Trip to Hamburg
Sunday, September 14th, 2008Yesterday was a USAC sponsored trip to Hamburg. I’ve been there before, in 2003, and my view still hasn’t changed. Not impressed at all with the city. After the 34 minute, standing room only, train ride, we started the first leg by visiting the main shopping avenue of Mönckebergstaße, the Alster lake, and the neo-Renaissance style Rathaus (home of the city’s parliament and senate). I think the Rathaus was the best part of trip.
Next stop Reeperbahn. I thought it was interesting, that compared to Amsterdam’s RLD, the Reeperbahn is much less female friendly. We stopped by a wall on Herbertstrasse which is a men’s only zone and is gated off from the rest of the district. It’s not officially illegal, but apparently, if any females enter, various abuses will follow, such as getting sprayed with water or workers throwing perfumed-filled condoms at them. I was trying to get one of the girls in our group to go back there to see what would happen, but no luck. Many of the women in the group were offended by the no women zone. I’m not exactly sure why. And many of the guys were scared to walk around. Is it really that big of a deal? Just because you walk around, doesn’t mean that you have to get a prostitute and it’s not like you’re going to get pulled into a door, raped, and forced to give them payment. Although, I did almost get drug in by a prostitute in Amsterdam’s RLD, so maybe their concerns have some validity.
Anyways…after that we stopped by the harbor for lunch, the Hamburg History Museum, and then a sports bar, where I had a hamburger, before heading to the train station. Everything lined up perfectly. We caught the U-bahn across town to the Hauptbahnhof 1 minute before it left, ran through the station to our platform with 2 minutes to spare. Unfortunately, Hamburger SV had a soccer game, so all the drunk soccer fans were on our train. I think I got drunk just off the breath of some of them. Again, standing room only, and this time it was much crowded and we got stuck by the bathroom. Not the best place to get stuck on a train with no windows to open…
mrnational