Special Foto Issue

So! I have been getting (increasingly urgent) demands for pictures of our life here so far. To appease my modest readership, I am doing a special photo edition of "Germany or Bust." I hope you enjoy!

These are a few photos of our crazy Ikea bed.







And some of downtown Hamburg:

The train station -


The Rathaus (city hall) -




Look closely for the guy in a thong (and I don't mean flip-flops) -



A couple of photos from the Alster Lake in the city center -



Ok, this one deserves a little story. So, the red light district in Hamburg, known as the Reeperbahn, has a street that is forbidden to women. Guess what it's called? David Strasse. This street is supposedly where the kinkiest of activities go on and where hookers are to be acquired. Ironic? I don't know.



Another downtown shot -


And the Fischmarkt (Fish Market):

The nut that throws bananas -


And the nuts that throw plants. Check out the mustache on the little guy!




I got a sweet ficus from those kooks. Although, I need a rake to clean up after it, so I'm not sure who made out.

The apartment building across from ours -



The harbor -



David on the train (on the way to Harley Days). That ain't Pepsi, baby.



Harley Days!





Sausage, anyone?



Ah, yes. And tonight we have a lovely bubbly to pair with your sausage -



And this little number is composed of spare bike parts. Pretty impressive, I'd say. Bordering on tacky, but still kind of cool.



10 year anniversary weekend -

Wismar (beautiful old town on the Baltic Sea)



A church from 1200-ish





Grass roofed house on the beach -



Our happy little beach dinner -



A 25 euro bottle of wine -



More beachy stuff -




Can you see Stella?



Ratzeburg - a really beautiful old town 1 hour east of HH. This is right on the border of the former GDR. There were watch towers on the hill (I assume to shoot defectors).


A stone lion in the cemetary -


A church from 1100 -







And, this weekend we spent an evening on the Elbe Beach in Hamburg. The big river that runs to the North Sea is the Elbe. It has a huge harbor (nearly entirely destroyed during the war). And there are some fun beaches. One of which we inhabited on Saturday night. It is so cool to watch all of the big ships come in and out. The channel is so narrow that tug boats have to guide these ships in and out of the port. We saw ships from China, Panama, Argentina and Japan. How's that for globalization? Interesting, too, is that the ship crews speak English with the port authority.

David with some folks that we met on Saturday. Michael (not pictured here), a friend from work, was the organizing force behind this little grill party.



Big ships -







Sunset and an industrial, but still beautiful, port view:






There you have it. Just a little slice of life in Hamburg. I'll keep posting photos regularly. If the apartment wasn't such a wreck right now, I'd show you a couple of those photos, too. Be that as it may, I don't want to embarrass myself.

As an aside, David received his copy of Harry Potter yesterday. So, you can imagine what he is doing now. Wow, life after grad school is so nice.

Ah, one last thing. We had pancake breakfast today!!! I finally figured out in what sort of packaging baking powder comes and I got the right flour. Flour is a tricky business in Germany. There are finer and coarser flours, depending on your needs and they are listed by number - Weizenmehl 550, for example. I tried "Instant Mehl 400" a couple of weeks ago. Blech! It was like concrete. But today, my friends, we had a full on American breakfast with maple syrup and everything. Check this business out: