Searching for Bella Roma in California

It's hard to believe that we were actually in Rome last month. When you think about all of the things that can happen within a mere four-week period, it's almost mind-boggling. A few weeks ago, we were roaming around one of the most AMAZING and beautiful cities in the world; and here we are now, adjusting to life in the USA (well more specifically, California. Let's face it – in so many aspects, it's truly a world of its own).

I'm so glad that we took the time (and precious finances) to swing by Rome, though. It was amazing to go and see the glorious works of Michelangelo and Raphael in the Vatican – which is also the tiniest nation in the world, by the way.

It was also such a treat to be able to see the Coliseum up close and personal multiple times a day. We hit the Spanish steps, which to me, was nice for a picture, but wasn't my personal highlight of the trip. We also saw so many well-preserved ruins, which was a stark contrast to many we'd seen in Athens last year.

My favorite, dream-come-true place in Rome was actually the Trevi Fountain. It is such a magnificent piece of art, a true masterpiece in every sense of the word; I convinced my husband to stop there with me multiple times each day we were there. Despite the mass of tourists, you can still find many ideal spots.

Roman cuisine was a DREAM, and thank goodness we moved to the hilly San Francisco Bay Area, because I could stand to get a little more toned after all of that yummy food. Then again, San Francisco is a Foodie Haven as well…

Now that we’re in California, among other must-buys, we have to replace our beloved espresso machine. My usually laid-back husband is very European about this though, so it's taking a bit longer to find the best model that suits us both in price and features. We looked at one the other day and he immediately vetoed it with a scowl saying, "It looks like a Big Gulp could fit under that spout." Wouldn't it have been great if we could have imported a small one straight from Rome for a laughable fraction of the price? *Sigh*

In any case… if you have some great suggestions, especially in the SF area, we're definitely open to them. At the moment, we’re leaning towards the DeLonghi brand. Having a machine will certainly make mornings – especially Monday's – much more bearable. Besides, it's getting to be embarrassing having the numerous baristas recognize me by name and drink at the nearby Starbucks.

Have a great week. xoxo CountryEuroCityMouse

©2012-2013 CountryEuroCityMouse™. All rights reserved.

The Non-Traditionalist

If you're in the mood for a happy-go-lucky rainbow fairy blog entry today, I suggest you thumb through my archives. Living like a nomad will put anyone on edge, and I'm no exception. All of our possessions are on a ship somewhere, our apartment still won't be move-in ready for weeks, and we've been living out of suitcases for almost three months and counting. No – there's nothing glamorous or fun about this part for me. We've been playing The Waiting Game all year, and although good things come to those who wait, it's not so comforting when you don't have a choice in the matter.

On top of that, Now that we've relocated to the US, I feel as though I have to make a public announcement about something I had established abroad years ago. Admittedly, I rarely thematicize what I do professionally of my own volition, excepting very close friends and family. Since we've been stateside, I've been asked a few times what I intend to "do". Obviously, when you start over, you have to start over in every way. That includes employment. Usually, it takes too much effort to clarify, because I intend to do what I've been doing for years now. It's not a typical 9-5 thing; to use the official term for tax purposes, being a writer is an "Art Occupation". Moving from one continent to another and then cross-country won't change that.

But don't be deceived – this isn't an easy choice, and it's not always easy to follow through. I have plenty of bumps and scrapes and bruises, but battle scars are inevitable. Like many people, my profession has chosen me. I work my butt off doing what I love – reading by night, writing by day. Did I need a Ph.D. to do this? I guess so, because while doing that and working a traditional full-time job, what I loved most about it (besides my colleagues) was spending time after work conducting research and, oh yeah. Writing. Every night. Until 3 or 4 in the morning. Writing is a compulsion for me – it has been ever since I could hold a ridiculously large pencil in my hand. Seriously, that thing was like a wooden sword. I could wrap both of my hands around it. Ever since then, I truly believe the (slightly amended) quote attributed to Shakespeare: The pen is mightier than the sword – especially when used as a sword.

