Beatlemania - we went to Hamburg's newest museum

Just last month Hamburg's newest museum opened, "Beatlemania", a Beatles museum and is at the Beatles Square, on the corner of the street Grosse Freiheit, where the Clubs Top Ten, Kaiserkeller and Starclub were located. The Beatles played these clubs. Since I spent many years as an extreme fan and my kids had been infected with the bug (get it - bug!) last year, there was no doubt we would visit.
The museum stretches over 5 stories, though in actuality, only 3 are exhibits. Mostly they recreate the feeling of the early sixties in Hamburg and the exhibits themselves are lots of memorabilia, papers, bills, letters, documents and multimedia experiences. To understand the beginning of the Beatles, this is a great spot.

We got Beatles passports with a map and a keycard to start interactive displays, record our bad karaoke singing or take a picture behind all the people in the St. Pepper's cover. One of the coolest thing was a room that started with one screen showing a concert - I believe Shea stadium - and then more and more screens are being turned on all around you, all showing different, but similar shots of the concert. All this happens while being immersed in the sound of the concert and it was such an interesting experience, because it totally caught me and I got so emotional - no wonder the fans were fainting left and right.

Of course the girls were exited, but they are not THAT interested in the history and the background, after all, they are only eight and ten. Mostly they just loved looking at all the photos and hearing the music everywhere. There were interviews with people that were friends with the Beatles at that time, which was interesting, but it was hard to hear them, because the music was too loud. Sophie's favorite was the control room of the yellow submarine, Johanna liked all the fan paraphernalia and I was thrilled to see all these newspaper articles, old magazines and photos that I had collected many years ago.

















We got an additional kick out of coming through the St. Pauli subway station 4 times today. Why it is so funny? Because Paul's 'grandfather' calls him Pauli in 'A Hard Day's Night'. Of course the museum is located in the red light district on the Reeperbahn, the one street known to everybody in the world, but my children did not notice anything at all - lovely innocence. The museum was completely empty though, not a good sign after just having opened, we paid a fortune though to get in and you just don't get enough bang for the buck.

Peaceful Monday and the campaign for good beer

Sunday is supposed to be a day of rest, which is was not, so we declared this Monday as a day of rest and slow pace. It was a perfect day for it, with blue skies and happiness all around. We slept in and had a late breakfast with a selection of bread rolls, yum. If you have not been to a German bakery and you are an indecisive person, I would not recommend going, the selection is enormous. A slow day dictates that if a child asks to play a game, the answer has to be yes and so we played a round of "Mensch ärgere Dich nicht", which literally means "don't be annoyed", which can be tough in this game. Sophie won yet again and I lost so completely, I just could not roll a six!



While Johanna went grocery shopping with Oma, Sophie and I headed to the park that is about half a minute from this house. The park, called Innocentia Park, was my stomping ground as a kid, I came here every single day to roller skate, swing and and ride my bike in circles or up the two hills (and down). I also played soccer a lot, I looked like a boy, so I was allowed to play with the other boys. Once I wore a skirt and the boys thought I am somebody different - a girl - and did not let me participate. Every time there was snow, I went sledding there until it became so dark and late, I had to go home eventually. It is amazingly beautiful though, to sled in the dark, with all the cozy lights of the houses shining around the park. How neat to be there with my children - Johanna joined us later and came with cherries, yes, cherries again. It is a little odd though to think about the child molester who loved this park when I was a kid and took a bit the fun out of being there. That memory I did not share with the children though, but I could tell my mother was thinking about it just as I did.

I left the kids with my mom for their baking project and I headed downtown to meet my old friend Consti, we had a coffee in a very interesting store/cafe before heading to a meeting of "Kampagne fuer Gutes Bier", which is kind of like a beer social club with outings, lectures and a lot of beer tasting. Today a guy lectured about Wheatbeer and we got to try a lot of them. The club/campagne was started by another old friend, whom I have known for 30 and not seen in 7 years. Later we sat outside by a canal and had such a good time. I am baffled by how bright it is late at night, it was still not totally dark at 11pm. The long dusk, called the blue hour, is my favorite time of day, couple that with a beautiful evening and sitting somewhere gorgeous with nice company and you get a Monday Night of Bliss. Before we parted to take subways in all different directions, we made some plans for the next weeks.

Tourist corner: Below are pictures of one of the train stations and city hall, both from the back actually.

A nice idea in theory is no guarantee for what happens in reality

“The use of traveling is to regulate imagination by reality, and instead of thinking how things may be, to see them as they are.” ~ Samuel Johnson

Yesterday we had the perfect day to exemplify the discrepancy between imagination and reality. We had read in the paper that a wilderness preserve outside of the city had a big celebration and the description sounded like the most fun to be had ever. Since we had contemplated visiting the park anyway, due to fond memories of a visit 35 years ago, it seemed like a slam dunk.


