29 Juli-- Day 35

Okey dokey. Well it's taken me a little longer than I hoped, but I was unbelievably wiped from this weekend + monday. You'll see why. Actually, I fell asleep on the U-Bahn yesterday and missed my stop by like 3 stations. I was sitting, clutching my backpack, asleep. Comfy, I know.
Anyway.

This weekend, we went to Hamburg and Lübeck. After class on Friday, I watched Stick It at a friend's "house,"cause we couldn't really do anything else while lugging around our bags. First off, I'd like to say what a good movie that is. Anyway, so afterwards we boarded an intercity train to Hamburg, which was a very good trip. I tried to do work, but completely failed and fell asleep. Also read a little bit of Dracula (unfort in English).

When we got to Hamburg, we checked in, and rushed to our only mandatory event there...a performance called "Tango Seduction." Let me say that one more time. "Tango Seduction." Basically, there's an area of Hamburg called St. Pauli's that's pretty well known for a. a street where women aren't allowed and prostitutes hang out in the windows, b. having a pretty big gay scene (in Germany, second only to Berlin), c. being the best place to have parties and whatnot. Basically, it's the "fun" center of Hamburg. (As opposed to the "church" center and the "harbor" center, which we saw the next day)

This is the Tango part.

It was a really excellent show- one person from the group had seen a famous Argentine Tango group in Bolivia or something, and said that these guys here were actually very good. It was just some very excellent tango, but then after the intermission, there were some weird moments. One part was this guy sort of doing some dramatic movements as "O Fortuna" blasted in the background. Another part was, as one guy in the group so eloquently put it, "He literally dragged her across the stage by her honkers." But overall, excellent.

Then we decided to go see the city a little bit. There was a carnival, as well as Baked Patotos. you read that right.

This is apparently there for like 2 months a year.

Yummers

One girl knew some Dartmouth 12s who were doing some internships in Hamburg, so we met up with them. They took us to an absinthe bar and led us the a club, which was great. Absinthe is interesting... I guess it's an experience, but it honestly wasn't as strong as I expected it to be. If you wanna get drunk fast, it would probably be easier to down some tequila. Unless you're Lewis Carroll or Oscar Wilde or someone like that, in which case, best of luck, cause you're life's gonna be that of the tortured artist.

My lovely absinthe

How you're apparently supposed to serve absinthe.

Basically, they give you the little tray as above, with a sugar cube on top, and a little knife with holes. Then they light the sugar on fire (the blue lights), and it melts and drips into the cup. Then they give you water to dilute your shot of absinthe with, and you sip it rather slowly. It tastes like licorice. (but they do make Anise-free ones.) I hate licorice usually, but it was pretty good-- or maybe it just seemed better cause the entire place smelled like a candy shop..

Afterwards, we and the other Dartmouth students, who knew Hamburg better, went to a club. It was free too, which was excellent. Great music, lots of friends. It was good. However... we partied just a litttleeee too long. See caption for why:

What it looked like after we left. The sun had already risen. Good thing is,all the bakeries had fresh fresh food.

So afterwards, I went straight to bed, (it was like 6:30 by the time we got back), and me and MC managed to literally drag ourselves out of bed in time to eat breakfast, and go to the Hamburge Kunsthalle. It was absolutely gorgeous, and much larger than I had expected... it took a ridiculously long time.