When it's a labor of love, you quickly repress the terror of birthing pains, so I've been told. I can equate my limited understanding of this to writing and producing novels. It's not just about creating a finished product. The entire process is beautiful, but it's not without effort, even if you can’t always see it. Believe me, it's a heck of a lot of work. I am forever grateful to my husband, who's been my biggest cheerleader, and my dear family and close friends who’ve been so supportive of me, my artistic ways and, ahem, mood swings for over a decade.

So, ask me what I do. (A lot.) Ask me where I work (Everywhere. Yesterday it was on a rooftop overlooking the Bay.)

Feel free to ask me about my workday, just as you would anyone else who works a typical 9 to 5. I'll be happy to share in a sentence or two, most likely without complaint (*gasp*). But, by all means, please refrain from asking me if I'm interested in getting a "real" job. I understand what you mean, but believe me, this is as real as it gets. It may not include health insurance or a 401K, but that's why you set up individual coverage, savings and retirement plans. Like you, I have good days and bad days at work.

When the day comes to a close, I'll drop my pen, shut off the electronics and enjoy a lovely California sunset. Tomorrow, I'll get back up and go to work: Create something out of nothing; make sure that it's good. Battle my inner critic, learn to love the product, package it, present it, and sell it. Stay sane. Repeat to infinity.

Have a great week. xoxo CountryEuroCityMouse

©2012-2013 CountryEuroCityMouse™. All rights reserved.

A Book Fiend's Paradise

Our new city is beautiful. On top of that, there are more bookstores and libraries in the area than I ever could have hoped for. In addition to the expected Barnes & Noble or two, there are numerous privately owned bookshops that maintain the wonderful age-old tradition of “buying, selling & trading” new and used books. Heaven!

My addiction to reading and writing began at the tender age of three. It couldn’t be helped; I was mercilessly exposed to that kind of environment from the start. Everyone around me was doing it – my mother, my father, my sister – it was nearly impossible for me not to give in to the temptation and indulge as quickly as possible. As expected, once I got a taste of it, there was no turning back.

They started me off with picture books and nursery rhymes, but it didn’t take too long for me to move on to harder stuff such as fairy tales, legends and children’s literature. As I matured, practically no mainstream genre was left untouched. When reading words wasn’t enough, spicing things up by reading music worked for a while, too. But to this day, nothing can replace the allure of a collection of words on a blank background, be it on delicious paper or a flickering screen. (Okay, see you know I have a problem when I can’t resist calling paper ‘delicious’. NEVER leave me in a stationary store unattended. I may never find my way out.)

We’ve shipped 39 huge boxes of books from Germany to California. There’ll never be enough time to extend my library to the expansive size that I want it to be; despite every book added, it remains a book too few. Honestly, if I didn’t know better, I’d swear that the library has a life of it’s own. Similar to the musical The Little Shop of Horrors, my library is the plant, and I’m hapless Seymour, feeding my voracious library book after book – yet it’s clear that there will never be enough of them to satisfy it. During a recent visit to the British Library, I realized that I was irrationally jealous of the collection. The British Library, people. At that point, it occurred to me that my addiction is likely incurable.

Oh well.

During my last few months living in Germany, I’d been obsessively trolling bookstores in my city, desperate to fill unknown holes in my collection by discovering one more perfect treasured book after another. My enabling husband seemed to view my compulsion with a combination of amusement and exasperation.

On a more specific note, if you’re as addicted to German Literature as I am, hopefully you already know that you can get your fix for free by accessing the Gutenberg Project online. Hundreds of books in the original German or in English translation are available to us all worldwide! Bwah ha ha.

Gotta love those tech-savvy suppliers.

xoxo CountryEuroCityMouse

©2012-2013 CountryEuroCityMouse™. All rights reserved.

On the Prowl

Seriously? We’ve been here less than a week and we already found our dream “starter” apartment. The best part is – we were also selected for it!

Despite the rapidity of a positive outcome, I can tell you one thing for sure – apartment hunting in the SF/Bay Area is exactly that. Hunting. You’re constantly on the prowl 24/7. Not exactly what I’d write on my Fun To Do list.

Anyway, now that the first major hurdle is behind us, it’s on to the next 423. Fortunately, we also took a breather to enjoy the gorgeous weather.

