Hamburgers?

Hello again!

Ok, so I suppose you are wondering what I have been up to since the riots and Nazis and all... well, let's start with the important stuff, shall we? When I left the hostel in Berlin, I was walking through the forest and guess what I saw!!! The Wild Boar! I was VERY excited. And, in case you are wondering, it has babies... at least four of them. they ran away before I had a chance to take pictures, but alas, they were there.

Anywho, so I took a train to Hamburg and arrived at my hostel in one piece and not lost around 2 o'clock. I couldnt check in till 3ish, so I went on a tiny adventure... and by that I mean I went to the Port of Hamburg. It's pretty awesome. The Port itself accounts for something like 12 percent of the surface of Hamburg, pretty impressive stuff. As it was a really nice day, I wandered around aimlessly for a while taking pictures and hoping against hope that I wouldnt tan with my glasses on (cuz then I'd look like quite the fool...) When I was just about ready to get going, I was checking something in my trusty Lonely Planet and a random man standing next to me looked over and said "Tourist?" I supposed that tourist in German is Tourist cuz when I said yes he started speaking to me really quickly in German. When he saw the confused look on my face, he switched to English. Turns out he is a police man here in Hamburg and he knows EVERYTHING about anything around here. He kind of turned into a tour guide for me and showed me around to a bunch of places in the Port that I would not have known existed had he not told me. By the end of his three hour-long improvised tour, I didnt remember any of what he said, but he seemed pleased with himself, so it's all good. I do love it when locals become tour guides out of the blue. Seems funny to me, cuy there's no way in hell I could show a tourist that much about Montreal just off the top of my head.

Having already seen Hamburg's number one attraction upon arrival, I followed up with Hamburg's number two tourist attraction - the red light district. The Reeperbahn is a long street which just looks like one giant sex shop, with a random seedy-looking hotel thrown in here and there for good mesure. I don't think I have ever seen so much leather in one place at one time. Scary really, cuz there were a whole heck of a lot of famillies with small children around. Not good. Anyway, after wandering through sex shops for a while, I finally found what I was looking for... a prostitute. No seriously, the Erotic Art Museum - my book told me it was cool. Well, for once, it was wrong. I was scared. A lot of the displays in that museum involved reproductive organs, which is what one would expect from an Erotic Art Museum, but the thing of it is, a lot of these parts seemed to be bleeding. Not so cool... and not so erotic. Then there were the paitings and pictures of women doing things with dogs that I could not possibly imagine putting Gadget through... and also, if anyone ever catches me recreating the "art" involving a lit candle and someone's backside, please shoot me. So, as you can see, the Erotic Art Museum was... an experience... to say the least.

After the Museum, I went and found everyone's favourite thing... the Condomerie, with the gargantuan condom in the window. The window is quite cluttered with a wide assortment of sex props, but when I located this condom, I was impressed. It was no longer than a regular condom, but it must have been at least ten centimeters in diameter... if I met anyone who could properly fit that thing, we would have a serious case "don't-come-anywhere-near-me-with-that-thing". It would make sex like giving birth, wouldn't it? And everyone knows that's unpleasant...

Alrighty, so after that, I went into the Panoptikum (the wax museum). It was pretty damn cheesy, but I've never been to a wax museum before, so I couldn't resist. Inside they had figures of Marilyn Monroe, The Beatles, Madonna, Micheal Jackson and, among all these pleasant people, Hitler. Not too sure what to make of that, but, seeing as I dont speak German, I couldnt ask.

So that about sums up my adventures for the past couple of days... today is the Port birthday, so there's supposedly some big party down there... I might go check it out. I'm also heading down to the Speicherstad (I think thats how it's spelled...) where I will learn what it's like to be blind...

I hope Carolina's losing...

Steph :)
xxx

P.S. Heather - why does your dad think I'm a neo-nazi??? I thought we were buddies...