I’m going to write this report by going through the notebook I took with me chronologically, and seeing as I tried to write as much in it as I could so that I can look back on it in months to come (years would be quite optimistic) there’s going to be an awful lot in here that people will find very boring, but that for whatever reason I want to recall.
The trip started with me up all night in Manchester waiting desperatel y for the washing machine to finish cleaning my underwear – a trip with no boxers would be pretty terrible. Eventually, at 11am, it did, and I woke Liz up to get her to pack. No one apart from Bruce knew she was coming, it was our surprise. However, she decided to sleep instead, something that would become a recurring theme of the holiday. At last, her stuff was in a bag, the Moomin one I got her for Xmas, making me particularly proud of the purchase. We went to the post office to change our money into Euro, waiting about fourteen years for the bint to allow us anywhere near us – she was busy licking envelopes. £185 got me 200€, which isn’t brilliant, but never mind. It’d last me the entire trip.
The coach down to London was uneventful and we slept pretty much the whole way, next to a broken toilet that stank the whole bus out. When we got to London the first person we saw wasn’t actually coming on the trip: HCD. He didn’t know Liz was there as she stalked us to the pub, where we enjoyed a Hunter’s Chicken, as she sat behind him getting closer and closer. After a while he cottoned on. My mate Mohamed, the co-admin of the infamous Oversized Smoking Pipes turned up. Jo and Bruce were soon also present, and we just boozed for a while before the coach to Stansted.
Ellie also joined us then, and we spent the next seven hours sitting around at the airport, reading books, magazines and that sort of thing. Rhys purchased Bizarre, because it featured articles on such delights as fake hymens and villages inhabited solely by dwarves. It even has an advert for a call-line that recommends dogging hotspots. This kept us amused for a long time.
“I feel like the father half-arsedly watching his kids being incredibly embarrassing, but rather than intervening I’m just going to go back to my magazine.” That’s one the first quotes in the notebook, but I can’t remember what precisely it relates to. I suspect something Bruce and Rhys were doing.
The flight was uneventful although the descent through the tundra-esque clouds was utterl y surreal. It looked like we were landing somewhere approaching the north pole, but then we sunk through a cloud level that went on forever, which was very bright on top but pitch black underneath. Eventually we were close enough to see the ground, and the snow levels made England look positively tropical.
The most shocking aspect about the trip so far was that there’d been no hitches, we were all in one piece with no fines or disasters and were soon on the coach to Hamburg for only ten euro. The airport was just outside Lubeck, a small town about eighty kilometers from Hamburg. The snow on the way there was several feet deep, and the temperature about minus ten/minus fifteen. Very very cold. The plan was to get to Hamburg, then get the S-Bahn to Altona, where the hostel was.
Arrival at Hamburg Hauptbahnhof was swift due to the incredible speeds one can travel at on the Autobahn, then it was a simple matter of working out the S-Bahn – v. easy. 1.30€ for a single ticket to Altona – a similar journey without an Oyster card on the tube in London would cost £4. Liz looked completely dead, she was trampling about in bloodied boots and clearly in desperate need of sleep. I just wanted to get to the hostel then explore the city.
The hostel proved easy to find, so another potential hitch was avoided easily! We’d all booked separately, but the guy behind the desk spoke very good English and we were able to sort it out so that everyone but Kieren and Sophie were in the same dormitory – and as they were arriving over the next two days that was fair enough, really. Liz was going delirious, just leaning wide-eyed against the desk, muttering “beautiful” and some stuff about escaped Amish rapists.
Having arrived we sat down for a drink in the bar, but I decided to explore the city instead, and went for a walk. We had unwittingly set up base in the red light district, and also incredibly close to the Millerntor, St. Pauli FC’s stadium, as well as to the cafe I was due to meet Sophie in on Saturday morning. The streets weren’t icy despite the levels of snow, due to a very effective gritting method, which is obviously needed far more in Hamburg than anywhere in the UK. I was impressed. Upon arrival at the Millerntor, I was greeted by the following sight.
Only without all the people, obvs. I should have taken someone’s camera with me really. In the window on the left hand side you can see all the trophies and things St Pauli have won which is quite cool, and I went into the shop at the right. Not only was it full of St Pauli gear, but it stocked a lot of Celtic stuff too, the link being something both clubs are very proud of. I bought a shirt to add to my collection and moved on.