Have a great week. xoxo CountryEuroCityMouse

©2012-2013 CountryEuroCityMouse™. All rights reserved.

Goodbye Deutschland - Reality Bites

(As posted on July 24th) Fittingly, I’ve been blogging for a year this week, almost to the date. It’s amazing how so many things can happen within such a short amount of time. Well, happy anniversary, and thank you so much, dear readers, for your interest and involvement! Getting to know you from all over the world has been both an exciting and humbling experience.

The hard part is here – saying farewell. It’s a beautifully painful experience & the outpouring of love is overwhelming. The letter below is for all of my dear loved ones in Germany. Hence, I’ve written in German.

Am Ende der Woche gehe ich zurück in meine Heimat, aber ich gehe nicht zu meinem Zuhause. Mein erstes Zuhause ist bei meinen Eltern in Florida. Aber ehrlich gesagt, ich befürchte es ist für mich nicht mehr möglich nur “ein” Zuhause zu haben. Ich habe über 10 Jahre in Deutschland gelebt, dort gearbeitet und völlig in der Gesellschaft teilgenommen. Ich bin nicht nur mit einem Deutschen verheiratet – schon vor unserer Ehe habe ich seine Sprache und Kultur mit offenen Armen akzeptiert, studiert, analysiert und in mein Leben integriert. Sie sind ein Teil von mir und so wird es bleiben.

Jetzt ist es Zeit aus meiner zweiten Heimat wegzugehen… und das macht mich sehr traurig. Ich habe weder Zweifel noch Angst, sondern viele Dinge werden mir fehlen – der Alltag, die Landschaft etcetera – aber was mich am meisten traurig macht ist dass mir unsere Freunde echt fehlen werden.

Also, Danke Deutschland für alles. Danke für die guten und schlechten Zeiten und alles dazwischen. Danke für die wunderbaren Menschen, die in mein Leben gekommen sind. Danke für die Möglichkeit immer neue Facetten von mir zu entdecken, besonders wenn ich das nicht unbedingt machen wollte. Manche Dinge, die ich immer noch nicht verstehe sind geschehen, aber so wäre es überall auf der Welt gewesen, glaube ich. Also, einfach Danke für alles. Ich mag wie ich bin und meine Erfahrungen hier haben mich logischerweise stark beeinflusst.

An alle meine Freunde – ich habe euch lieb. Ich weiß, man sagt das eigentlich nicht, aber ihr spürt das…

Und bitte nicht vergessen – Friends are the family members you get to chose yourself. Danke, dass ihr Teil meiner Familie geworden seid.

With that, this chapter of my life comes to a close.

xoxo CountryEuroCityMouse

©2012-2013 CountryEuroCityMouse™. All rights reserved.

A Friendly Guide to the High-Five

Apparently, I'm "glowing". I figure that's okay as long as I'm not sparkling. Strangers have constantly been coming up to me commenting on how happy and serene I look. Thankfully, no one has asked me if I'm expecting or else I'm sure that peaceful look would have disappeared quickly. To be honest, I feel more pumped up than anything else. All of this pent-up energy is making me want to go to the gym to let off some steam. Almost.

Although I know that there are so many things that I will miss, most of all my family and dear friends, I must admit that I feel like giving perfect strangers stinging high-fives and making random fist pumps in the air a couple of times a day, so I suppose that is a clear indication that I'm feeling pretty good.

Okay, so while Americans are completely familiar with the awesomeness that is known as the High Five, and are generally taught to deliver and receive it at around nine months, in my experience, Germans have mixed reactions to it. It's kind of like the gehasst, verdammt, vergöttet (hated, doomed, adored) thing. They hate it, love it, fear it or are extremely confused by it.

If you're an American in a casual situation and something amazing just happened, watch yourself and see if you don't throw a hand up in the air, ready to slap a high five. If you're with other Americans, it'll be less than a second before there's a response to your call. Over the years in Germany, I've had to hone that ingrained reaction to give High-Fives and gauge my audience first. The few times when I've tried the exchange with Germans, aside from confusion, usually one of three awkward responses occurred.

1. The Cringe. No, the High-Five is not a form of abuse. It's like a firework – a quick burst of celebration, when you have so much uncontained joy it must be channeled through your body and out of the palm of your hand. Kind of like a superhero focusing his or her superpowers on one thing. You don't fear the High-Five. You embrace it and respond accordingly.

2. Passive Acceptance. This response always ticks me off. There is nothing passive about giving or receiving a High-Five. For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. That means when you see someone's ready to slap one on you, you prepare to slap one back simultaneously - don't just stand there with a tense palm and fearful expression as if you're holding a catcher's mitt and expect a baseball to suddenly land in it. Come on, folks.

3. Retaliation. This one makes me laugh inside each time. Apparently, the fight or flight instinct kicks in, and the person looks panicked and ready to defend himself or herself. By the time they realize what's happening and recover mid-swing, they've missed the pro-offered hand by a mile. The joyful moment is replaced by embarrassment, nervous laughter and avoiding eye contact. Priceless.

Seriously, I could go on forever about the types of awkward High-Five Exchanges and comment on the timing, the accuracy of the hit, the fact that if you mess up delivery, you should not have a "do over" (try again) immediately afterwards. Once, I saw a group of grown men miss each other's gigantic hands and try three times in a row. Gents, that ship has sailed. Go home and practice, and then try again some other time. (Then again, it was in a beer garden, so there may have been other factors hindering their performance.)

Come to think of it, delivering the perfect High-Five is actually a work of art. No wonder those who haven't grown up with it seem to have such difficulties. Maybe back in the States I'll offer an Americanization course and include a lesson on it – Pass/Fail.

Have a great week. xoxo CountryEuroCityMouse

©2012-2013 CountryEuroCityMouse™. All rights reserved.

The Checkout Process

It's a strange feeling: Where we were once a part of the community, we're now finding ourselves on the fringe, ready to leave it completely in only a number of days. Although we still have about two weeks before we move from Germany, our home is already starting to feel as though it isn't ours anymore. From a materialistic perspective, everything we have has either been broken down, sold, given away, thrown away, packed into a suitcase or will be shipped in a container overseas. This process also forces us to strip ourselves bare emotionally – how do you fit over ten years of your life into 25 cubic feet?

Facing hard choices, encountering the intimidating unknown with positivity, acknowledging and confronting the daunting tasks with as much clarity and faith as possible, and being able to accept that our future is completely up in the air is not exactly easy to do. Fortunately, my husband and I have friends and family members who have done their best to be there for us and offer us support in the best ways they can – especially emotionally – during this process. Some folks have let us down, but the times when you have to lean on someone and find that they don't have time to be there can also be the best times to learn about the quality of your friendship.

Thanks to technology, you can always post a "Thinking of you…" message. It's truly amazing how this simple act can give people the happy boost they've needed to perk up their days. No worries – I'm doing my best to practice what I preach here, too. It's not easy, but for me, doing it also makes my day feel more worthwhile. We all have our stresses in life – "first world problems" or whatever – but even when you can't exactly relate to the issues someone else is facing, you can ALWAYS break the situation down to its most base level… someone is looking to make a connection with you, to be reassured that what they do, say, think and believe somehow matters in this world. The answer is simple – it always does.

Have a great week. xoxo CountryEuroCityMouse

©2012-2013 CountryEuroCityMouse™. All rights reserved.

It's Not As Easy As It Looks...

These days, far too many people tend to give credit for really great achievements to the too often elusive thing called "Luck". Not only is this generally disrespectful, it's also a temptingly easy way for us to deny responsibility for striving to achieve our own personal goals. 

The next time we want to dismiss something great to Luck, we might want to remember Luck's best friend.

The best friend of Luck is HARD WORK.

Have a great week. xoxo CountryEuroCityMouse

©2012-2013 CountryEuroCityMouse™. All rights reserved.

Why I Go to the Gym (or, Why Buns of Steel Are More Important Than You Think)

Why is it that when you decide to do something slightly off from your normal routine, it comes back to bite you in your more prominently displayed than usual rear end almost instantaneously?

Today, I decided to go ahead and get dressed in my workout clothes before heading to the gym. That way, I reasoned with myself, I wouldn’t have any reason to back out of going. Sounded like a good plan in my mind. Of course, I use public transportation here in Germany, so I needed to ride four stops before exiting the tram literally at my gym’s door. Not taking the time to switch clothes or look for the perfect outfit, I just rummaged through my pre-packed workout bag and threw on the outfit I found inside.

