In hindsight, I wish I had adjusted the schedule for Germany to include one more day in Hamburg.  My flight was cancelled and rescheduled for London/Heathrow instead of Helsinki as the connecting flight before returning to the States, giving me an extra day. 

I left Copenhagen early to avoid contingencies, which meant more waiting than I’d like.  I also discovered that booking seats, though a little expensive, isn’t such a bad idea considering these trains can fill up quickly and it can be difficult to identify a spare seat, by the time the train leaves.

I found a spare seat next to a German cybersecurity student living in Hamburg who was returning home to Hamburg from a holiday in Copenhagen or somewhere else, I can’t recall where.  We talked about Hamburg’s city attractions, particularly the parks that I would eventually go for a jog – I will not call it a run – north of the St Pauli District called Planten un Blomen.

One interesting opinion this German man noted during our conversation is that he had considered moving to the US after earning his degree once he’d secured (no pun intended) a job there, since he had visited and enjoyed California.  However, he identified that the US had a lack of a social safety net relative to the EU, and told me he didn’t feel it was the best place to raise a family.  I told him I understood and couldn’t argue with that logic.  

Arriving in Hamburg, I found myself in a similar scenario juggling/cross-checking my phone’s GPS and the local transit system to navigate a metropolis.  Going back and forth between your phone and navigating the streets is admittedly embarrassing and makes you feel like you’re sticking out like a sore thumb, but at least I’m not holding a map to be that obvious.

The first ticket terminal for bus tickets had a glitch and I couldn’t translate to English, but I deduced how to purchase single ticket to catch a bus to the hostel I’d selected.  The bus went strangely off course half-way from path my phone’s GPS said it would take, so I decided to walk the remaining distance.  The first thing I noticed about the city of Hamburg is the graffiti and the constant road construction that made running around cumbersome, relative to later-explored central Berlin.  Oslo, Stockholm, and Copenhagen had less of that and made me feel like I was back in the US again in comparison.  This area was packed with various boutiques and small restaurants, particularly for Middle Eastern food.  As such, I consulted with the hostel attendant to recommend a good place for takeout.  My first attempt ordering takeout in German was clumsy, despite requesting some help from locals in line, explaining it was my first day in Deutschland.  I ordered delicious shawarma to make up for the road bumps.

The Hamburg hostel, in contrast to the Bergen one I’d stayed with my parents with, had a more familiar hostel vibe of ones I’ve been in the US with more limited resources, but still a hospitable staff with an interesting assortment of internationals worth conversing.  I met and made conversation with some Brazilian travelers, who apparently were following the goth rock group Evanescence.  The reason I’ve encountered quite a few Latin Americans on my travels in Europe, especially Germany, may coincide with that, according to them, visas to the US are more difficult to obtain for Latin Americans.  According to a Brazilian woman I chatted with after my run, it has been that way even before the first Trump Administration, though the administrations have made it more difficult, nevertheless. 

With my limited time in Hamburg, mostly in what’s known at the Mitte Borough, that evening, I decided to explore the city with a run, but this proved to be a bad idea, with cloudy skies, road construction detours, congested crowds, and my desire to snap pictures at various monuments kept my mind erratic resulting in getting lost and losing my pacing.  I nevertheless made my way to the vaunted St. Pauli’s district, the part of Hamburg I recall John Lennon claiming Hamburg as “Sin City.”  Like Freetown in Copenhagen, I’m sure the experience in this district has changed to a tamer, tourist-friendly atmosphere.  I felt very out of place in my running clothes and camelback pack as this was clearly a part of town to explore with a tour group or your group of friends with your sharpest clothing. 

I made my way back and snapped some photos of the judicial district and found myself exploring the parks north of St Pauli’s.  These parks bring a nice change of contrast to the bustling, graffiti-strewn Hamburg streets, and I strongly recommend exploring these parks for a casual stroll or a picnic.  For a more physically rewarding experience, there’s plenty of people doing athletic activities other than running in the park, as I saw plenty of people doing calisthenics, cross-fit, and other stuff.

One note about most German parks I walked/ran through is that apart from being very beautiful, is how much of a contrast they can create when entering them from the city. 

It is almost as if they are city planners are trying to create an experience of entering a Brother’s Grimm fairy world.  The other interesting thing about the Planten un Blomen park, which also includes the Kleine Wallanlagen and Grosse Wallanlagen parks in particular is that it’s really a network of parks separated by the highway bridges, and they are generally a level below the city level to make their separation from city life even more profound.

Returning to the hostel, I had the option to go out and dare-I-say explore more of St. Pauli’s, even though I don’t drink, but instead I decided to go to bed early with the logic that I could more easily see sights in the morning before I catch my next train to Berlin.  I nevertheless chatted with some of the internationals, including the Brazilians I mentioned before. 

One French fellow really made an impression on me, as he was something of wandering nomad chef.  He had offered me and other patrons of the hostel some mayonnaise French fries, he’d whipped up – it tastes better than it sounds – and went on to explain that he was on a quest to find work as a chef internationally, setting himself up as a kind of French Anthony Bourdain.  He said he was on his way to Madagascar next.  How much of this elderly gentleman’s story was true is up to debate, but he was a character nonetheless, and played the spare piano better than I could.  There was also a guitar which I picked up to practice after being absent from my own guitar for weeks.  Despite my playing it visibly didn’t pick up any ears of those at the hostel, not even the Germans playing billards in the table across from me.

