Official stuff in Hamburg

Kind of a short post. First, some amusing words:

German/Danish (English):
das Buch/Bog  (the book)
die Buche/Bøg  (beech tree)
der Buchstabe/bogstavet(?) (alphabetic letter, literally 'beech'+ 'stick'(der Stab))

Oh, I think I didn't emphasize this before.
Copenhagen = København (roughly: Coop-in-HOWn, where 'hown' rhymes with 'clown'. You can listen here. ). You can also hear Bog('boo') and Bøg(~Bo), here.


Yesterday, I got up early, managed to just grab a bus and just grab a train to put me in to my appointment with the 'Hamburg Welcome Center' (read: foreigners office for foreigners they like admitting). It went smoothly, and included getting my index fingers fingerprinted. I then took a walk across town to the Finanzamt (Finance Office) in my area (Altona), since it was nice out, and I was feeling a bit cheap (transit's pricey).

From the start of my walk, a view of Hamburg, towards the Alster:

From Germany 2012-2013

I also took a walk towards the Altona Bahnhof (train &bus station), which advertises itself as a big shopping hub. It actually is. The other night I went grocery shopping and ended up wandering around this giant store (probably close in size to a Target), and was a little dazed by all of the choices (maybe reminiscent of Moscow on the Hudson).

Anyway, found all kinds of cool little stores in a small radius of the bahnhof, on either side.

Here's a view from near where I turned around and started walking back:

From Germany 2012-2013

And some rowhouses nearer to where I'm staying:

From Germany 2012-2013

They're nice and brightly colored, but different sort of construction from Copenhagen.
Walking around, there are little head-sized signs on buildings, saying what year they were built, or what year destroyed and rebuilt. Interesting. I've seen ones that were (re)built in the 90's as well as the 50's so far.

Today, I went into the department, got (and cleaned up a bit) my office, adjacent to the professor I'll be working with (who is out of town the entire month) and that was the main accomplishment of the day. The weather was drear, turning to steady rain from late afternoon onwards.

Continuing in my study of 'Homo Sapiens Europeans', German/Hamburg-oddities:

There are no apartment numbers, just house numbers and names. That is, if you moved apartments within the same apartment building, your address would not change. The buzzer and mailboxes are labeled only by name. Interesting.

For the people who are European, and don't know what this is in contrast with --- in the states, the apartments have numbers or letters. E.g. 1234 Sesame Street, Apartment C.  I suppose the apartments here must have *some* kind of number/description attached to it, maybe only on the papers of ownership.

Oh, right. Addresses.  In the States, you say number, then street. Here, it's reversed. Similar for postal code. Also, I don't think the Bundesland (state/region) is used. So,
German-style address: ''Groß Vogel, Sesam Straße 1234, 56789 ImaginaryTown''
American-style address: ''Big Bird, 1234 Sesame St., ImaginaryTown, ImaginaryState 56789''

Here's a Hamburg-specific oddity. Pink trash bags. Not the pinkness, but that they're just sort of lumped around willy-nilly along...bus routes? If I understood what was written on them correctly. Observe:

From Germany 2012-2013