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

©2012-2013 CountryEuroCityMouse™. All rights reserved.

I Hope this Isn't the Leading Brand of Gum...

I went to the grocery store to pick up some coke and saw this at the cashier's counter. At this point, my silly nature has been established, so you can already guess that when I saw this, I burst out laughing. There was a punk couple in front of me, and the girl turned to look at what I laughed at... She leaned in and started laughing as well. All I could say was, "Beinahe, oder?" (Pretty close, right?) She laughed and said, "Absolut." In any case, as always, pictures are worth a thousand words.

Smile - you've survived Hump Day (the middle of the week)! Have a great week.

xoxo CountryEuroCityMouse

©2012-2013 CountryEuroCityMouse™. All rights reserved.

Genius Overload

My husband and I went to an Apple store in Germany recently, and it was one of the most grotesque and surreal experiences of my life. While I do enjoy using their popular products, I'm not exactly fond of the company's marketing and promotional methods (and that's me speaking demurely). After our experience yesterday, though, it's also clear that sometimes it's a bit, well, stalkerish.

You know how when you walk into most Apple stores in the US, you know you've entered an expensive adult version of what a McDonald's play area used to be like in the early 90s? Happy Meals and Playtime! What could be better?

First of all, when we walked into this store, I felt like we had just walked into Willie Wonka's Chocolate Factory. I don't mean the one with Johnny Depp, where you know deep down, the dude is just having a good time pulling your chain; I'm talking about the original with Gene Wilder, who lovingly let his freakish Umpa-Lumpas have free reign all over the place. Their scary green hair and those horrible spray tans continue to make occasional cameo appearances in my nightmares to this day.

Anyway, the first Umpa-Lumpa, I mean, genius, greeted us at the door. "Wilkommen!" We casually looked at him and politely greeted him in return as we attempted to make our way toward the Macs. But wait! Apparently, you have to make it past the bouncer, first. He scuttled beside us and leaned forward a little too closely.

"Sind Sie zum ersten mal hier?" (Is this your first time here?)

"Uh, nein."

"Kennen Sie unsere Produkte?" (Are you familiar with our products?)

"Ja…"

"Gut! Gut!" He couldn't hide his pleased expression. We were in.

"Suchen Sie etwas bestimmtes?" (Are you looking for something in particular?)

I couldn't help but sigh in irritation and I barely restrained myself from telling him with a straight face that I was looking for a Panda bear.

"Nein. Wir wollen nur schauen." (No, we’re just browsing.)

"Oh, ok… Danke und viel Spass!" (Oh, ok. Thanks, and have fun!)

Under normal circumstances, this would read like a typical exchange of information. Perhaps he needs to collect data, or he just wants to steer you in the right direction. Here, the guy was empty-handed, and the store literally had more "geniuses" than customers. It was unnerving, like he was reluctant to let us go and was beseeching more human interaction.

After we had broken free of him, my husband started looking at the Macbooks. Within five seconds, a pimply face with a wide-eyed stare popped up before us, just like a teenaged Umpa-Lumpa with a shock of blonde hair.

"Hi! Brauchen Sie Hilfe?" (Need any help?)

My husband and I automatically replied, "Nein, Danke." He didn't leave.

"Haben Sie unsere Produkte schon?" (Do you already have some of our products?)

This was getting irritating. I was beginning to see why more Germans make their purchases through Apple resellers.

This was also quite different from my experiences elsewhere. Usually, we customers are hungrily prowling for someone to help us out, and as soon as we find one, we join the circle around said prey, ready to pounce as soon as the next customer leaves. I think to be a "genius" there, you must notate on your resume that you can run quickly and disappear at will.

Not the case in this store. As soon as one left, another genius came in his wake. We literally had four of them approach us within a 2-minute period. You would think that we would have been appreciative, and perhaps we would have been, if they hadn't made us feel like we were in a plastic cage in the center of a shark tank. Each and every one of them had large eyes with dilated pupils, and they were seriously twitching, vying for our attention. I'm not insinuating that they were on anything, but I had the strange feeling that they were suffering from huge withdrawal. So few customers; too many geniuses!

What happens to the geniuses when they aren't needed anymore? I hope for the sake of us all, Apple at least gives them some sort of rehabilitation to help them get re-acclimated to a life as – (hmmm, what does Apple call its customers? Let’s try an analogy: Apple is to geniuses as customers are to _________. Now you know another reason why I “love” the company’s PR so much.) Three of them, who looked at us woefully as we walked out of the store and onto the snowy street, seriously looked like they'd been brainwashed.

xoxo CountryEuroCityMouse

©2012-2013 CountryEuroCityMouse™. All rights reserved.

