2.1.2 - Hamburg 2

Ok, I'm back in my room, it's 21:30 hrs

I slept like a baby last night... I had the TV on all night long too!

I heard my alarm go on al 9:00, and I got up and opened the curtains... Wow! it snowed last night, a lot!
Oh well, shower time, Yes!
No! I left my shampoo bottle at Corsi's
But no big deal, the shower has an all purpose shower gel.

After the shower I was cutting the hair around my ears and my sideburns, I felt like I was inside a spy movie, they always cut their hair by the sink in an European hotel.

Breakfast was good too, scramble eggs, orange juice, coffee and bread.
Oh, their laundry services are not operational yet, hmm!
While having lunch, I checked the local forums... there is a brunch get together today, at a coffee place next to the main canal.
So I walked half way through Hamburg, and made it on time after asking for directions a few times.
Two long tables of women with babies, I should have read the early postings of the forum topic... It's the new mom's meeting, so Not me!

Anyway, I kept walking around, and then I found The Nivea Store, the original, so I went in, the lady that asked me if I needed any help has a daughter that just came back from studying in Vancouver for 5 months.
So I bought a Nivea shampoo for men, and a new anti-transporant because I was running low. I wanted to get a travel size of the men's hand lotion but they don't have it. anyway, I had an expersso at Nivea Cafe, and the lady that was helping me before, came back with a bag full of samples, how cool is that?!

My next stop according to "the lonely planet" was to take the tour of the Alster Lake on a boat, but i still had 90 min to kill before the next tour, so I bought a Hamburg Card... you ride the public transportation with that card, plus you get discounts at museums, tours, and some restaurants. And then I took the subway to the football stadium.

The train ride was 20 min and then you have to take a bus that comes every 10 min, or walk for 20 min to get to the stadium. As soon as I found that out, I got back on the train and headed back to the pier. The tour was boarding already, but the 50 min (8,00€) tour was lame!
No explanation, no description, no pointing out of spotd, nothing! well, a very cute captain tho!
Oh, and bacause it's winter, the canals are not open, so we just went around the lake :(

Then I walked, and walked some more, made it to the other side of town. Big container boats going in and out of the piers there too.
And across the canal, there is the big theatre were they have the show "the king is the lion" or as we know it, "the lion king"
I was very very very tempted in watching the show, especially since the last minute tickets were half price.
But I've already seen that show, on Broadway, none the less!
That same ticket box office is the Tourist Information Center. And I asked about walking tours, None!
about Pub Crawls, None! about night tours, None!
Get the idea? This City is open to tourists from April 1 to Oct 31
There are Red District Tour on Fridays and Saturday nights, but in German, and I'm not here on Friday nor Saturday.
I did however, buy a ticket to a city tour on those double decker buses for tomorrow, that way I can get on and off through out the day.
18 stops, 30 min between busses, and one of the stops is around my hotel, not bad at all eh? well, we'll see about it tomorrow.

Well, I was close to St. Pauli (remember the Beatles?) there is a Beatles Platz there, it's in the middle of Reeperbahn St. the biggest Red District outside Amsterdam. Pretty quiet at that time, they open for business much later, hey, a restaurant called Vic's, I guess I'm eating there! Italian place, their pasta was not even close to any pasta at any of the Corsi's.

It started to snow very hard, time to head back to the hotel anyway.

On my way to the hotel, I stopped at a sports store and got two rain covers for the backpacks. I wanted to go across the street to Saturn and get a rain gear for my camera and one of those monkey grip tripods, but they close at 21:00 hrs.

I'm cold, I'm wet, I need a warm shower and a beer!
The little store at the corner has Bacardi and Cola in a can, guess what I'm drinking as I type this?

By the way, the Red District didn't have any social workers on the streets!

I should stop now, the iTouch is getting low in battery, I need to take a warm shower anyway.
I'll email and chat on line once I get off the shower.

There is a football game on now !

PS
I forgot to mention yesterday, that on the way to Hamburg, I was listening to some old songs... some made me think of Veronica Rodriguez, Verenice Rod., y Maricela "Mariposa", Leticia Cisneros y Maria Cecilia Hinestroza.

Good night everyone!