Settling In, Part II

The City

So far, I can say that I really like Hamburg. Where I live and where I work is nice, and friendly and clean. The middle areas I see as I ride the city train everyday… well maybe not so nice pretty and clean… but at the same time they graffiti words like, “IKEA” on the wall… clearly that person got a “build it yourself” bookshelf with a screw missing.

One of the first things I noticed in getting here is that its always daylight. I fell asleep on my first day here, and woke up at 9:30pm and it was still all sorts of sunny outside. It doesn’t start getting dusk until about 10:30, but even at 11 you can still see light on the horizon… And then when I wake up at 5am its already blazingly sunny. Due to having one night where I just couldn't sleep, I learned sunrise is around 4:30am. This is completely opposite of Cambodia where it was dark by 6, and really just promotes staying out and about and doing things the whole day. The weather here is shifty. It was super hot when I first got here, then about 3 days later, the temperature plummeted, and its only just started to get a bit warmer.

The people here are all very nice. Apparently I blend in a bit more than I thought though, as people are always asking me for directions (I think, I can't always understand them). This actually happened my first day on the way to work, when I was completely lost and wandering around aimlessly.

The Neighborhood

I live in an area called Gross- Flottbeck, which just has huge houses, and little village areas. It is quaint to say the least, but also super expensive. There are tons of little restaurants and things like that, but they tend to be out of my price range. There are also a bunch of mom and pop stores that line my street. Lucky for my wallet, I'm never home when these things are open. When asked, I usually say that I live in Othmarshen, since that's the train station, which is only a 5 minute walk from my place. The tracks are actually the dividing line between the two areas, turn left, you head towards my place, turn right you go to Othmarschen.

The Apartment

I live at Beselerstraße 15a, 22607 Groß-Flottbek, Hamburg... you know, in case you want to send me things while I'm here.

Größere Kartenansicht

That there is the mapped route between where I live (A) and where I work (B)

The apartment is perfect. While not the mansion I had last summer, it definitely works for me. As with all places that I live, its is located on the the third floor of my building (for those that don't know this is my 4th residence in 4 years where i've lived on the 3rd floor, which is usually as high as you can go). It has a bed that folds into a box on the wall, a small telly that only shows things in German (I've been watching cartoons in German, since its the easiest to follow, but MTV has family guy, american dad, and south park that i can follow along w/ as well-- in the video, the background is south park's lord of the rings episode). And then across the street there is this house that has things on the roof that spin... you better believe that when I'm tired, I sit and watch these things go for hours (see video). The pictures below are of my view, and the video is just a quick look at the place.