Of course, it included a sports top and long-legged, very fitted running pants. Pretty much yoga pants with lycra. I thought that with a short loose shirt on top, it would be presentable enough to sit in a seat for 10 minutes. While I am quite happy with my body and aim to maintain, shape and tone it, I am not the kind of person who goes around in public wearing skin-tight clothes. So, of course I was feeling a tad bit self-conscious.

The first three stops to my destination were uneventful. As I stood up to approach the door shortly before the last stop, an older woman asked an older man to help her down the steps leading from the high tram to the ground while holding a push-cart. She said that she had fallen yesterday and she was scared to try it alone again. He looked at her with a slightly incredulous expression and replied that he wasn’t capable of doing so. (He really wasn’t; they both appeared to be over 80.) Naturally, there was else no one around, so I didn’t hesitate to help.

Imagine my delight when she asks me to leave the tram BACKWARDS so that I can bend down and hold her cart steady while she toddles down the steps excruciatingly slowly. So, yeah, I gave the downtown area of my city a lycra-clad booty salute helping the elderly today. Gotta love those random moments of gratuitous embarrassment.

And moments like that, my friends, are exactly why I go to the gym.

Happy Hump Day and have a great week.

xoxo CountryEuroCityMouse

©2012-2013 CountryEuroCityMouse™. All rights reserved.

"I Can't Wait... for the Weekend to Begin!"

Obama in Berlin

It's nice that President Obama decided to pay Germany a visit with his family and deliver a speech at the Brandenburger Tor. He'd been holding a grudge about not having been able to speak there preceding the 2008 Presidential Election - a five year long grudge. Finally, at long last, he showed up and everyone had big grins and I suppose all was forgiven.

The speech itself was alright - there weren't any stellar catch phrases like "Ich bin ein Berliner" or "…Tear down this wall" - although he, the German chancellor and the mayor of Berlin ALL made those important moments in German/American history a theme in their speeches. Other than that, he primarily said what he's been saying since reelection. That was especially impressive to me because I often can’t remember what I did five minutes after having done it. (Seriously. Yesterday I went to the bank to have my statements delivered to me only via online banking. One minute later, I went to the ATM and tried to print out my bank statement. Two minutes later, I went back to the same teller and asked what was wrong. Gently, she smiled and reminded me of my previous transaction with her. I wish I could say it was the first time something like that has happened, but sadly – no.)

I suppose the highlight was when he decided to take off his jacket due to the excessive heat.

Wait - no, it's not what you think. It was a highlight because of what he said, not what he did. In Merkel's welcoming speech, she said that she greeted the president as a friend of Germany and stressed that was he truly among friends on both a personal and political level. In response to that, he said something to the effect of, "Since we're among friends, there's no need for me to be so formal. If I may, I'll just remove my jacket." Then he proceeded to speak for 40 minutes in the sweltering heat.

Smart man. It's literally 97 degrees here in the sun as I write; I shudder to think that he could have passed out. I'm sure when he and Merkel left the stage, he whispered, "So… Angie. Since we're friends and all, think you could find a nice, cold AC for me somewhere?"

Just sayin'.

xoxo CountryEuroCityMouse

©2012-2013 CountryEuroCityMouse™. All rights reserved.

Always Keep Your Dancing Shoes

It's hard to believe that I've been blogging for a year now! Thanks so much for joining me in this experience and making the effort so worthwhile; thanks to you, it's been fun. So much has changed since my first entry. As you may or may not remember, I'm CountryEuroCityMouse because I'm originally from an awesome small southern town in America, I fell in love with a German and became a permanent resident of Europe, and we've been wanting to find the right city for us live in back in the good ole US of A.

Last year, we spent seven and a half weeks living in New York to see if that was 'our' city. While we loved it, we also decided that we loved eating and having some free time. Back in Germany, we found our dream apartment in our dream neighborhood and pretty much readied ourselves to chill there a bit. Apparently, bigger plans were in store for us. Instead of us finding the right city in America, it's found us. My husband received an unanticipated non-mafia related offer he couldn't refuse. As of August this year, it's going to be CountryEuroCityMouse in San Francisco, California! I'm so proud of him, and I'm excited about the pending changes in our lives.

