ‘routine’ of our daily lives in Ringsted.