Hamburg

I was very sad to leave Berlin, I had an incredible time there, however Hamburg was just as good. I had a brilliant time there, the first day I did not do much. I went for a walk in the area surrounding my hostel to see what was there and whilst it was not on the Reeperbahn that did not stop me being approached by about 5 prostitutes in the 200 meters from my hostel to the closest ATM. I found that to be quite sad and it definitely reinforced my thoughts that I would never even entertain the idea of going to one of these people. 

Song for the day - The Horrors - Still Life

On my second day in Hamburg I got up relatively early for my trip at about 8.30 and got myself ready for the day and went on a free tour of the city which was organized by the hostel. Hamburg is a beautiful city, before this tour I was a bit skeptical but I really enjoyed the tour, possibly more so than my tour of Berlin which is saying something. It was really interesting to hear about the amount of times the city has been virtually completely destroyed such as the great fire of 1842 and allied bombing in world war 2 which in turn lead to a huge fire storm. Apparently the flames were twice the height of the tallest building in Hanburg at the time. 

After this I went to a bar overlooking the harbor with some people I had met on the tour, it was a pretty cool spot. There was also a lot of smoke coming from somewhere under a bridge near the bar, with really dark smoke and the smell of rubber. Personally, I think it was pretty obvious that someone was burning a troll though. 

Afterwards we went to another bar before heading over to the Reeperbahn, we had hoped to watch Manchester United against Chelsea however the match was not shown in Hamburg because St. Pauli were playing at the time. I really like St. Pauli though, there seems to be a real community spirit to the team and on their merchandise is the pirate skull so they are pretty bad ass/punk rock. I got a brilliant picture of Ahmed next to a St. Pauli car too.

All in all I really enjoyed Hamburg, I'm not sure if I would like to live there but it definitely was a cool place to visit. I wish I had had a bit more time there to check it out in a bit more detail. 

Song for the day - The Beatles - Norwegian Wood