Pictures from my life #5

So, like I said, Mau Mau and Cherry were in Hamburg from Friday until Sunday. Even though the BPPV was bothersome and undiagnosed when they first arrived, it really didn't get in the way of activities...aside from the boozing and lying in a horizontal position. Since we were walking around the city most of the time, I was fine. As for the booze, I kept it classy with a couple of Clausthalers. I've been known to mock non-alcoholic beers, but if you want the whole beer drinking experience (i.e. beer-taste + peeing a lot) without the intoxication part then I'd say that Clausthaler is the way to go. At least it's not insulting your intelligence like Jever Fun.


Before Mau Mau arrived, she told me that she wanted eat some decent Mexican food in Hamburg. As you should know from various posts over the years, Hamburg isn't really known for it's Mexican cuisine. However, in the last couple of years, a few decent places have opened up. I've been to three (Jim Burrito, Kombüse and Qrito) and would recommend them all based on taste and price. A fourth, Café Mexico, was recently recommended by the always awesome Sarah L.T. Always on the look out for new places to get my Mexican food fix, I decided we should give it a try.

This is me looking happy because I'm about to eat some very tasty enchiladas

Café Mexico also gets the Raven Seal of Approval. It's a comfy little place, the prices are reasonable and the food is tasty (I had a beef enchilada in delicious mole). Mau Mau and I split a guacamole and chips appetizer and oh! the guac was outstanding!

I found a funny postcard in the postcard stand (as per usual in bars/restaurants). Funny might not be the right word. It was for a product that you probably wouldn't want to think about while you're dining out.

This chick is like "Oh! I caught it!" (Or "It caught me"??)

Anyway, when you turn it over, you see she's apparently talking about her horrible yeast infection. Basically, it's an ad for German Monistat-3, but with a much-less appealing name so that you never forget what you're dealing with (KadeFungin 3). Also on the back it invites you to take a "winter" quiz on a website that literally translates into www.vaginalfungus.de/winterquiz.

At the very least, you (or at least I) would hope that they'd have some kind of free giveaway or at least a free download (is it too much to ask?). But...no.

After finishing our meal (yum!), we headed off to the Winter Dom (pronounced: Dome). It's like a big fair that comes to town 3 times a year. Four times? I don't know...but it's often. The winter version is my favorite. It's cold and there's Glühwein. Except I couldn't drink it. I still had fun though, because I bought some fingerless gloves for 1 EUR. I've wanted fingerless gloves since the late 80s and I suppose I could have bought a pair sometime in the last 20 years, but I just never really found the chance. They weren't fancy, by any means. Basically, I could have just achieved the same effect by snipping the fingers off of any ol pair of gloves...but that somehow seems like trying too hard.

It was a mixed blessing. Pro: I retained the tactile grip from my fingertips. Con: When your fingers are warm from the palm to mid-finger, the tips just absorb the rest of the cold. This is probably not a new revelation AT ALL...but it was new to me.

This is my amazed face. It morphs into jazz hands at some point.

By the way, we were riding this ferris wheel on the pic above. Ferris wheels are about the fastest carnival rides that I can handle. Vertigo or not.


Later, I gave the girls an abbreviated tour of the red light district.

The next day, we spent the afternoon walking around the various Christmas Markets in the downtown area. It rained intermittently and it was cold as balls, but that did not deter us. I even plucked up the courage to have a Glühwein.

I just generally have poor hand-eye coordination.

It's at this point that I'd like to mention that Mau Mau took all of these pics with her cool little digital camera. Cherry had a fancy SLR camera and I hope to maybe show some of her pictures too, with permission. They are both much better at capturing my essence than I could ever do. Also here are some pretty pictures of Hamburg at night (actually it's like 4:30pm)

I live in a real purdy cit-tay.

But it was too cold and wet and all the crap downtown is real expensive. If you've been to one main shopping street in a big German city, you've pretty much been to them all. It's the same shit, same shops...

So, I took them to the "alternative" part of town. The...Schanze.

I mostly just wanted to sit down somewhere.

"The Schanze" is basically too hip now for it's own good. One of several areas in Hamburg that have become heavily gentrified in the past few years.

Kumpir is Turkish for baked potato. This is one of my
favorite signs because it says Baked PATOTO underneath.
Take that, hipsters!

Mau Mau, Cherry and I made our way to the Bedford Cafè so that we could take a break, chat and bask in the light and warmth of their fireplace. They have angel fixtures on the ceiling.


And here's a cute picture of me again...


I went to the hospital not long after that...but it was still good times.

I'll put up some more pics here when/if Cherry gives me permission.