Thursday, February 25, 2016

Hitting the Halfway Point


Wow. It’s hard to believe that six months ago I was sitting on the curb waiting with the cats while Larry raced to get the keys to our empty apartment before the management company closed!

Yesterday, over the course of six hours, it snowed three times, sleeted, rained, and somewhere in the middle, the sun shone brightly twice in a clear blue sky. I think it's a good representation of the unpredictable nature of our journey so far. :)

To celebrate this half-year milestone, I thought I’d share some more scenes of my Hamburg adventure to date.

This is the site of the original city of Hamburg. The white squares mark the area of the village, including its protective walls.








A city of contrasts:
modern telecommunications
tower, ancient church

This marker in the red light district
indicates the border between Hamburg and
what was the Danish city of Altona
 (now part of Hamburg).



This was a story in a local paper, print and online. The headline asks if the brothers who run Good Game Studios (where Larry works), are the worst bosses in Hamburg. Ouch.






For my vegetarian friends!
Do they have these in the U.S. yet?
An interesting character from the winter Dom (carnival).
Advertising fries, but I particularly like his hat
with the emblem of Hamburg on it.



I've been averaging a museum visit a month. Some highlights include:
  • this Star Wars-themed display at the Museum for Fine and Applied Arts. (The others I think are obvious, the one on the bottom right is the "Death Star fruit".); 
  • this case in the Spice Museum that shows items that have been found in spices brought into the Port of Hamburg, including magazines, toys, tools, and reptiles; 
  • the Doll Museum, which was wonderfully creepy but also informative about how doll houses were used to instruct girls how to arrange and keep a home; and 
  • the Museum of Ethnology, which had some rare artifacts from around the world.





Refugee relief station outside the
Hauptbahnhof (main train station)
Housing development specifically
for people seeking assylum


Neither rain nor snow nor sleet...
No matter the weather, mail is delivered by truck to central depots,
 where riders load up and deliver mail by bicycle.



 ...and this WWI monument across
from a neighborhood church.
There are reminders of war in unexpected places,
like this missile sculpture in a shopping area...



We don't know what the next six months will bring in terms of Larry's job and extending his contract, but in the meantime I'm thinking of my time in Hamburg not as six months gone, but six months still to explore!



Sunday, February 21, 2016

The Little Things: The Internet

A couple of months after we moved to Hamburg I saw an article about communications innovations in third-world countries. Villages were getting satellite phone booths and small computer centers with Internet access.

My first thought? I. am. so. jealous.

That’s right. As an efficiently run first-world country we expected no issues with Internet access in Germany. Boy, were we wrong.

Michelle as a baby, wide-eyed in crib
This is pretty much how I felt
through this whole ordeal.
To make a very long story super short: after five separate five-hour installation appointments spread over four months, we had nothing to show for it but wasted time and bitterness. I sent a letter cancelling our Internet order, we sent back the modem equipment, and they sent it back saying we were past the cancellation deadline.

I sent another letter. Not as polite as the first.

I got a voicemail assuring me our account was cancelled and we didn’t need to do anything else. Great. Except Vodafone was the main game in town, and we still didn’t have Internet service.

I’m not sure if I felt better or worse knowing that we weren’t alone. For every person we talked to with no issues getting service, there were one or two in the same boat as us. One person waited 5 months before getting service, another waited 10 months.

10 months! He could have walked to a third-world country and accessed the Internet sooner.

So what’s the problem? Part of it is infrastructure. Part of it is liability. Part of it is that there's apparently a smaller portion of the German population clamoring to be online.

Any or all of those may play into the fact that there's a different focus here. In the U.S. you have different speeds with unlimited data. Here it’s pretty much, This is how fast it goes. How much data do you want to pay for?

We definitely had to do some research and make some adjustments. You don’t realize how much is churning in the background until you have to monitor where the MB go.

Photo of wireless TP-Link router
This little guy is what's keeping me online!
For the first few months this blog (and all of my other Internet activity) was managed primarily via an Internet USB stick or using my cell phone as a hot spot. 

