Hamburg, the warzone

Hamburg is a giant, rich city of alternative people that haven’t quite fast tracked into hipster territory, but I reckon it’ll just be a couple more years. Liberal and sociable, this is a great place if you like fish and dirt.

Supermarkets

LIDL and ALDI are the go-to stores in Germany, and whilst not wishing to snobbishly disparage those who do shop there, you just have to try a few bottles of LIDL own brand beer to find it largely unappealing.

Smoking more

What is with this?! They smoke more than they breathe. It puts Patty and Selma to shame.

Techno

Apparently no other genre of music exists here.

WAR ZONE

Germans are only allowed to buy fireworks in the days preceding NYE and then not at all for another year, so just like anything which is usually banned but occasionally not they go absolutely fucking mental, like that kid at school who wore an orange shell suit on non-uniform day. Indeed, New Years Eve there was akin to a warzone, with all manner of people setting off fireworks literally everywhere in the street from around 4pm. Seriously, I saw old ladies throwing firecrackers into a main road. Walking around was an exercise in stealth and I genuinely felt proud to have survived, an interesting emotion for a Jew in Germany. Too soon?

Fish Market

They have this giant fish market which only seems to be open at 7am on a Sunday, and is a mixture of families who have woken up early to experience the crisp morning ambience, and people who are absolutely and irrevocably fucked off their faces and have ended up there because they prefer a fish sandwich to a kebab. You can make an educated guess which group I fell into but rest assured that after an hour of wandering around, I left the market with a new phone case, a giant wicker boat full of fruit and a small piece of fresh mackerel.

After a chaotic 5 days in Hamburg, I got a ride into Holland, where the story continues in the land of the big.