For some reason it’s legal to turn right through a red light in Germany, something I’ll never be completely comfortable with.
The Bismarck memorial was the next thing on my lists of things to see, and was pretty much impossible to miss. It’s huge, and instantly recognisable.
I walked through a park beside the memorial and came out just past the Hamburg museum, but didn’t go in because I reckoned it might charge me. Instead I headed over to the huge church, St. Michael’s, which made me feel particularly important. It was probably a Catholic church in a previous life, but now it’s Protestant. It was very grand inside, bedecked in gold with sweeping white marble balconies.
My slight error came in walking in at half past twelve, directly as a service was beginning, so I decided, against everything in my nature, to sit and take it in. Naturally I didn’t understand a word of it, but the smatterings of organ music were very nice. The only overtly religious image within the church (no stained glass!) was a painting of Christ surrounded by angels, just below a statue of Christ flanked by golden angels.
Kunst and Vater were the two words I heard repeated over and over during the sermon, so it was about a father who paints.
Instead of going further into Hamburg I decided to go back to the hostel and see what everyone was up to, but they were all fast asleep in the bar. No one seemed to care. In the room both Bruce and Rhys laid amazing shits in the toilet, making them no-go zones for the rest of the evening. Some bloke called Sam knocked on the door, and, realising that we’re young, English, and students, offered us a pub crawl. We said no, opting instead to go for a wander down the Reeperbahn, which is Hamburg’s biggest street for going out on, completely packed with sex and neon lights.
We walked down the Konigstrasse, which is a lot less majestic than it sounded, basically being nothing more than a road through the council housing that surrounded the main city of Hamburg. Where we were staying, Altona, isn’t actually in the City of Hamburg, more of an Uxbridge to London connection. There was much moaning of distance and hunger, particularly from Ellie, who wanted to sit in a restaurant about half a second from the hostel, but I wasn’t having any of it. Eventually we decided upon a place called Joker, and had great food. My “African Chicken” wasn’t jollof rice, disappointingly, but it was still very good indeed. With it I had a pint of Duckstein, which tasted alarmingly similar to its name. Everyone else had cocktails, but when in Rome (Hamburg), etc.
Next we went to the Jolly Roger, an Irish pub Ellie picked for its Singstar night. I was excited to see that Blackburn were playing Villa on the big screen in the first leg of their Carling Cup semi-final. Ther were only five minutes left though, and I just watched Villa see out a 1-0 win.
The guy behind the bar was very much a wannabe-America, and drawled “four bucks, please” at me, as I paid for my Schoffenhofer lager. It wasn’t very nice. I fell down the stairs trying to drink it, but managed to stay on my feet and retain most of the pint: SKILLZ. I say pint, but obvs they’re metric over there – it was in fact 800 millilitres of beer.
Rhys smoked his pipe happily, mostly because of the simple fact that he could smoke it indoors, and the realisation that this was an internet holiday became apparent when Bruce suggested we do Rick Astley for karaoke. Shots of Jagermeister, which was on tap, were drunk, and karaoke began.
Bruce was up first, doing Queen, and was actually very good, clocking up 9,046 points. Ellie and Liz then went and sang something or other by Erasure, and both beat Bruce narrowly, with Liz’s 9,596 points putting her top of the leaderboard. Then Rhys went up and crooned through something awful, getting a pub high score in the process: 9,628. I didn’t sing. Listening to a German girl singing Britney Spears was hilarious, it really doesn’t work in a German accent. Whilst other people sung, highlights of a 98 FA Cup match between Newcastle United and Manchester United were shown, and it was fascinating – Newcastle won 5-0! When I looked back Liz was singing again, desperate to beat Rhys, but her 8,618 was the worst score of the evening so far. Unlucky, son. We won a bottle of disgusted Prosecco for Rhys’ efforts though. The same thing happened again in round two, except that a German bloke had the highest score till I went up and tried to do The Ting Tings – That’s Not My Name with Liz. I scored an utterly pathetic 1,300 points. I cannot sing. I substituted Stacey for Jangra when singing though, that sort of thing ,which explains it. I’d like to think... Before leaving Ellie decided to suggest that the lot of us sing something, and bounced off to enter us. Minutes later, this announcement was read out: “And all the way from England, to sing Three Lions, it’s THE STUDENT ROOM.” FUCKINGHELL WOMAN, WHAT?! We won... it was shameful.
Back home to sleep.
Part two tomorrow.
