April 13 - Another day shopping in Hamburg

We had to give up the car by 10 a.m., so we first used it to buy a lot of heavy groceries at Famila and Aldi before filling it and driving downtown to the Avis center on Eiffestrasse. I was still surprised by the floral bouquets for sale at the gas stations (and train stations!)—that was just so different from what we see in the U.S., and I wondered when such things lose their capacity to surprise someone from a different culture. When we arrived at Avis they were unloading the Mercedes-built Smart sports cars—very cute—and I tried (unsuccessfully) to get an exchange before turning in our Opel Corsa. We only had to walk about a block to get to the Burgstrasse U-Bahn station and hopped on the U-3 to Hauptbahnhof where we bought tickets for our planned Ausflug to Eckenfoerde the next day. By going back to the mass transit system I expected to lose the convenience of an automobile but have an overall simpler life style and that was a big plus for me. Besides, I really liked riding the trains.

Since we were already at Hauptbahnhof, we stayed downtown for a couple of hours to do some shopping. Altho we felt like we had enough books and CDs about German folk music, we wanted to buy some DVDs of classic German films. We found the original black and white versions of Erich Kaestner’s “Die Fliegende Klassenzimmer” (The Flying Classroom), “Puenktchen und Anton” (Dotty and Anton), and “Emil und die Detektive” (Emil and the Detectives) for 10 Euro each. I found “Das Boot” (The Boat) also for 10 Euro and Monika found “Der Trapp Familie” (The Trapp Family) for 25 Euro (ouch!) and “Die Feuerzangenbowle” (The Hot Punch Bowl) for 20 Euro. The Trapp Family movie was the original German version of the Trapp family story on which the musical and film “The Sound of Music” was loosely based. So it is different from the U.S. musical version according to Monika.

Surprisingly tired after running around all morning, we rode the S-Bahn back to Reinbek to take a nap before having a really late Mittagessen. We sat out on the patio and enjoyed the late afternoon sun for a while; the first time we had been able to do that during our time in Germany. We each read one of our new German folk song books, but mine contained Hamburg folk songs and most were Plattdeutsch (Low German) songs, which made it more difficult for me. One song was particularly interesting, a 1930s satirical version of “Eine Seefahrt die ist Lustig” (A sea trip is fun) that poked fun at the Nazis. Goering and the Hitler Jugend were among those singled out for the parody, altho I couldn’t get all the nuances.

We enjoyed another evening fire as we watched the final episode of the “Berlin, Berlin” series for this year. It ended with Lolle deciding to move from Berlin to Stuttgart to take a job there. But her Berlin friends were trying to get her to stay in Berlin, so we’ll have to see how that goes next season, assuming we can find some way to see German TV in the U.S.! I was also hoping, of course, that we could find a way to view the DVDs we had just bought in the U.S.

The evening news was as depressing as ever. The Iraq war seemed to be getting even uglier with over 40 civilian hostages now taken prisoner by the resistance. I was wondering when the resistance movement would get around to trying the “human shield” thing that Saddam used in the 1991 Gulf War. The net result was that international relief and reconstruction efforts were at a standstill, but thwarting those improvements and keeping the population of Iraq miserable also played into the hands of the resistance, so for them it was a Win-Win situation. Of course that meant for us it was a Lose-Lose situation and we were continuing all the while to lose soldiers and equipment. The equipment could be replaced but the soldiers never could. Sigh.

Monika finished crocheting a green and yellow cape for Louise Luebeck (the doll we bought in Luebeck), so she was now protected against the cold nights we were still having. Due to the long hours of daylight, when it was sunny the temperature would swing from the mid-30s in the morning to the 50s or even 60s by late afternoon. I was trying to cope with these temperature swings by layering and by using gloves, hat, and/or an ear band to regulate heat loss. The difference between having bright sunshine and no wind compared to deep shade and a cold breeze was particularly marked, and on some of our walks I was almost constantly donning or doffing various articles of clothing.

My new jacket from Aldi had zippered removable sleeves, though, and that gave yet another option for heat and ventilation control. Taken together with the zippered legs on my walking trousers, I now had 4 limbs I could either cover or uncover while walking. I considered removing various combinations of these as part of a semaphore signaling system to other walkers, but I couldn’t remember the details of the old Boy Scout semaphore system. Besides, you’d have to be really careful you didn’t accidentally send the wrong message to other walkers—I remember when men first started wearing earrings and wearing a single earring in the left (or was it right?) ear indicated you were gay. I could never remember which ear was for what signal, so I ended up not having my ears pierced at all. Besides, that decision has saved me a lot of money for earrings over the years! In general, jewelry and I don’t seem to get along that well in any case (think of sparks flying from a battery shorted across a wristwatch band), which is why I tried so hard to keep this Timex Expedition watch functioning once I had become accustomed to the Velcro wrist band (it’s not much to look at, but easy to read and comfortable). However, I did once use a pocket watch with chain, so when we found a pocket watch and chain for 12.50 with a 1903 Mercedes-Benz on the cover at Karstadt, I broke down and bought it. Unfortunately it was made in China and didn’t run consistently, so I later had to take it back.