Eins Monate

Hallo Freunde!

Hello friends!

It's been a month since I arrived in Hamburg, and what a month it's been!

It feels like I've been here longer due to all the things we've crammed into these last 30 days. I've taken my first 4-week intensive German course. I learned how to navigate the grocery stores, how to recycle properly (the German way), how to order take-out, how to ride the trains by myself (I only got lost once for a brief moment), and how to properly eat a sandwich (open face, of course). 😁

Of course, this past month has also been spent reuniting with Clarke and helping to set up our apartment. It took over three weeks to finally receive the four boxes I shipped from Baltimore, after many frustrating conversations with German Customs. Once I was able to unpack those, it started to feel more like home as we were able to surround ourselves with some familiar keepsakes (and my winter coats, which I've already used multiple times). It is quite a change downsizing from a three bedroom, two bath house to a small one bedroom apartment with one bathroom. Living in such tight quarters forces us to be more intentional about each thing we decide to acquire.

Yesterday, we braved the wind and rain and ventured out to one of the large secondhand stores in town. We have a long list of things we need for the apartment, but don't want to buy retail if we can avoid it. We really need some furniture for our living room, and there were a few items we found that would work for us. We just didn't have an easy way to get anything back home that didn't fit in our backpacks or our rolling grocery bag. We ended up getting a few cereal bowls, a pizza cutter, and a kitchen knife. We'll have to venture back out again when we can bring someone along who has a car. This is the first time we found ourselves needing access to a vehicle.

Last week I wrote about some of my favorite things about living here. Almost everyday I find something else to love about living in Hamburg. In general, I have found the people here to be very friendly, which I wasn't prepared for. Many of the videos we watched talked about how reserved Germans can be, and how they tend to keep to themselves. Shopkeepers in general have been very accommodating when they realized that I had limited German speaking ability, and would try to assist me as best they could, even if they didn't speak English. I've had several people approach me on the street wanting directions or other information. I guess I look like someone who knows what's going on. I felt bad that I wasn't able to help them.

Hamburg is much more diverse than I expected, mostly due to the large immigrant population here. It's refreshing to see more than just blond, blue-eyed faces as I walk around the neighborhood or ride the trains. In my German class, I had classmates from Türkiye, Romania, Tunisia, Vietnam, Chile, Uruguay, and India as well as the US. Clarke had classmates from Greece, Russia, Spain, Chile, France, Colombia, Pakistan, North Macedonia, Vietnam, and the US. I find this makes the city so much more interesting. It also makes for some amazing food. There are ethnic restaurants all around us. We actually have to go out of our way to find a restaurant that serves traditional German cuisine.

Speaking of food, I think the food here tastes so much better than back in the States. Part of it is the near absence of preservatives and artificial ingredients. The EU has very strict requirements regarding what can or can't be put into food here. Everything tastes fresher and has more flavor. Plus, food here seems to be much less expensive than back home. I'm amazed what you can get for a couple of Euros here, like a loaf of delicious freshly baked bread. Overall, our food bill is much lower here than it was in Baltimore.

One of the other things I'm really enjoying is just how safe I feel. I often walk at night without any concern for my safety. The main streets are generally well lit, and even when they aren't, I have never felt ill at ease about my surroundings or the people I would pass. I can't speak for all of Hamburg (I'm sure there are some sketchy areas), but the area we live in seems to be innocuous.

That's all for this week. We're entering into a rainy season here, but I want to get out and take more photos when the weather permits. I'll leave you with this cool wall art we saw yesterday on our shopping trip.

Until next time,

Bis später!

David