Over the past few months since we've received the news, I've been doing a lot of Spring Cleaning – over 10 years' worth. Just the other day, I came across my dancing shoes from when I studied Musical Theater. After I earned that degree, I moved on to study Classical Performance, so I never needed my tap, jazz or modern dance shoes again. But somehow, I could never let them go. As I looked at them, I saw a part of me that still exists – and no matter where I am or what I do, it always will.

Far too often, I hear people say they've given up on their dreams, because “life” happened. But just like everything else in life, dreams can merely change – they can be modified to accommodate other circumstances beyond our control. My desire to connect with the world through words, music and movement still rages within me; I accept with joy and gratitude the fact that it always will. Aside from the movement part, my husband is the same way, and together, we've been able to have so much inspiration and make so many adventures out of everyday life. Now, we're ready to embark on yet another one.

Always keep your dancing shoes, whatever they may be. Let them remind you of who you are, where you've been and how you want to be.

Have a great week.   

xoxo CountryEuroCityMouse

©2012-2013 CountryEuroCityMouse™. All rights reserved.

German Beer Garden Slogan: "We Make the Best Out of Water."

Germany is especially famous for beer, and almost every city or even town has at least a few microbreweries on hand. One of our local microbreweries offers pretty popular beer, great food and has an awesome beer garden overlooking a stream. My husband and I went for a walk and stopped there today. While we were sitting in the beer garden enjoying the beautiful summer-like weather (finally!), I noticed the slogan for their beer: "Wir machen das beste aus Wasser." I'm sure every beer lover in the world would agree.

Happy Sunday, and have a great week.

xoxo CountryEuroCityMouse

©2012-2013 CountryEuroCityMouse™. All rights reserved.

Menschen helfen Menschen (People Helping People)

Normally, I tend to focus on the more humorous aspects of the goings-on in my life and choose to share some of those moments with you in this blog. Just as I find writing these entries to be a nice escape from the inevitable stresses adult life brings, I hope that with each entry you read, you have something to smile about; without a doubt, you’ll always have something to think about.

However, at the moment, a slow but steady natural disaster is occurring in my second homeland of Germany, and because I’ve committed myself to write about life in Germany and my blended culture experience in life and love, it’s ridiculous for me not to acknowledge a tragedy is occurring in the country. For me not to write about it is, in my mind, equivalent to pretending it isn’t happening at all. That is so not my style.

Due to excessive rains and the riverbeds are unable to contain the water, massive flooding has literally wiped out complete towns and villages. Thanks to honest-to-goodness German efficiency, hundreds of thousands of people throughout the country have either been forced to evacuate their homes or have done so voluntarily, thereby minimizing the risk for losing human life within the country. Unlike the terror of, for example, tornadoes where the damage is quick, severe and can take you completely by surprise (in Florida, we have to contend with hurricanes, tornadoes and in certain areas flash-flooding), the floods here are torturous, often creeping an hourly inch by inch to levels as high as 6 to 8 meters. Yeah, that’s hard for me to fathom as well; that makes the water levels in towns and small cities between 20 and 25 feet HIGH. In some places, various parts of the Autobahn have been completely submerged. Unbelievable.

There are all kinds of horrible things happening in the world, and I do try to make a point to remember that there is still so much goodness despite this fact. One thing that has warmed my heart is seeing the solidarity of people – working together to help each other during their times of need by providing such simple things as food and new undergarments. Of course, there are ways we can all help: As usual, the German Red Cross is accepting donations (feel free to contact me for more information), as are many other charitable institutions. Also, people of faith and positivity can share their prayers and well wishes. One thing that people forget is that no matter what “first-world” country you may be fortunate to live in, Mother Nature has the ability to strip you bare, making you grateful for one thing above all others – life.

If you don’t have money to spare (and there truly are other ways to be helpful besides opening your wallet), or you can’t be bogged down with more problems of others because you’ve got too many of your own, then do the world a small favor and just take the time to appreciate the good that’s going on in your own life. Gratitude is a powerful emotion – and believe me, it’s also contagious.

