The Final Weekend

Grill @ Elbtreppe, Frei.21.05.2010:

 

 

 

Sam.22.05.2010:

Champions League Final: Bayern 0 - 2 Inter,

Shisha @ Morange Bar with Daniel & Alex,

Beer @ Yoko Mono,

just about to hop onto the U-Bahn @ Feldstrasse and go home when...

...Kasia & nino fortuitously stop me in my tracks & save the night!

I can conclude that there are no coincidences in life.

Kulturhaus 73: 60s / Motown / funk / (and some dirty electro),

Disgusting Dürüm Döner,

Long journey home,

Home @ 0530hrs...

Rowing on the Alster, afternoon of Sonn.23.05.2010:

 

Grill by the Alster, evening of Sonn.23.05.2010 (photos courtesy of Kasia!):

I'll be lucky to have another summer weekend as good as this one...tschüss bis zum nächsten Mal Hamburg!

The End

I finally received my April wages today after a protracted negotiation with my former employers, a matter into which I will not delve into and best left to the past. Instead I will conclude this Hamburg documentation with a few photos and notes of what happened during my final weekend here in Deutschland...

Stillness

Weds.05.05.2010:

 Am Strand, Blankenese

Alster lake

Wasserlichtkonzert, Pflanzen und Blomen

End game

I went to work on Monday with a view to enquiring about my already belated April pay after making amendments to a private house which I was drawing up for a planning application. The weather was pallid and rainy. The skies seemed to brood throughout the whole day. Five o' clock arrived at once and so did my boss as he returned to the office from a typical day of late involving scurrying to all the project building sites and meetings to ensure that things were not going to slip behind schedule even further. He called me out for a stroll along the beach and a chat. I sensed that this was going to be one of those conversations. I did my best however to mask any anxiety by looking out to the Elbe.

Half an hour later the news that I had been expecting for about a month was revealed. I was told that this would be my last day at the office. My Hamburg dream was over. The reason imparted to me was that I was too young, too inexperienced and that they needed someone who could take over projects completely, such is the daunting workload the practice faces at the moment. So much so that my Indonesian colleague, a diploma-qualified architect who has worked here for a month, also got told to leave. Whatever the reason and despite my anticipation of an end point it still did not cushion the blow which I am still reeling from today.

Thoughts have been scrambling through my mind since then and the redundancy I am currently experiencing has come as a result of swallowing a bitter pill. One only hopes that this setback is a bittersweet one. With time the sweetness should come, but for now I'm left to fill my empty hours enjoying Hamburg (money permitting) and devising a plan to return to London.

The dream may have come to a sour end, but with loose ends still to tie up, the farewells to follow will provide much optimism for my next venture...

Fr: -iday/-ivolous/-olics

So, last Friday night...
cocktails @ Gansemarkt with Sebastien & Fred
back to Seb's flat, the night of mess begins,
met up with Daniel & Alex on the Reeperbahn,
then Sommersalon, then to Sternschanze,
met with Kasia & Nino in Haus 73,
crazy riots/protest in front of Rote Flora, 
bonfires, missiles thrown, vandalism, street fighting, police in riot gear,
and messy journey home...

(A few notes from last weekend)

Friday
Aurel, Ottensen with Sebastien & Fred
then Sommersalon, Reeperbahn,
then a surreal wander through the red corridors
then back to Sommersalon
then KFC
then S-Bahn, fell asleep, ended up in Elbgaustrasse, back to Altona, fell asleep on wrong platform, feel asleep on S-Bahn & almost missed Othmarschen
home 0530 or something...

