Hamburg is a wonderful place, just arriving there made us smile. There are cool people and it is just a city that still exudes a cool vibe. the nickname for Hamburg is quite obviously "The Hammer", so it's sister city is obviously Hamilton, Ontario if only because they share a nickname (though i suppose if they were really sisters it would be silly for them to have the same nickname, they would have different nicknames).
The show we did in Hamburg was in a school, our only show on this tour at one. We usually play at a theatre, brought in by a theatre company or an improv group. This stop we were produced by someone who is a teacher at the school and who is partners (politically correct for girlfriend) with someone we know in an improv group in Hamburg (Hidden Shakespeare). The show was a good one, the lights were nice and easy, the stage was nice and big and we played with a very good musician... oh good musicians. Since we don't do the whole tour with our dj (which we do wish we could) we end up playing with music mercenaries. Sometimes this works out well (like in Hamburg) other times it works out okay, and other times we wonder how these musicians exist, how they play at other shows and how they keep getting work (these times will remain nameless). Our musician was from Hidden Shakespeare and played perfectly the soundtrack and atmosphere and mood for our show, he made the emotions worth more with only a couple of notes and made the monologues better than they were just by choosing the right key, thank you.
We stayed at Frank's place (he is the partner of the producer) and he was out of town on a gig playing shows on a cruise ship on the pacific coast of South America (lucky guy). So we stayed in St.Pauli (which is also the coolest neighbourhood in Hamburg). Lee and I are also fans of the local football club from that area (named St. Pauli of course), they are famous throughout Germany as the cool team. Punks and alternative folks will be seen wearing their St. Pauli shirts with the trademark skull and cross bones. You will get nods on the streets by strangers just for wearing this emblem. It is like being part of a secret society except that it isn't such a secret and you aren't trying to take over the world (or maybe that is the secret?). Mortal enemies of St. Pauli fans would be the Bayern/Munich fans, whose football club is the richest.
We have never actually seen St. Pauli play a match, but this time in Hamburg we did see Bayern/Munich play. We went to this bar that wasn't really a bar but a multi-use space that had a beamer (German for projector) and a bunch of chairs and a bar. At least 200 people packed into the place to watch Bayern/Munich play Barcelona FC in the European Cup. Barcelona kicked the asses of the Bavarian team. It was wonderful to see. All the German fans in the room were silent every time Barcelona would score (which I believe was four times to their nothing). It was like Bayern/Munich was afraid of the ball. A nice illustration of the differences between these two teams would be the sponsors on the jerseys. Bayern/Munich = T Mobile (phone company) & Barcelona FC = Unicef (halloween boxes).
We are hoping to be in Hamburg next year during the celebration of the 100 years of St. Pauli. What a party that will be.
Next Stop: Arhoena (the magical horse ranch)