The USB stick was our first lesson in how data flies out the window. And having to trek downtown to top off the balance on the stick was not feasible. Similarly, I learned to turn off data for all of my phone apps unless I was using them in that moment.

I considered other options: hunting down the increasingly elusive Internet cafes (apparently they went the way of the rest of the 90s), buying an all-day ticket to use wi-fi on one of the two bus lines that has it, or paying oodles to rent time at one of those shared office spaces.

In the end, we settled on a wireless router that takes prepaid SIM cards that we can manage by text or online.

It wasn't all bad, returning to the days that I realized most of my Millennial friends have never experienced. I've cleaned up neglected computer files, sketched out new ideas for future writing, and read. A lot. 

But am I glad to be back online more regularly? Absolutely. 

Tuesday, February 9, 2016

The Little Things: Shopping

The day after I got off the plane to start life in Hamburg I was in Larry’s office, meeting some of his coworkers and hearing about their experiences. One of his American teammates told a funny story about a tug-of-war struggle to return a woman’s grocery cart for her.

Turns out you have to use a coin to release shopping carts from their stalls, and you get your coin back when you return the cart to the stall. So he thought he was doing her a favor, and she probably thought he was trying to steal her money.

I wondered how many adjustments I would have to make in my shopping quests here…


Food
Thankfully, my food-shopping travails had more to do with finding what I needed/wanted than anything else. Instead, my first real shopping adjustment was the speed of checkout.

It’s no joke—you do not want an annoyed German giving you the stink-eye!

There are no baggers at checkout and cashiers ring things through at breakneck speeds, so if there are people behind you in line, you’ll find yourself hauling butt to unload things as quickly as possible onto the belt and then scoop them back into your cart as they come shooting past the cashier.

The first few times I went shopping I just carried things in my backpack or reusable bags as I shopped, but found it too slow and awkward at checkout. The people behind you don’t hang back and wait for you to pack up, and the cashiers don’t wait for you to move your stuff before they start sending the next person’s items your way.  
Stores facilitate this process by having open areas past the registers with counters where you can take your items from your grocery cart and pack them into your personal shopping trolley and/or reusable shopping bags at a more leisurely pace. (If you don’t bring your own bags you grab some at checkout and throw them on the belt to pay for along with your food).

So I started using a shopping cart and using the counters to load things into my reusable bags. A slight improvement, but as I explored stores further out to find items I needed, it meant a long and heavy walk home or an unsteady ride on my bike.

Eventually I broke down and bought a shopping trolley. I had resisted because I didn’t want to be one of those middle-aged ladies lugging one of those things around. But I am, and now I have my shopping cart/shopping trolley routine down and can shop with the best of them. J


Drugs
One big difference here in Hamburg is the split between convenience stores--similar to Walgreens or CVS--and the Apotheke. Unlike the U.S., if you need any type of medication, you go to the Apotheke. This is not a self-serve environment for much more than aspirin and toothpaste, however. Whether it’s an over-the-counter ointment for athlete’s foot or a prescription drug, you’ll have to tell the clerk at the counter what you need.

(Thankfully I have not had any ailments yet that require an Apotheke visit.)


Clothes
I’m a strong believer in retail therapy. Not necessarily buying, but stalking the stores nonetheless. As I mentioned before, I had a bit of sticker shock in my preliminary scouting of downtown Hamburg. Where was my Ross equivalent? My deluxe thrift store?

An online search yielded uneven results, including several recycled clothing stores for kids, a “TH Maxx” (which, upon inspection is a rundown version of the U.S. TJ Maxx), and some vintage stores which turn out to be far too pricey. But further exploration led me to an affordable recycled clothing store that benefits OxFam, and introduced me to clothing-by-the-kilo in a couple of other stores.

Which is good, because it turns out there are some affordable clothing stores (aside from the omnipresent H&M) in the large shopping centers, but I find these 5- and 6-level malls to be overwhelming!

Wherever you're shopping, in many stores it’s expected that you’ll give a greeting when you enter. At first I feared this would mean a hovering presence, eager to try to upsell me on the latest Angebot (offer/deal), but you’re pretty much left to your own devices. (On the flip side, depending on the size of the store, you might be hard-pressed to find someone when you have a question).

