Too old for all-nighters

As many in my faithful readership know, J-Amy (aka Jeff & Amy) have landed in Hamburg. Many thanks to all who sent care packages for Jeff (not so thankful) to carry. We are fairly awash in maple syrup, vacuum cleaner bags and Adidas deodorant (everyone is thankful for that). Unfortunately, many brain cells were sacrificed this weekend in our quest to show J-Amy a nice time. As a result this post may be slightly lacking in flair. I'll do my best.

Fortunately, it's festival time in Hamburg. And there was a world-class triathlon here this weekend. We participated in the festivals. Not so much in the triathlon. Go figure. On Friday we did attend the triathlon where we watched the under-23 men's triathlon. There were beers all around. It made us feel only slightly guilty watching all these elite athletes while we swilled beer and woo-hooed the Americans. The athletics were followed by dinner at an Afghani restaurant (more beers) and a visit to a reggae festival (and more beers). This was our "playing it cool" since we were scheduled for an all nighter followed by the Fisch Markt on Saturday and we wanted to save energy.

Saturday rolled around gloomy and rainy (TIH - This is Hamburg). The nice thing is that the rain doesn't usually last all day and the clouds broke in time for us to attend the Methfesselstrasse fest right around the corner from our apartment. This was the start of our 6-to-6. Here we saw an awful band, drank beer and Jeff ate festival sausage. The rest of us had really great falafel - made fresh right there. Amy was convinced that the lady in the band was just plucked out of the audience for the occasion. It was embarrassing to watch, really.

We next hit up the reggae fest from Friday night. The band was excellent, Dubtari, I think they were. And the show was free. This is something that is common around here and really nice. Lots of festivals fund their shows with beer. Reasonably priced beer (3 euro). The reggae fest might have been about the time that we decided each person would be designated "party director" for some set period of time. The PD would decide where to go and how long to stay. Amy took first shift and the moniker "PDA."

Anyway, we went to a bar that was reminiscent of Colors. It was dark, shabby, and you could DJ. This was followed by a trip to a Hooka Bar (Amy's idea). By this time we'd been drinking for many hours and hadn't eaten in nearly as many. As a result, we all sort of felt like we were hit by a small truck after huffing on the hooka. This might have been the start of my demise.

But we knew we had to last until AT LEAST 5 am, when the Fischmarkt opened. So, I had to stay strong. About this time Amy, who was PDA as you might remember, was summarily impeached with a 3/4 majority as a result of bad Hooka decisions and because she was drunk on power (or something like that). I was the next PD and after much consultation with Amy we decided we really needed a snack to keep it going another 3 hours. While Amy and I ate delicious Turkish snacks, David and Jeff took this opportunity to investigate Davidstrasse (see earlier post). The report is that Davidstrasse features beautiful, scantily-clad women sitting on stools in windows applying make-up and nail polish. I'm not sure why that's off limits to women.

After our delicious Turkish snack we proceeded to the next Colors-like bar where we got our asses kicked at fussball by some kid and his girlfriend. Well, it was actually David and Jeff. Amy and I watched. By this time, I was really dragging (and clock watching). Finally, it was 5am and we marched ourselves down to the River Elbe and the Fischmarkt, which turns out to be pretty lame at 5am. Or maybe I was too drunk and tired to really appreciate it. And I had the hiccups. In any event, we muddled around for about an hour and then caught the train home.

Sunday sucked, but I still love Hamburg.

Amy and Jeff are day-tripping around Hamburg and we are planning a long weekend to Amsterdam. Ugh. More brain cells.