Have a great week.

xoxo CountryEuroCityMouse

©2012-2013 CountryEuroCityMouse™. All rights reserved.

Five Ways to be Hella Happy in Hamburg

It's been three whole weeks since I've last posted, but I'm sure you can understand that while I enjoy writing about life, I most especially love concentrating on living it. This week, I thought I'd tell you a little bit about my experience in the city of Hamburg. I absolutely LOVED it there. The city is nice, the people are friendly and open; the food was great, and the shopping was a dream for me but a nightmare for my budget. These are the five things that I’m going to share with you today. Oh, and the Reeperbahn.

The City

The cultural history of Hamburg is as rich as many of the residents themselves. We took the time to visit the absolutely beautiful city hall and take a guided tour. It was worthwhile, and based on these pictures I snapped with my phone, I think you can see what I mean.

We encountered many friendly people, who were cordial,open and conversational; greeting strangers and passersby was a completely normal and natural occurrence (The whole “Moin” – “Moin, moin” greeting is so cute). In many parts of the southwest region of Germany, it’s almost considered a weakness to even acknowledge the presence of another person. It was so refreshing to see (once again) that this is not typically the norm in the country, but unfortunately more of a regional thing.

The Food

Anyone who had something to say about Hamburg (and of course, that was everyone) recommended two things: Taking an hour-long cruise along the harbor – which was very interesting and informative – and eat some of their delicious seafood. People were raving about the seafood and how fresh it is and so tasty…  Sorry, I ate enough seafood there at various price ranges and while it was good, well most of it, in my case, it was nothing worth writing home about. Meaning home to my fellow Floridians, of course.

Our understanding of “fresh” seafood is that we actually see the one fishing it out for us, cleaning it, plopping it into hot water and serving it up about a half hour later. Hamburg was excited about having had the seafood shipped to them earlier that morning. Okay.

A word of advice – the picture below may look like a shrimp roll (I love the shrimp and lobster rolls in New York), but unfortunately, it was just nasty. I ended up throwing those icky seaworms away along the pier. The meals I had later were well prepared and tasty (and not just seafood!).

The Shopping

My budget was very unhappy with me by the time we ended our trip, but my husband and I were hella-happy.

(Sorry, I couldn’t resist. This is a new beverage line released in Germany and it makes me laugh every time. I noticed it for the first time in Hamburg.)

If you have the cash, they have the goods. If you don’t have the cash, then you can look at the goods and have a good time with that. We certainly did. Some things were almost impossible to pass up, and my husband wasn’t immune to the great shopping opportunities either, bwah ha ha.

The fashion palate there is a bit more expansive than what I have typically associated with Germany over the years – meaning that it can generally be described as “European” as opposed to specifically “German”. I suppose that could be considered a backhanded compliment, but facts are facts.

Beyond shopping, the architectural structures throughout the city are AMAZING. The city is a successful combination of historical and modern, hip and traditional.

The Reeperbahn

I don’t have much to say about this area, except that the street is certainly an eye-opener. To be as euphemistic as possible, I can assure you that there was not one Disney or Nickelodeon product in the area; nevertheless, every single store boasted of selling a vast selection of toys.

Having been to Amsterdam twice, it wasn’t as shocking for me as some areas we stumbled upon there the first time; also, we were in St. Pauli during the week and avoided the weekend crowd. There was also a very strong police presence, and we did discover a really cool Turkish restaurant in the area.

Visiting the Beatles' monument (Beatles Platz) is a must for any music lover. The Reeperbahn, located in St. Pauli, is where the Beatles first performed and gained their fame throughout Europe. Initialy, there were actually FIVE Beatles, but one guy fell in love with a German and stayed there. Hmmm. Familiar story somehow.

By the way – most Germans don’t know about the beer St. Pauli Girl, which is one of the most popular beer exports from Germany. The irony of it all is that the brewery has nothing to do with Hamburg, the Reeperbahn or any “girl” – the smaller brewery is within the Beck’s huge brewery in BREMEN!

Have a great week.

xoxo CountryEuroCityMouse

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