Obviously I don’t need new office wear at the moment, but I did reduce my wardrobe by 2/3 for the move, so there’s definitely room to keep exploring and find some new favorites. J


Online
Yes, online shoppers, there is an Amazon.de and it has Prime. But the entertainment offering isn’t as broad as Amazon.com and a lot of sellers offer free shipping anyway, so your real advantage is quick shipping.

I used Amazon.de to get our electrical transformers and a handful of hard-to-find items, but sadly, even for the non-luxury American brands you pay a premium that makes online less viable than in the U.S. (You also have to beware of customs charges on certain items, so stand-bys like eBay can mean extra costs that double or triple the price of what you want to buy).
This is why I brought a box of Bisquick 
back in my luggage after my Christmas visit.

I did find a bright spot for online shopping, however.

After a particularly grueling bus ride lugging a new litter box, large bag of kitty litter, and large bag of cat food home, I searched online for pet supply delivery and found zooplus.de. Since the nearest pet store is not at all nearby (hence the bus ride), it’s been a godsend. And zooplus takes PayPal, so I don’t have to go through the 5 security steps it takes to use my German debit card online (seriously, it's ridiculous).



A lot of the little differences are things you’d find in any move to a new area where you're scoping out unfamiliar stores and comparison shopping. But here there are also the cultural differences and, of course, language. (Like understanding that you're not allowed to use the hand basket to gather your groceries and then transfer them to your bags, or that the trainee cashier mis-scanned something and you owe an extra $0.04 on your groceries, or that you can earn points on a frequent shopper card toward a 30 Euro shopping trip...)

And for Americans, unless you’ve lived in the South or the "Bible Belt," it may take some getting used to the fact that stores—including grocery stores--are closed on Sundays.

I’ve adjusted my shopping habits accordingly, although restaurants are open, and if you’re desperate for food you can go to one of the big train stations, since they’re always open for the convenience of people passing through.

But my next task is to make note of German holidays, which also close down the stores, no matter the day of the week or number of days. Because getting to the nearest Bahnhof to pick up a few things at the last minute is not my idea of a fun shopping experience… 

Wednesday, February 3, 2016

Around Town: To Market, To Market in Hamburg

Yesterday I visited the Isemarkt—the largest outdoor market in Europe. Aside from being an incredible kilometer-long festival of food and other wares, it was a reminder of the many different types of market experiences here in Hamburg.

Weihnachtsmarkt
I talked about my Christmas market outings back in December, and would list my favorites as Rathaus (large, lovely, traditional), Gerhardt-Hauptmann Platz (quaint, traditional), and St. Pauli (large, traditional mixed with highly untraditional).






Flohmarkt
There are several spots around the city where you’ll find a Saturday-morning flea market. The one near us is also open on Wednesday mornings, and is quite large with everything from food to furniture. And, of course, it’s where I got my bike!




Fischmarkt
The fish market in St. Pauli is infamous. It’s only open on Sunday mornings till 9:30 am (starts at 5 or 7 am depending on the time of year) and sits below the Reeperbahn (Hamburg’s equivalent of a red-light district).

It's not stall after stall of fishmongers like a traditional fish market. This one is a bit more commercial and a lot more diverse--you'll see locals shopping and intrepid tourists gawking at folks staggering down from a night of partying to continue partying, because in addition to the outdoor stalls and trucks there’s a hall with music, food, and, yes, beer. 

(See video for an idea of the size of the hall. Bottom level has a band at either end, some food, and several beer stalls. The second level has a cafe with a buffet breakfast.)


You really can buy almost anything here!





Isemarkt
Isemarkt was what a lot of people think of when they think 
of European markets. Multiple vendors, fresh food and goods, 
people shopping with their baskets for 
the next few days before the market returns...

Continuing a centuries-old tradition of outdoor markets for shopping, Isemarkt is open Tuesday and Friday mornings, and features meats, cheeses, breads and pastries, flowers, spices, knife-sharpening, and more. There were food samples, a candy vendor that has been selling here for 60 years, and a vendor scraping meat off a hooved leg of unknown origin.