If one goes to Europe, or at least the places I’ve been, I recommend taking advantage of waking up as early as possible to not just avoid the crowds but also to soak up the ambience of the old, classic Europe ascetic absent of the hustle and bustle in the day.  Stockholm before dawn has so far been my most metaphysical experience.

The following morning, I woke up about 10 minutes before 07:00.  Unlike in America, very few businesses are open, even coffee shops until around 10:00.  I found a café for a small breakfast of coffee and a croissant and made my way towards some of the sights I hadn’t seen in Hamburg with much better lighting from my camera than last time. 

Bill and Sam hadn’t travelled to Hamburg as far as I’ve read in Bill’s journals, but nevertheless I wanted to explore another German city besides Berlin, as I figured it would like to see the United States only by visiting NYC and/or Washington DC and not Chicago or Philadelphia or Boston.  There’s also some symbolism in visiting the city of Hamburg, as the war that followed 1936 was particularly violent here in the 40s.  Firebombing from Allied bombers in Hamburg had killed tens of thousand in a night, and the memorial for such a hell is St. Nicholas’s Cathedral pictured below. 

This cathedral strikes a dramatic contrast to St. Michael’s cathedral pictured below this paragraph. 

Though there probably are few Germans left who remember the war, I was prepared to expect quite a bit of memorial sites designed to remember and repent.  I suspect similar memorials in Berlin, as both cities and many other German cities have been transformed due to the war.

On the same note as the war, observe this bunker below.  This World War II era bunker, like a modern castle designed to resist B2 bombers, howitzers, and C4 instead of catapults, battering rams, and bombard cannons has survived the fire-bombing and as one can see from the vegetation has been converted to residential and commercial use.  While I didn’t make the time, since I tried to arrive early to ensure I’d catch my train, I would’ve liked to use the bouldering gym, but I also slightly damaged my toe tripping in the hostel bathroom that morning.

The architecture and styling of Hamburg is not so much what I’ve witnessed in Scandinavia, especially considering that Hamburg benefits and extracts wealth from its ports.  But there are canals that connect the ocean to this mercantile city, not unlike Copenhagen. 

The graffiti isn’t absent on the elegant buildings which showcase German history and pride and controversy.  This statue of Bismarck, for example, has been the target of contrary views, to bring German consciousness to its Colonialism, empire-building, and I’m sure the two world wars caused by the zeal of German political figures.  I haven’t been to Washington DC lately, not since the late 90s, but I couldn’t help but wonder if enough opinions and discussions among my fellow Americans were prompted, say, about the monuments of Thomas Jefferson juxtaposed with American expansionism, slavery, and colonialism he advocated, would that yield graffiti, disclaimers to point out the controversy, and resulting backlash from American conservatives.

Outside the Bismark monument a protest was being assembled for the following afternoon apparently.  So far Hamburg has reminded me of America more than the Scandinavian countries, albeit more uglier aspects of economic and social hiccups, such as homelessness, restless youth culture, more mixed reception from customer service, and of course the graffiti, reminding me of less touristy parts of American metropolises I’ve visited.

Since I was near the City Hall or Rathaus, I decided to drop in even though it was too early for a tour.  As with the Bismarck statute, Germans do feel the need to express atonement for lack of a better word for the imperialism and world wars committed in the name of the relatively new German state/empire from its 1871 roots.  This city hall had a special project/exhibit to recognize Germany’s role in the Scramble of Africa in Namibia for example.  I now wonder if travelling in France or England would also contain similar recognitions and/or signs of atonement for Empire-building, considering their vastly greater role in the Scramble for Africa. 

One reason I included Hamburg, besides the experience of another German city besides the greater Berlin area, and despite it not being in Bill’s journal entries, is to view the stark contrasts of Germany during and after the war.  As I will later outline in the Berlin sections of this travel blog, Germany recognizes its sins of the past left with these examples when it allowed a seemingly strong leader echo the sentiments of Blood and Iron at the expense of the world.  The damage done to this city, executed by many of my fellow Americans’ parents, grandparents, and older ancestors is macabre and sobering.  To imagine how differently the attitude towards ideology, war, and other philosophies were in 1936 from my vantage is profound.  St. Nicholas’s Cathedral is the true testament to breathing in that reality.

If I can recommend any specific last-minute thing to do in Hamburg, as I had limited time myself, it is to go to the observation deck in Stintfang (pictured above).  The harbor on the vast Norderelbe river is a very welcome sight after trudging through countless graffiti-decorated streets and like the park system north of it.  Alter Elbpark, it’s a nice touch of needed nature.

The next sections will be about Berlin, which will take a while to write as I spent more time in this city, and for a brief time Potsdam, than anywhere else on this trip.  I’m writing this back in Spokane, WA, where I live, while nursing jet lag and a small cold.  It’s good to be back, but I genuinely wish that I didn’t have to compromise so much on my travels with the connecting flights.  On the other hand, unlike perhaps Bill and Sam, I get seasick, and spending time on a Norwegian freighter might not have been the most pleasant experience.