Success! On my first day in Hamburg I was indeed mistaken for a German when a woman came up to me and asked me something frantic about the Hauptbahnhof. I understood one word, Hauptbahnhof, and apologised for not being able to help (in English).
Apart from the words everyone knows and the words that sound like English, I consider myself to have a reasonable German vocabulary thanks to popular culture. Here are some things that I know:
geschlossen - Chuck
schnell, "die Amerikaner, die kaempfen wie wiebe" - Indiana Jones
rathaus, schattenjäger - Gabriel Knight
If I have an excuse to use any of these, I will be happy. In the meantime I'm trying to pick up as much German as I can (with varying success), and am enjoying the words I've picked up that have pretty much remained the same in Russian, Danish and German (apotek, kartoffel).
Hamburg itself has been pretty different after Denmark! Kind-of dark and gloomy, sometimes in a cool way and sometimes in a shifty way. Maybe a good candidate for the Gotham City of Germany? I've been to see some Beatles sights, but have avoided the Reeperbahn at night without the company of friends. I went for a walk around town and enjoyed the buildings, and tonight I found another open-air cinema right in front of the Rathaus – but unfortunately I was not to continue my Scandinavian luck: Vicki Cristina Barcelona was dubbed into German!
Yesterday, on the advice of some friendly New Zealanders, I went for an afternoon in Lübeck – a town I knew nothing about but which turned out to be pretty cool! I didn't do much more than walk around and eat some ryvitas in the park, but it was a good place to do both of these.
Further thoughts of the day:
1.Inspired by the Danish, I'm thinking it would be cool to have my own customised bicycle. This could go hand in hand with Plan A: getting an apartment, but both of these depend on Plan B: working out what I'm going to do next year, something I've made no progress on. (letters don't necessarily correspond to priorities)
2.Sometimes I feel disproportionate levels of sadness when I see someone wearing an awesome t-shirt that I know I'll never be able to find for myself. This happened yesterday when I saw a guy wearing a shirt that had a huge black and white print of my favourite Twin Peaks promo pic, and underneath it in block letters “All For Nothing”. True words, my friend, true words!
Today I'm off to Berlin, where I'm going to listen to Low on repeat and try currywurst! Should be good!
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