Saturday
recovery
drew the Head of Madonna from La Pietà by Michelangelo

Sunday
met up with Kasia for a cultural crawl in the city...
Julia Stoschek "I Want To See How You See" @ Deichtorhallen.
an outdoor rave/after-party by the river (?!)
Körber-Foto-Award 2010 / Michael Schirmer @ Haus der Photographie
browsing through photos in the bookshop
McFlurry
beer at Saal II, Sternschanze, watching the girls, boys and couples go by

Frühling Friday Lunchtime

Vanilla milk drink in right, Berliner in left
Fri.23.04.2010

I-IV 2010

 

Feisty feline

Larry the Literate

Despite this week being one of the busiest weeks at work, the fact that I'm over almost two weeks late with my rent and have had to grind out this weekend in anticipation for March's already-late wages tomorrow meant that I was forced to reflect a lot about my tenure here in Hamburg. Hindrances aside this reluctant weekend of rest has led me to read and 'study' - and reading is what I have done a lot since the turn of the year.

I've never really picked up a book of fiction to read leisurely until this year and it was spurred on by the limitation of having no computer and hence, no internet. This liberated me to seek for other, and more worthwhile, activities and one that I have wholesomely embraced is the act of reading. My landlord's living room walls are literally bookshelves from floor to ceiling which intrigued me in the long winter nights to discover something new. Since departing for Hamburg I've been reading books at an exponential rate where I find myself today even dabbling in a bit of deutsch literature (?!).

A little recap on what I've buried my head into then (in chronological order since October 2009):
- "The Architecture of Happiness" by Alain de Botton
- "The Poetics of Space" by Gaston Bachelard
- "Sketches by Boz" by Charles Dickens (still reading...)
- "The Importance of Being Earnest" by Oscar Wilde
- "1984" by George Orwell
- "The Great Gatsby" by F. Scott Fitzgerald
- "Atmospheres" by Peter Zumthor
- "Down and Out in Paris and London" by George Orwell

Ironically I've read a lot of English literature during a time when I'm not even in the country and in a sense I've got a newfound affinity for London as depicted in some of these tales, whetting my appetite for my return to The Big Smoke.

Ostern in Ochtrup

It was exactly five years to the weekend that I first met Markus "Der Superbauer" Rohling and it felt like destiny that I returned to the place where my life changed profoundly. I spent this past Easter weekend in Ochtrup, a village less than an hour from Münster to fulfil a promise that was long overdue. There were too many momentous occasions and intoxicated-influenced occurrences in this single trip to write about within this single entry but one worth highlighting was the "Osterfeuer" on Easter Sunday evening. One of Markus's friends, Timo had invited everyone round to his family farm to light a bonfire, a traditional ritual at Easter time in Germany. We could see from afar other bonfires from neighbouring farms and we were lucky enough to get the fire raging before the heavens began to pour upon the pastures. A shabby wooden passenger wagon was the place of refuge for the party to watch the Osterfeuer in (semi-)shelter before we drowned ourselves in Weinbrand (cognac and coke) in the party room with a jukebox on hand to keep the soundtrack lively and varied. I had pretty much been drinking the whole weekend from a monstrous 3-litre glass that by the time it got to Easter Monday I was glad to be having an alcohol-free evening.

The Easter break alleviated some of the uncertainty which clouded the past couple of weeks with regards to my position at work. However, this was transcended tenfold by the humble and humorous shenanigans I had experienced once again in this farmland in which a part of my heart is embedded (and the eggshell that I broke free from in 2005 - no pun intended).

Pictures to follow...

Fischmarkt follies

Nino, Kasia & I at Sommersalon

It was at half-eight on Sunday morning when I got home from the Fischmarkt after a night out starting at Sommersalon bar at the heart of the Reeperbahn (a bit of a change, but nonetheless it was with the company of the ever-present fellow weekenders Nino & Kasia and later, Sebastien) with a view to bopping to the funk at Astra Stube. The planned funk night disintegrated as the stalwart members of the band were not present and so random MCs descended onto the stage forming a circle in which each attempted to spit rhymes at the slowly-vanishing crowd, ourselves included. I recall one MC managing to incessantly repeat "AL PACINO!" for every other line, at which point we decided to scarper for Kulturhaus 73 for a brief while (Sebastien going AWOL at this point, such was the drunken compass he was following). So the trio involuntarily and spontaneously decided to head down to the Fischmarkt; it was my second time at this bizzarely lively recurrent event and we found ourselves munching on a currywurst before absorbing the buzz of the live concert in the Fischmarkthalle at what must've been 7a.m. Droves of people appearing to sway and shuffle to the peripheral stands in my hazy perception which was sharpened by the rock band belting it down the entire length of the steel-structured hall to rows of revellers savouring the last few moments of the Saturday just gone. We crossed paths with Alex and Michael arriving from their respective parties and with everyone in jubilant mood the weekend really couldn't get any better.

We agreed to meet up the next day but it so transpired that we didn't, so I took the chance, whilst in town, to check out Claude Monet's "Camille" (1866) temporarily being displayed at the Hamburger Kunsthalle, as I had wanted to see it again for a while. The sight of it cemented what was one of the most memorable times I have had in Hamburg to date.

Einstein the cat

I thought I'd dedicate an entry to the mischievous cat that frequents the house. I prefer dogs and I haven't had many encounters with cats before coming to Hamburg but more often than not he's a personality that deserves a mention. The other day I witnessed Einstein leaping from its usual comfort spot in my room and throw up on the old wooden floor, much to my befuddlement. He's a cat who craves to be pampered, much like any other cat I suppose, but with a tendency to protract his claws as soon as you get complacent whilst stroking; he keeps you on your toes and your attention is mostly spent anticipating what devious act he might commit next. A stubborn, masculine character with a plump physique, Einstein lets you know when he wants to leave the house and when he sits on his rotundness and stares tens of yards ahead with an almost visionary air. What does he look for? Who knows? It does seem as if he pauses for thought before I presume, finding the next pad to crash and cause more misdemeanours. Like a friend who's got partly irritating habits but you always end up accompanying. Einstein the cat.

Some party, somewhere

...so after Joshua Bell, Nino, Kasia and I trekked all the way to Langenfeld, a non-descript place, at least in party terms, where there was in fact, a farewell shindig tucked away upstairs in a flat. The party was already in full swing with many fresh faces and a peculiar conversation about a piece of circular wheeled-storage unit deemed by Sebastien to be the second best invention in mankind's history after the wheel...as I said, the proceedings were in full swing when we joined...

 

  Four-player game of (?)

Joshua Bell @ Laieszhalle

Set in the grandiose Großer Saal in the Laeiszhalle on Fri.19.03.10 I went to see one of the world's best violinists perform Mendelssohn's violin concerto. After moving around 400 double-sized bricks at work for the previous two days a night of orchestral performances sufficed in lifting the lethargy into a state of deserved relaxation. Joshua Bell (American) was also in the mood to play Yankee Doodle for his encore...only a virtuoso like him can make such a song sound like a masterpiece...

Dinner party @ Daniel's, Sat.13.03.10

A friend was supposed to visit Daniel from Italy, but unsurprisingly, a number of successive delays on Italian transport meant that she couldn't come and we didn't get a chance to taste some 'real' lasagne as was promised. Instead, the party burrowed through a collective effort of food and alcohol provision...here are some of the other characters I roll with here on a regular basis in Hamburg...

 

The host, Daniel Holler

 

The Brazilian culinary maestress, Joice

 

 

Our very own wine connoisseur, Sebastien

Partners in crime - Daniel & Alex

Clare contributed a quintessential British delicacy to the party...chocolate cornflake cakes

Solvejg and I agreed to share the 2nd Viennetta ice cream, but after playing a game of chicken as to who would give into the temptation first...guess who won?

 Alex jamming to a few requests

POP LIFE @ Hamburger Kunsthalle

It was my second visit to this exhibition after seeing the show in London in Autumn 2009, so I casually led my companions around the bombastic world of art in the context of popular culture. Nino once again managing to wrestle the camera out of my hands...