For the Handyman Who Ain’t – IKEA

First of all, for those of you who are deeply offended by my use of the word “ain’t” in the title of this week’s blog entry, sorry. Well, sort of. If I were truly sorry, I probably wouldn’t have used it in the first place. It just reminds me of a saying one of my nursery school teachers would say when she heard a kid use the word: “…‘Ain’t’ ain’t a word, and we ain’t gonna say it.” As I child, I always found that saying to be totally stupid. Who was the genius that thought that it would be remotely useful to use a disdained word three times in one sentence as a reminder not to use the word at all? To this day, this saying makes absolutely no sense to me. Granted, I actually do remember the sentence, but I was never one to use “ain’t” in any case – unless, of course, for narrative emphasis. It’s a cheap trick, I know. But it gets results.

This entry actually isn’t about the etymology of the word “ain’t”; it’s about IKEA. (Whoa! You’re probably wondering where that came from. As you should already know by now, randomness comes second nature to me.) If you are over the age of 18 and don’t live at home with your parents anymore, you probably know of which store I am referring to. I don’t know if I can call IKEA a “store”. I personally liken it to being one of Big Brother’s Labs created to look like a massive furniture store. You either love the place or you don’t; but depending on the size of your budget, you probably end up going there either way.

Such has been the case with us. I usually like shopping, I guess. But I’m the kind of person who’s always on some kind of mission. That means I go in, I look for the specific items I need or want, I look at some additional items that might catch my eye for a little while, and then I’m ready to make the purchase and move on my next mini-mission. At IKEA, however, you may as well write off half a day before you even get in the car to drive there. Insanely enough, those Swedes found a way to make furniture shopping a universally torturous glorious experience around the world.

IKEA, here in Germany, pronounced “EE-KAY-AH”, forces you to walk through a maze, going so far as to adding a blue or yellow dotted line to “guide” you along the way. (Are you feeling like a lab rat yet?) Even if you know exactly what you want, say, an inexpensive office chair, you must walk through at least four unrelated departments before you can get to the one you want. Along the way, you must battle through people who stop the flow of traffic to look at a purple Bårgy, whatever that is, and leave their cart – and infant child, mind you – unattended to gaze at this new IKEA item in wonderment. Meanwhile, as you try to skirt this diversion by walking on the other side, you’re side blocked by a group of confused looking people walking in the opposite direction of the obnoxious dotted line, who, in addition to having failed the first test, also look irritable and confrontational as people continue to get in their way.

By the way, if you are in a hurry, you are an idiot for going to IKEA in the first place.

I’m not going to get into the details of the IKEA shopping experience. Scholars have written books on the place, and focus specifically on the manipulative techniques and product placement used to intentionally create psychological experiences before and after the sale. I know many people who scoff at their products and claim that they’re so inferior to other brands, blah, blah, blah, but when we go to visit them at their place and see their Billy bookshelves etc., they sheepishly admit that “for now” they, too will “settle” for IKEA products. Whatever. I know other people who go there with their kids and have a celebrated “IKEA” day, which is absolutely horrifying to me. My husband and I do not celebrate going to this store. We do not ride there thinking, “Yippee! We’re going to be herded around like cattle, wait in an exasperatingly long line and have to figure out how to fit these crazy boxes in a car that is clearly not large enough to accommodate them.” We don’t eat the scary hydrogenated pellets or anything else they have to offer in their canteen, so by the time we’ve finally selected all that we need and pay the fee to have the majority of that mess delivered directly to our home, we’re exhausted, starving and ready to drop kick the happy families leaving the store with 1 Euro hotdogs and 50 cent ice cream cones in hand. This actually was an excursion for them!

Back at home; when it’s time to build up the items, I can’t begin to tell you what change comes over my husband. He gets this determined look on his face, pulls out the instruction manual and all of his tools and gets to work. He’s going to build something, gosh darn it! At this point, he clearly has this major surge of testosterone, which I find to be perplexingly sexy and hilarious at the same time. For the love of humanity, it’s just an IKEA bedroom set, but after you’ve taken those countless hours to build your adult Lego-home, you can’t help by feel a major sense of accomplishment. The best thing about IKEA items is that when you put together something that you’re going to be using on a daily basis, you have a deeper sense of attachment to it because you helped bring that particular item into being. You’re proactively contributing to the betterment of your living space and you’re doing the family budget a favor at the same time.

Our IKEA shopping binges are always an eye-opener for me. As annoying and generally frustrating as I find it to be, it still amazes me how many things you can actually buy in one place for your interior decorating needs. Through your efforts and the genius that is IKEA, you and Big Brother’s Furniture Lab have brought you one step closer to making your house, your apartment, your loft, or whatever – a home.

xoxo CountryEuroCityMouse

©2012 CountryEuroCityMouse™. All rights reserved.