Rachel's in Germany!: One last visit with Roland & Gaby

Today was basically Petra's last day in Hamburg. She is actually not leaving to go back home until the 28th, but tomorrow afternoon she is going off to Ireland and she will be traveling for the next two weeks. Marni leaves Thursday, which is the day after tomorrow. So it's getting more sad because we are running out of time to spend together. This morning the three of us went to school to drop off our course completion certificates to the international office. We said goodbye to Nir, the coordinator for the international art students, and his assistant Dinah. They were both really helpful this semester. Nir is amazing. I think I mentioned him before--he is Israeli but also is a German citizen, and his specialty is sculpture. He is not very tall, has a little silver earring, and wears Converse. I liked him a lot, and I would have definitely taken his international workshop class if I'd had more time. I think I really would have gained a lot of insight about art and about international affairs in general by being in that class. From what Marni told me, it sounds like it was a very enlightening course to take.

Anyway, after that we went downtown to the AOK health insurance office to pay ahead our last payments so we could close our German bank accounts. Marni had already done it, and she told me and Petra to just bring a wad of cash and pay out the remaining amount right there at the office. So that's what we did, and our contracts will automatically terminate at the end of August. Now as long as our remaining rent is paid, we can close our bank accounts whenever we need to.

After that we took the train to Eppendorfer Baum. Marni wanted to take Petra to the chocolate ice cream place, so we went there. This time I had a scoop of chocolate with tonka bean extract, which was even better than the ginger flavor I'd had the other day. I looked up tonka beans later . . . they are native to Central and South America and have a sweet, vanilla-like fragrance that is can be used in perfumes. (Mom and Dad, their scientific name is Dipteryx oderata.) Apparently these beans have been banned by the FDA for food use in the States because they contain a chemical that can cause liver damage, hemorrhage, and heart paralysis in large doses. But boy, did that extract make for a good ice cream! It kind of gave it a coconut-y flavor and made it so rich and yummy.

We took the train back towards Saarlandstraße and I got off at Borgweg because I had to go to the store for some groceries. Marni and Petra decided to go to the Stadtpark for a while. Marni really wanted to spend as much time with Petra as she could, because Petra's really having a hard time of leaving. She is a very sensitive and caring person, and it's been hard for her to say all her goodbyes and see her friends leave. I was glad Marni was willing to spend almost the whole day with Petra, because I honestly think Marni is a lot better at encouraging and affirming people who are down and showing sympathy than I am, and she was probably just the kind of person Petra needed today. Indra and I have a harder time with sympathizing and saying the right thing. I think we're just not as good with words in that way, or at least I'm not.

Gaby & Roland reading the card

At the docks

Well anyhow, I went to the store and then when I got home I mowed down an apple and a couple of pretzels, then scrambled to wrap our present for Roland and Gaby and finish making their thank-you card before we had to go meet them downtown. Indra and I were sort of late leaving the house, and then Marni and Petra came back from the Stadtpark and they had to run upstairs and get their stuff, so we were all sort of disorganized. I wrote the thank-you card on the train and then Marni and I signed it just before we got off at our stop. But it worked out okay, because when we got off at Landungsbrücken we arrived about one minute before Roland and Gaby. They had driven into Hamburg, so they'd had to drive all over to find a parking spot. We introduced them to Petra and then gave them their present, and they opened it sitting on the dock by the water. It was (rats! I just now realized I never took a picture of it!) a decorative lantern Marni and I had bought and painted ourselves. We went to Hamburger Meile last week and picked out a pretty metal one with a scrolly motif on the lattices, and then we took the panes of glass out and painted them with acrylics. I did the first three panes with Indra's help--we chose the color scheme, which was golden yellow, warm red, and bright green, and I painted three of the panes basically solid in those colors to go behind the metal lattices. Then we gave it to Marni, and she painted the three other panes that didn't have metal lattice over them. Her touch made it absolutely beautiful--she did these lovely vine patterns in pastel shades that made really pretty shadows when the lantern was lit, and she also bought a bar of chocolate to put inside it. I painted the card with mermaids on the front and also made sure to use some of the gold dust from Roland to make it extra pretty. Roland and Gaby liked it very much. I wish I had gotten a picture of them with it.

The Hamburg production of The Lion King has been
permanently installed here for over 10 years.

Elbphilharmonie in progress

After they had put the lantern in the car, we got on the HVV ferry (this is the public-transport ferry like the one we rode during our Hamburg Welcome Week with all the international students) and enjoyed a ride on the water. The route was short--it just went to two stops across the river, one stop down the river, and then back to the dock at Landungsbrücken--so we just stayed on it and did two loops. We saw the in-progress Elbphilharmonie building, which is currently the most highly anticipated building project in Hamburg but also viewed as the most ridiculous because it will end up costing over €700 million by the time it is done. It will house the concert hall, but right now it isn't projected to open until at least spring 2017. Indra and I looked across the river at the permanent theater for Der König der Löwen (The Lion King) and wished about twenty times that the show wasn't so expensive so we could go. (Technically we can both afford it, but at upwards of €60 a seat for a show that only lasts two or three hours, it's quite a blow to the bank account.) We also saw the Queen Mary 2 moored at the cruise ship dock! That was very cool, considering that the original QM is in Long Beach! I made sure to take a picture.

View of the Michel church tower and Hamburg radio tower

The Queen Mary 2!

