A Weekend in Hamburg Pt. II

When I flew out from the US at the end of July, I had made sure to pack many things from home with me. Some were pictures of family and friends, others were mementos from my first two years of college. Additionally, I had also packed away a large bottle of Tabasco and Tony's (previously mentioned in an earlier blog post) so I could give my host family a "taste" of where I'm from. I also flew over a pound of dried red beans because I knew I was going to want to cook my host family a meal representative of where I'm from! I talked to my family early on, telling them I wanted to do this sometime in the future before I moved out of the house at the end of September. For two weeks the meal kept getting postponed due to various reasons on both of our ends, but I finally got around to doing it! I was very excited to cook this for them. I wrote my grocery list on an index card and headed to the store. I had to buy a few things such as celery, onions, garlic, and sausage. Interestingly enough, it took me about one whole week to find celery! None of the grocery stores I went to sold it, and I was lucky enough to stumble upon a farmer's market that was selling it. The onions and garlic were not a problem, but the sausage was. Germany is, perhaps, famous for its variety and consumption of sausages, but of course none of the choices at the market matched perfectly with the kind of spiced sausage I was accustomed to using. As an aside, none of the food here is as well seasoned as back home in Louisiana (more on this in a bit) so then again, maybe it wasn't all that surprising! I went and ahead and bought a few links which had "added seasoning," but really that just translated into mildly salty! Another one of the concessions I had to make for the meal was the side of cornbread. I enjoy eating my red beans and rice with cornbread (although I'm not against French bread) but there were no mixes to be found! I couldn't even find regular corn meal in the store, so I went ahead and bought a fresh baguette from the corner bakery. The bread turned out to be a fine addition to the meal. I followed all the steps from memory and the meal came out quite nice!

I brought out the Tony's for all to try. I was impressed--everybody took a few sprinkles of the seasoning for the meal. I also offered my Tabasco, but of course they had tried this before (I've noticed you can buy it here in the stores). I told my host family about the history of the meal and also the variants of the meal as served by different restaurants. My meal didn't turn out as "soupy" as I would have liked but they enjoyed it nonetheless.

A few days after serving my Southern meal I headed out to Hamburg for my "Weekend in Hamburg Pt.II." After spending the day playing tourist in Cologne with Pia, she mentioned to me that I should travel to Hamburg the next weekend to hang out with everybody before University started in October. She told me that everyone in the group will be going to different cities come October, and that this might be the last chance for a while to hang out together. She told me about a carpooling website in Germany, where the prices are generally half that of any train ride. I checked into the idea, and it seemed plausible! I booked a carpool ride for Friday mid-day, which would put me into Hamburg for dinner time. I also booked a return trip back via the Hamburg-Cologne Express train which would take about 4 hours.

Come Friday I met up with my driver and we headed out. I was excited to see Germany from the Autobahn's perspective because up until now everything I had seen had been from a railroad track. The drive to Hamburg was pretty hilly for a good bit. The countryside was great, and you would often see windmills off in the distance. I was dropped off in the outskirts of Hamburg and took a train into the city center where I would meet with Nic before heading to dinner.

Nic and I met up and headed to a burger restaurant around the block. We met up with Nic's cousin, Matti, who was stopping by before heading to the parkour gym for practice. Matti invited both of us to join, and of course we said "yeah!" Nic had already been a few times, but this was my first time. We wheeled out all of the equipment into the open gym, put down all of the crash pads and mattresses, and went to work. Many of the guys there were doing some really interesting moves; sometimes you'd turn your head and see some dude running at a full sprint, leaping off of a foot stool, and then flying 30 feet into the air into a pad. Crazy. Others were doing backflips off of walls. And then there was me. I went right in and asked one of the guys to teach me to do a front flip. It became my goal of the night to get that move down! Lo and behold, I did get it! Nic got it on video, but unfortunately I can't figure out how to upload it to the blog without it playing upside down. We went home around 11 exhausted and tired.

The weather in Hamburg, unfortunately, wasn't the best for my Pt.II adventure so a lot of the time was spent indoors listening to music and watching Youtube videos. I can't say it was a waste of time though, it was just nice to spend a weekend relaxing. Later in the night we would go out walking through the city, stopping here or there for a bite to eat or glass of beer or wine. On Sunday morning Nic and I met up with Tomma and Pia for an early breakfast. It was nice to catch up with everybody in the comfort of a warm cafe. After the meal we parted ways and I gathered my things for my return train ride back to Cologne. I got some reading done on the train ride back. Luckily it went by pretty fast.

I might not be visiting Hamburg again soon, but I'm thankful for the hospitality of my friends there. Next time I visit I'll hope to do some typical touristy things (good weather pending) and blog all about it.