After walking around so much on the flea market, we were already a bit tired on the on set, getting there appeared much harder with overcrowded buses, late subways and waiting outside of the worst subway station for a bus for an eternity. By the time we made it to the park, we were already tired. It had been very cool in the morning and had looked like it might rain and there were thunderstorms in the forecast. I thought that would be perfect, because nobody would go on such a day and we would not have to deal with sun and crowds and the like. It appears that our weather information had been off, since it was quite warm and sunny, resulting in lots of people everywhere and us lugging around our sweaters and rainjackets.


The children were not really that excited about the black, hairy potbelly pigs running around - and to be honest, they are kind of ugly. The wolves were sleeping, the bears nowhere to be found, the moose dad was munching away leafs, refusing to give us any clue where his recently born moose baby twins were hiding. Johanna and Sophie loved feeding all the deer, but it is something we have done many times before, so not quite worth the huge effort. I have to say though, that there is something so enchanting and endearing about deer, they are so beautiful and shy and lovely.


Then again, we were there to see the medieval market, which turned out rather small and not exciting either, since we have seen much better ones. Trying to make the best of it, we all had a picnic of the big bag of cherries we had bought at a road side stand and even those were not exciting. When the supposedly awesome show finally started, we were unable to see anything due to the crowds and decided to head somewhere else in the park.


Johanna waited in line for a really long time to have her face painted and the lady did a fantastic job on making her a tiger; a very sad tiger though at bedtime when the paint needed to come off. The hall of crafts was very disappointing and the stations to make your own crafts had been packed up. We thought another visit to the wolves would cheer us up, but they had gone off into the wild and only one lone wolf was to be seen a distance away.



So we left the park and made our way back home, which involved more waiting for crowded public transportation, and once we got home, we were all completely exhausted. Even on days that don't turn out the way we envision them, usually at least I bring home a plethora of great shots, but unfortunately my big camera had mysteriously drained it's battery and the little one had a tough time with the dark animals and the high contrasts of forestry.

On the way home we came up with a lot of things we should have done instead of visiting the park, because in retrospect we are all smarter. My children would say this is Murphy's law, when our expectations are high, we are bound to be disappointed, and of course in general reality of travel hardly lives up to what we envision. The best moments always come unplanned, spontaneous and without expectations weighing them down. It is silly to think every day on such a long trip will be memorable and special. At the same time, if we would have had a low key day spent with games and the park, it probably would have been very special in it's own way.

Fleamarket

If you happen to be visiting my mother on a Saturday or Sunday, there is no question about it, you get up early and head to a flea market (Flohmarkt) for some surprise finds. So we did just that, against our desire to sleep in. Flea markets here are wonderful, there is anything and everything to be had, from toys over antiques to books and dishes, crazy things, odd things, jewelery, well really: Everything! Unlike markets in the US, here it is just private people selling off things they have no more use for and of course antiques dealers. It is so much fun, because you have no way of knowing what to expect, sometimes the greatest things for little money change owners, sometimes you find something fanatastic and it is too much. Of course we saw so many things that would have been awesome to have, but too big or heavy to take overseas. At one table they had this really cool travel typewriter from the 30s, Johanna and I were smitten, but it was just not reasonable for us to lug it with us.










Johanna wanted a purple scarf and found one, a friend of my mom's gave her a pocket knife she had her eye on, she got a game about Venice - including the thrill of paying 2 Euros for something that would cost 30 in a store - and she also bought a scarf for Sophie, who found herself a wooden owl. For myself I got an old 'Sammeltasse', which is a cup-saucer-plate set and a small sauce ladle in the pattern of our silver. There was a nice woman making these wonderful hats and I had to buy one for Johanna, it looks so nice on her and I am a bit envious, it looked really stupid on me, it's not fair (stomp, stomp, pout).

Now we are all reading while lunch is being made and then we are off to a wilderness park.

Cousins and Cherries

Even though we were still jetlagged, we had to get up very early today and board the train to Himmelpforten (literally heaven's gate) to visit with family. The children were tired, but so excited to ride the bus again and then take the awesome Metronom.

First we visited my uncle Gernot and aunt Sophie for brunch. My cousin Christoph the chimney master was there and I got to meet his girl friend Maren, who is very nice, and their brand new baby boy Eric, one of the most content babies I have ever seen. Johana fell in love with him :) Later my cousin Jan the architect came with his six year old son Linus, a real cute one, who loves soccer like Sophie and they kicked the ball around (kind of a theme with ALL the boys we meet here).

One of the big attractions was the humongeous cherry tree, we were all enjoying the cherries right there under and in the tree, spitting the pits into the adjacent hedge. There is always something liberating about spitting cherry pits.



