Petra & Marni

Gaby & Roland

Rear patio of Wasserschloss

After our little harbor excursion, we walked to Baumwall to meet up with Aljosha. He lives south of the river because his school is there, so since it wasn't very far for him to come he decided to join us for dinner. Petra left us then because she was going to meet with her friend Dani for one more night together. The rest of us walked through HafenCity to get to Wasserschloss, the restaurant café Marni and I discovered last week. We had suggested to go there because it was such a beautiful spot. Indra had called in advance and made a reservation, and they seated us on the rear patio, which was at the point of the "island" where two canals divided. HafenCity is really such a beautiful and historic area. It has incredible old brick warehouses with balconies, copper and glazed-brick decorative details, and canals and bridges everywhere. (I've heard Hamburg actually has more bridges than Venice does!) It's extremely picturesque--definitely an area to take a spin through if you ever visit Hamburg, particularly if you've got a thing for photography.

Chocolate torte with passion fruit sorbet, garnished
with fresh fruit, mint, almonds, and strawberry sauce!

We had a really nice dinner. Basically there was water on three sides of us, it was a warm evening, and the food was extremely delicious. Roland and Gaby went all out--they ordered a three-tier arrangement for us all with a variety of appetizers: some shrimp and roasted vegetables, rucola with Schinken (paper-thin sliced ham), a few tiny soup cups, and miniature saucers of Labskaus (which I tried and which was very good--it's a specialty of Hamburg, Bremen, and Lübeck and is a mixture of corned beef, potato, and onion with small pieces of fish mixed in. This one was topped with a pickle and beet slice and a quail egg cooked sunny-side up). Indra had bruschetta, of course, and for dinner the rest of us had tagliatelle pasta with pesto (YUM) except for Gaby, who ordered a fancy burger with pommes (fries) and Marni, who ordered fried goat cheese with raspberry-rhubarb chutney. They also had crème brûlée, so Marni and Indra tried that for dessert and I had a chocolate torte with this AMAZING passion fruit sorbet. It was a very nice time. Aljosha left a bit early to meet with friends, and the rest of us left the restaurant around 9:30. We walked back through HafenCity to get to Baumwall, enjoying the twilight views of the canals, church spires, and buildings. At one point Roland discovered a really cool courtyard in the center of one warehouse building, and it had such a good echo that Indra and I decided to try singing there. We didn't have her recorder unfortunately, but it sounded sooo pretty (if I do say so myself).

The "outdoor cathedral" where Indra and I tried singing.
It had a perfect echo.

At the Baumwall station, we said a (reluctant) last goodbye to Roland and Gaby and thanked them again for everything. They were WAY more generous and hospitable than we ever could have asked. I was so thankful for them. They weren't Mom and Dad, of course, but in a way they were kind of my parents-away-from-my-parents. I was super sad to leave them.

We took the train home from there and on the way home Indra and I got ice cream. (Apparently I've lost weight since I first got here, but it feels like I'll gain it all back by the time I go home with all the trips to ice cream places! Though the ice cream here is NOTHING like eating at Cold Stone--the scoops are much smaller and less rich--and even though they do have Häagen-Dazs and Ben & Jerry's here, I never eat it, I only go to the little gelato places.)

Marni was, understandably, very reflective tonight. She went to get her clothes out of the laundry room when we got home but then came back down to our apartment just to chill for a couple of minutes. It's getting to the point now where we are going to the store with each other, running errands with each other, or just coming and sitting in each other's rooms having pointless sleepy conversations at 11:30 at night just so we can max out our time together.

Before I sign off, a few other recent developments in Hamburg:

It's been great watching the response to the World Cup victory. Everywhere, flags and other red-yellow-black fan items are being displayed. The German team is on all the newspaper and magazine covers, and all over--in the windows of shops and businesses and even on the marquee at Hamburger Meile--are congratulatory notes saying things like "Deutschland - Weltmeister 2014" or "Danke, Mario Götze!" On the news screen on the train I saw blurbs about Götze (who scored the goal in the final game) and André Schürrle (who scored the last two goals in the semifinal) becoming the faces of new ad campaigns. Even in the insurance office, there were German-flag-color fake flower leis hanging up all over the place. Germany is reveling in its victory, and it's really neat to watch. It dawned on me yesterday that this is their first World Cup win where they've been able to display their flag as a way of saying "I'm proud to be German" without people making Nazi connotations or assumptions. This is history in the making! I'm so glad I was here for this World Cup!!!!!

Also, blackberry bushes are ripening all over the city (not in the super-urban zones, but pretty much anywhere where there are lots of plants). They grow along all the canals and streets and in the parks, and every one of them is bursting with little baby blackberries. Most of them are still green, and I'm not sure I will be here when they are fully in ripe mode, but sometimes if I see one that looks black enough I will pick it. Generally they are really sour though. I think that probably because they're in public and are up for grabs, pretty much every berry will get picked before it reaches full maturity . . . anyway, this is a phenomenon generally nonexistent in SoCal. If only we could have cherry trees, blackberry bushes, and all kinds of other fruit-producing plants just growing everywhere on public property, with all the fruit free for the taking . . .

Here are more pictures from our evening:

The one not-so-nice thing about my view from the restaurant was the barge anchored there
with the Cat sitting on it . . . talk about a photo bomb . . .