April 25: Germany – WORK TRAVEL

My manager, client and I arrived in Hamburg, Germany late Tuesday night, April 24; our British Airways flight had been delayed significantly – thanks BA – so we didn’t have much time Tuesday night to see the city. As I came through passport control, I got to experience some language barrier discrimination: the customs officer babbled some German to me, I looked blankly back and apologized that I didn’t speak German. He looked over arrogantly to his colleague in the other booth and rambled off some more German with a head jerk in my direction and a smirk, then continued speaking in German smugly to me as he stamped my passport and handed it back, smirking all the while. I hate that many of us assume everyone will speak English when we travel, but I certainly don’t have an arrogant attitude as though everyone should know English for my own benefit. But I didn’t expect insult because I don’t know German. Maybe the US passport contributed as well as Americans are generally not in good favor around the world right now. Carrie, I wish you had been with us to translate!

On the way to the hotel, our cabbie strongly suggested that we check out the Reeperbahn that night; in fact, he said that we ‘could not see Hamburg’ without going. So we checked into the hotel and took the U-Bahn to the Reeperbahn area.

I think the cabbie was playing a trick on us. We found ourselves deep in the Red Light district of Hamburg. After walking around blankly for 15-20 minutes searching for a ‘normal’ bar, we finally had to ask two German girls for suggestions. We found an Irish pub on a side street that was playing ‘American Woman’ as we walked in, definitely a good sign.

We each got the special drink: Hefeweizen with grapefruit, and enjoyed the live band that started up their last set soon after we got our drinks. The crowd changed from mildly enthusiastic to a bit rowdy when a group of 7 or 8 19-year-old boys entered the scene. They belted the lyrics to American songs and danced around in front of us. It was funny to hear them sing, since they didn't know much English, so “Always look on the bright side of life” came out more like “Aways ook on a right side o life”.

We didn’t stay for more than one drink as we had early morning wake up calls to make out meeting at the German National Office the next day.

Wake up call indeed! The most annoying phone ring in the world jolted me from a sound sleep at 7 AM … and 7:03 AM … and 7:05 AM … and 7:09 AM ... and while I was in the shower at 7:16 AM. So much for my snooze plan with my cell phone alarm. All three of us experienced the same thing and we alerted the front desk to the problem when we checked out.

Luckily, our primary contact in the Hamburg office, Gabi, was not content to let the Reeperbahn adventure from the night before be our only impression of Hamburg, so she took us in her own car out to lunch in the older downtown area next to the large lake in the centre.

I know I sound like a broken record, but WOW what fantastic weather we had! It was once again sunny with clear blue skies, balmy, and around 70 degrees outside (I was too warm in that turtleneck). We enjoyed lunch on the deck next to the lake and then Gabi drove us quickly around more of the historic downtown area where there are buildings that survived the WWII bombings that leveled much of the rest of Hamburg, and around the harbor where there is a great deal of construction underway to attract more residents to the area. That was about all the time we had to see Hamburg, but it was significantly more than we’d seen on our own and we were grateful.

Back to the airport in the afternoon to fly home to Woking - delayed again, boo BA. I’m making up my lack of work travel experience from being staffed locally for 2 years in just 3 months for this project! And next week we’re off to Dakar, Senegal in West Africa all week!