Rosona'sTravelogue: June 2013, 1st week -- playing host in Hamburg

[Man kann eine deutsche Version hier finden]

I've decided to start travel-blogging in both languages, writing the German version first and then writing an English version. If you'd prefer to read the German (or just look at it or something), you can find the general German-version-blog here and the `version' of this particular post here.

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This is mainly about the visit of a friend of mine, J. But, before that, a little about a street festival around the corner from where I live (Eppendorferlandstraßenfest).

EPPENDORFERLANDSTRAßENFEST (1st-2nd of June)

"The 32nd Eppendorfer Landstraßenfest wass on the 1st and 2nd of June. Music, culture and culinary "(stuff) as well as the beloved flea market draw in 250,000 visitors to one of the most beloved street festivals in Hamburg"

I thought the street festival was quite nice. The flea market porion was a good half of the actual street which was blocked off, about 4 or 6 lanes/rows deep. I bought a danish cashmere-silk sweater which is quite lovely (and the only thing I own with yellow in it).

The other half had little stalls, two stages of music and a lot of things to eat. We ate something arabic one time and another time some delicious "Spanferkel" (slow-roasted-on-a-spit young/suckling pig). Sehr lecker! (very tasty!) At the end, there was a "fire show" done by a woman who danced with lots of things you could set on fire, including a hula hoop with knobs sticking out at regular interval (which were set ablaze, rather than the whole hoop).

Eppendorferlandstraßenfest

Eppendorferlandstraßenfest: Flammlachs!

Serving as ``host" in Hamburg:

die ALSTER und die ELBE(04.June)

A while ago, my friend J. said that she needed a reason to finally apply for her passport. Naturally, she should fly to Germany and visit me! She found that the flights into Hamburg were quite cheap (200-500 euros cheaper than flying into Frankfurt), so her first leg landed her here. It worked out well, as this was her first time outside the states and first time dealing with jetlag. But she managed to sleep the entire flight, so we were able to go exploring the first day and enjoy the awesome sunshine.

We first went in the direction of the Alster, the (accidental) lake in the middle of Hamburg:

when you want to have it good, go to the Alster

nice yards along the Alster

She needed to make a pit-stop, so we ducked into Dammtor, a train station. Like many places, we had to pay for the toilet, which surprised her (I remember when I was surprised by these things too :) ).

We eventually met up with a friend of hers she'd hung out with on motorcycles in the midwest, around the Jungfernstieg stop. We were all hungry, and I suggested going to Deichstraße, the quaintest chunk f Hamburg, for dinner.

back-side of Deichstrasse

It took a while to walk there from the Alster, but we were enjoying the sunshine (which we don't get much of here), so it was fine. We ate at the ,,Kartoffel Keller" (potato celler).

I wanted J. to have a really German meal, so I suggested the (white) asparagus with (thin, delicious black-forest-esque) ham and potatoes, all slathered in hollandaise sauce. After our very German dinner, we kept on walking, to the (rather nearby) Speicherstadt (~warehouse district) and the Elbe.

a somewhat "iconic" picture of the Speicherstadt

a view in the direction of the harbor, from the Speicherstadt

the they'll-never-finish-this-damn-thing Elbphilharmonie

A pleasant surprise! I'd heard before, that a normal ticket (for bus, metro, etc) was also valid for these little ferries that run around the harbor. I saw a public-transit-ticket machine on a pier/dock. Could it be? Why yes! A ferry we could take for a whopping 1,50 euro, instead of the >20 people pay for a harbor tour (where you can't understand the tour-giver usually anyway)! So, we bought our tickets and wended our way around the harbor, getting off around Landungsbrücken and hung out at Strandpauli.
They have an artificial beach there with sand and beach-ish chairs, as well as a nice view of the harbor.

I had a cider (Aelbler, a hamburg brand) and J. had a "Cuba Libra". I was getting pretty tired a bit before 23 and left J. to hang out with her friend while I went off to rest. I had, however, completely forgotten that I had set my phone to a daily "do not disturb" setting between midnight and around 8 am, so they had trouble getting ahold of me outside of making it back to my apartment and ringing the doorbell. It had worked surprisingly well to startle me out of a snooze at 2 am.

Planten un Blomen und Övelgonne(05.-06.07)

I took two days of vacation for the next two days (a Wednesday and Thursday). The sunshine was sticking around, so I was very happy to be outside, wandering around.

We went through Planten un Blomen, a big park in Hamburg, which clearly was built on/made out of the old city fortifications/moat area. You can see this on the following map/picture; the zig-zag of the old moat, and the "Gorch-Fock-wall" -- no more a wall, but just a street in the city.

Planten un Blomen

When you go far enough through Planten un Blomen, you wander into another park, to the southwest. Here's roughly where that began:

steps and fountains

Planten un Blomen had a lot of plants and streams. Here's a nice little stream:

At the very end of this second park is Sankt Pauli. We'd reserved places in an English-speaking tour of Sankt Pauli, so we went through, but not trying to hard to see anything in particular. We ran straight into the Sankt Pauli Nacht(wochen)marktt, a weekly food/wine/music sort of market (kind of like a small farmer's market). We had a glass of wine (2,40 euro or so?) and sat and ate. I had bought some bread, having asked for the most seed-filled, thickest, heaviest bread they had, and shared it with J. in addition to some other foodstuff we'd bought.

St. Pauli Nachtmarkt

Hamburg has a really nice beach, Övelgönne (which is a word I have trouble pronouncing). I suggested that we head that way, and we took a bus most of the way. There was still a stretch left to walk, but it was still sunny, so quite nice.