In the afternoon we went to visit my aunt Regina and her children and grandchildren, it was a bit strange at first, because I had not been in the house since it was still my grandmother's 7 years ago and who died 5 years ago. Also, recently my uncle had died. I was surprised though, that I actually did not mind being in the house. We had the typical German coffee and cake affair, which is always lovely. I think life would be better if we all would have cake and coffee every afternoon. My cousin Silke was there, very pregnant and due in August and also her brother Michael and his wife Michaela with their kids Matthias and Melanie.

Our kids had played with each other many years ago and did not remember each other, our reminding of how Matthias used to kiss (and bite) Johanna was not helping much either. After a while they had a blast though. It is amazing how well the girls are doing with their German, I guess all the Oma (German grandmother) training is paying off.

It was a bit sad to see my aunt mourning and to realize that I had not seen her in 7 years because of typical family disagreements. I think she was happy to see us again.

But it is also funny to think back to old times. I reminded my aunt how she once broke a wooden cooking spoon on Michael's leg in anger ( I am sure he deserved it ;)), he is sure it was at least 20 or more. We reminisced about playing with playmobil in the basement and I blamed him for my obsession with it now. When I saw Christoph's big motorcycle (what a machiiiiine), I had to laugh and think of the time we went out on a small motor schooter and were thrown out of the local pub for messing with the billiard table. Oh yeah, I had some fun times with cousins and we all love cherries, actually, there seems to be a genetic disposition in my family to be just completely crazy for that fruit.

Looking out over my past

My mother sold her country house in January and after two month in the tiny studio appartment she always had inthe city, was lucky to get a bigger appartment next door. My first appartment was in this building as well - a long time ago. I love her new appartment, it is not big, just 2 rooms, kitchen, bath etc, but the view is just wonderful. We are on the seventh floor and are overlooking a beautiful part of Hamburg, the area where I lived from age 6 to 23. It feels funny, I have not really been here in such a long time - we always visited her in her house 50 miles outside of the city - and now I am looking out over my past. Houses were friends have lived, places I have worked at, all the different places I have lived, the park I played soccer at every day, my childhood library, the church I got married in... and so forth. I am not sure if this feels similar to other people, but it is almost like it was not me or my life, it all seems so far away that I don't feel the connection any more. It is like meeting and old boy friend after many years and one feels bewildered and awkward at the thought of having been intimate with a person feeling so estranged.

We walked a lot today, since we had to run errands downtown and then we needed to run even more errands, so basically we walked all day. I smothered my knee in arnica now and took some advil and hope it will do alright. I am using the cane and have found that people treat me so completely different with a cane compared to crutches. With crutches everybody offeres help and asks what happened, with the cane people probably think I have some disability, which would be rude to notice and so they try to ignore that it is there. This evening I went to a salon to have my eyebrows and lashes dyed dark, something I cannot find in MA, and I took an old bike my mom had. Actually I had it from an old boyfriend and gave it to her in a trade over 20 years ago. It was so wonderful to bike in the evening light on the bike paths that are everywhere. This is definitely the best mode of transportation ever and I miss it so much. The kids have expressed a desire to bike around as well and I had to console them with our bike reservation for the island and that we are taking an awesome train tomorrow to see all these aunts and uncles and cousins and their children. It is going to be interesting.

Arrival

No, not the ABBA album of the same name, but our arrival here in Germany. We left Boston Wednesday night with Swiss International Airlines and in just under 11 hours, we flew to Zuerich, changed planes and hopped over to Hamburg. As usual the weather was gray and rainy. I forgot the very fine and steady mist that get's you wet much faster than you would think - I love it, it is very relaxing.

Traveling with children is definitely easier when they are older compared to traveling with infants and toddlers. But this would have been the flight for families, there were actually more children than adults, the captain was there to greet us when we boarded and he remarked that he had never, ever had this many children on board. It is still not easy though to take my kids on an overnight trip, one is so highstrung and pouty and sees the worst possible scenario in everything and freaks out easily over nothing and the other one does not deal well with anything outside of routine and familarity - flying kind of does not fit into that scheme - and as a result cannot regulate things like volume of voice or her body in physical space. I admit that partly the annoyance is my fault, I am just not laid back enough and I have no patience for a child that tells me 7 times in 3 minutes "I am thirsty!!!!", when the drink cart is already on the way.

I was relieved though that it was somebody else's kid that threw up this time. Strange enough, imagine that girl sat in the same seat that S. was sitting in 3 years ago, when she kept throwing up. Unfortunately my girls have both inherited the inability to actually get comfortable on the plane and subsequently sleep. So needless to say, we were extremely tired once we got here and S promptly fell asleep. Of course we want to stay within the German time and nobody was allowed to go to sleep before 8pm, resulting in us waking each other agian and again, to keep that schedule working.