Oh, Hamburg!

I had a woooooonderful 3-day trip to Hamburg with my mom last week. We made some mommy-daughter memories with a lot of funny but also very fail moments. It was just really, really great overall ^^



What shocked me the most about Hamburg was its... hugeness and crowdedness. I mean the streets are packed for what seems like 24 hours a day and that while the streets themselves are like double the size of usual streets in other cities. The main station is not as big as Leipzig's or Frankfurt's (the only example for 'not as big') but it's just SO crowded, you barely have place to pull your luggage behind you. Every other shop you've got in other cities, Hamburg has it twice as big. And the entire opening hours crowded. Jesus, I really felt like I was coming from a tiny village, living in Leipzig (not to mention Gießen).

Saturn in Hamburg has 5 floors with each floor as spacious as Gießen's Media Markt. And can you believe it?? They have free water for customers on EACH floor. And they even had Soshi's The Boys album in store. Unbelievable.

I saw TWO KFCs and FOUR Starbucks in the city center, not to mention a few more in the three or four shopping malls. Emphasis on 'city center'. I don't know how many KFCs and Starbucks there are outside the central area. Oh the luxury 8-> I almost freaked, it was that unbelievable. :))

(My God, I'm really embarrassing myself here, aren't I?)

Anyway, mom and I spent most of the first day going shopping with my aunt. My aunt is kinda designer-fashion crazy, which was a little annoying at first but now that I think of it, it's just highly amusing. I mean, she lives in a completely different world than mine. And she's so carefree talking about it, to the point that it made me think, 'Dude, is she really nearly fourty?' She sounds like a teenager to me. It went something like this:

"Oh you know, Dior bags are in for this season," she told my mom and me while she dragged us into a Dior store.

The staff greeted her by her name, which means, hello, she must be a pretty frequent customer.

She had a staff showing her a purple ostrich bag and started to ramble to us, "When this came out a few months ago, it was so expensive that no one bought it. Now it's just 3000€ but I still want it. Look at this leather. It is so fabulous, isn't it?"

Then she lowered her voice.

"I've looked this up on the internet, it's cheaper there. Just a little more than two and a half."

I seriously lol-ed on the inside. She's a little crazy but she's super nice. Which makes her really cute, actually. I mean it is cool, too, to look at highly prestigious brand-name products every now and then (until you have to buy and pay for them, obviously...) We went into a few more brand stores like Prada, Chanel, Boss, Jimmy Choo but passed Gucci and Louis Vuitton because auntie 'really doesn't like it'. Don't ask me why, I have no idea.

The point is, I never saw a boutique selling just one brand. That's the new thing. And I loveee the staff there, really. So polite and helpful. It really is something else when you have money...

But yeah, on the next day, which was a Sunday, mom and I went on a completely different 'shopping tour'. We went to the famous Hamburg Fish Market and had to get up at half past five already. It was reaaaally cool there, in a different way, of course. It felt so familiar, so... Vietnam-like. People had their mini stores lined up and sellers were competing for customers by yelling at the top of their voices. The concept is very simple: the louder you yell, the more customers you reach.

The entire time it was a crazy chaotic clamor. Mom and I joined the fun and we bought different kinds of fish at two shops, one time for 25€ and one time for 20€. The crazy thing is, we carried the two pretty heavy and strong-smelling bags for an entire day until we reached the hotel at night. The hotel kitchen couldn't take food  from guests and there's not enough place in the mini fridge in the room, so we had to abandon the fish bags in the parking lot for the night, since it's cool out there.

The next morning, we woke up, had a nice sauna and enjoyed breakfast. Afterwards we looked for the fish bags but they were... gone. Mom searched the entire parking lot but our fish was no where to find. We guessed the gardener must have found it, opened the many plastic bags to see what it was, shocked with what he saw and smelled, and just dumped it into the trash can.

We really found all the bags and our fish, inedible, in there.

It was such a fail that it made us laugh and cry at the same time. Mom and I still aren't over our own stupidity and carelessness. :-< :P

Buuuuut, yeah. We still had a wonderful Sunday afternoon enjoying a 2-hour boat trip on the Elbe. The weather was so much nicer than when we were at the Fish Market.

Does it not look lovely? :x I could really fall in love with this fantastic city if it wasn't for the weather. It has a really annoying on-and-off relationship with rain.

It rained like every hour, each time ten to fifteen minutes. It's like you look up at the sky and don't see a single cloud, then BAM, out of nowhere, it rains. Then you manage to find your umbrella and just opened it up when all of a sudden, the rain clouds disappear again. The sun comes out for a few minutes, you relish in the warmth that comes with it, then BAM, it starts to pour again.

The only cool thing about that is the one thing you get to see a lot in Hamburg but not always every where else: rainbows.

Well that was more or less my three days in Germany's second biggest city. I think I would want to come back again when it gets a little warmer. The sea breeze really is no joke :( Hopefully, it'll get warm and won't rain much during summer or late spring. I think that would be the ideal enjoy-Hamburg weather.

If that happens, I'll consider an internship in Hamburg and stay at my aunt's house. She is anything but stingy. ;)) Maybe if she gets bored, she'll buy me a Dior bag. I mean, it doesn't have to be two and a half. I can live with cheap bags, about one and a half is okay, too. :P :P