New Year In Hamburg

I started the year 2008 in Hamburg, Germany, where the second largest concentration of consulates in the world only second to New York are gathered. Hamburg is also the second largest seaport in Europe after Rotterdam. The city was originally erected as a fortress of Hammaburg in 830. Hamburg’s Speicherstadt (the storage city district) was one of the main elements in its development towards an international trade port in 1881-1888. The construction of the Kiel Canal (1895) further increased the port’s attractiveness. Not until early 1900, Hamburg was inhabited by small number of population (50,000 people in 1850). Thanks to the incorporation of the neighboring towns, Hamburg began its expansion until what it is today.

Anyhoo, I went there with Deta, my cute little opera diva. She is one of Indonesia’s great talents in classical singing. She is a student at Utrecht Conservatorium majoring classical vocal. We stayed at his friend’s: Adrian’s. They were high school buddies in Jakarta. At first, me and Deta were a bit concerned about this whole travel thingy since neither brought our passports. But the journey kept going.

We arrived at Hamburg Hauftbahnhof on the 29th of December at 9 pm. Adrian picked us up at the train station and started the whole cuisine trip already by enjoying Germany’s famous Curryworst mit fritte. Adrian is a very fun person to walk around Hamburg with because he knows a lot about the city, let alone loves to walk. So, we already started walking that evening around the planetarium which is nearby Adrian’s flat at 10pm.

The next day was started very early. We went to the Fischmarkt and had breakfast there. Let me tell you something, German people are crazy. Now, if you are still debating whether to drink coffee or tea or milk for breakfast, forget about it. German people drink beer and listen to live music for breakfast! Then Adrian showed us a lot of the city. It was really an exciting trip. We saw a lot, including the new year’s fireworks party and the city of Lubeck (one hour from Hamburg), and watching the Opera at State Opera House.

I will not recall every details of the trip, but the general feelings are fun because Hamburg is a fun city, there are a lot of things to see. It is historical. The people are more relaxed than Amsterdam people in terms of waiting for transportation because they have metro for every 4 minutes. Amsterdam? If you miss one tram… only God knows what will happen! Then, the food is also nice and not as expensive as Amsterdam. They have a very romantic atmosphere because of the old buildings and historical sites. This is also a very international city because of the ports I think. It is very windy and therefore, cold! They are also quiet, as Adrian explained, they did not talk or make any sound on public transportation. Only foreigners do that hahahaha. They expect you to say “enschuldigung” when you accidentally touched them otherwise they will give you a cold look (like what Deta experienced on the train to Hamburg), while Amsterdam people will not say anything. They have ridiculous prices for their independent distros. Amsterdam discounts are definitely better than theirs. Maybe this explained why in my opinion Amsterdam people are more fashionable.

To my surprise, there were a lot of half Indonesian half German students in Hamburg. They are cute, I mean for the boys and girls. Adrian is one of them, and her sister as well. I think, Indo-German has cuter looks than Indo-Dutch, this probably explains why there are more Indo-German celebrities in Indonesia than other mixes.

Lastly, I had a really wonderful experience in Hamburg thanks to Adrian. I am putting his friendster link here, because he’s a hot catch for girls! And for the fun of it, I’m putting Deta’s performance in Youtube, so you will know what I meant by her golden voice. In the end, we were asked for our passports during our way back to the Netherlands. But we managed to get only small warning to bring our passport next time because we were heading home to the Netherlands.
Never thought I would be so happy to hear people talking in Dutch again hahaha.