Tomatoes

Today we got up early (ish) to meet up with a guy named Alex for breakfast. Martin came with us because today is a holiday in Germany. He says he doesn't know the importance of the holiday, but what's important is that he doesn't have to work! Haha. Alex is an ambassador for CS, which means he is SUPER involved in CS and is an 'official' CS representative for the city of Hamburg (I think. I don't know the exact definiton of a CS ambassador). Laura had commented to me that he would be "a character." Thank goodness for that warning.

When we arrived to breakfast, Alex immediately put on his center of attention tour guide persona and didn't really let up for the next 6 hours. Needless to say, it was intense! At first it was really funny and amusing, but as time went on it began to grate on me. He hardly let anybody talk, ever. If he didn't agree with you he gave no appearance of respecting your difference of opinion, just changed subjects. He would make fun of one of us with quippy one liners that came off as much more rude to me that playful. And he tried to fit in about a week of Hamburg into just a few hours. I was excited for this at first, but then it became more him just listing off the name and use of every single building. He was going to fast that I didn't feel like I had time to absorb or retain anything! Also, he happened to have a car and it happened to be awful weather, so instead of our usual getting lost on foot adventures through a new city, he just zipped us around. I had no clue where we were on the map most of the time and even if you saw something it was gone two seconds later. Definitely not what I have been used to - which is seeing things at eye level at a pleasant pace with time to stop and take a picture if wanted. Sadly, this luke warm paragraph pretty much sums up the afternoon with Alex.

Being just slightly sick and not having the throat or the energy to keep up with what I personally thought was his rather rude and self centered way of conversing, I let Laura handle him (i.e. entertain/talk with him/listen to his monologues) while I spent most of the time being quiet or having mutually participative converstaions with Martin, who also seemed a bit overwhelmed by Alex.

The good thing about having Alex as our guide was that we definitely saw a lot more of Hamburg that we would have been able to on foot. We also knew what we were looking at a lot of the time (whether we wanted to or not). Also, we stayed relatively warm and dry which was a feat in the gloomy weather that has continued to follow us from city to city. Alex is also a food lover, so breakfast was delicious (a meat and cheest spread with breads and butters and marmalades), and that was followed by three other eating venues. The second one I wasn't hungry for, but Martin got "quark" which is a yogurt type thing with fruit in it that tasted amazing. Also, in the bathroom of this restaurant is a bizarre merman statue with the face of George Clooney. Super weird. Definitely took pictures. The third venue was also a no-go for me, which seemed to greatly offend Alex, but it was pickled herring with onions and pickles on bread. No thanks. Not mature enough for that one yet. The last place Alex took us to purely for its tiramisu, which Laura and I split (though Alex got some bites in too). He also wanted to take us to a baklava place and a gyro place (and of course scoffed when we told him we'd already found the best gyros in Berlin that were probably half the price of whatever gyro shop he knows). By this time, it had at least stopped raining and I was tired of sitting around in the cramped back seat of a car all day, trying to look at buildings through fogged windows. I kept saying I wanted to walk around, and so Alex found a place to park and we got some precious moments walking around Hamburg on foot.

After Alex's exhausting tour had come to a close, Martin, Laura and I went back to Martin's place to regroup a little bit. Soon after, Martin led us on a much quieter and what I thought was way more pleasant stroll around his peaceful, adorable neighborhood. He lives 20 or so minutes outside of Hamburg's city center so the atmosphere feels like a beach town complete with cute shops and parks and little boats in the water. He took us through the botanical gardens close to his house and past a deer park and soon we got a great view of the water. Across the way there was an Airbus factory but closer to shore were many little fishing boats docked. The whole walk took around an hour and it was great to be in the fresh air stretching our legs and seeing a more suburban area. It's always so nice to get out of the bigger cities.

Back at Martin's place, he somehow whipped up the quickest, most delicious multi-course dinner we've had on our trip yet! We had steaks left over from Berlin and Martin had some other meat that he didn't know how to translate but that we ate anyway. He also baked fresh bread which we ate with his delicious olive oil and his homemade prosceto (sp?). Prosceto (sp?) is a mixture of small tomato chunks with garlic, oregano, onion, and a handful of other herbs. It smelled so good that I actually tried some on the fresh bread....and it's wasn't that bad! This means that for the first time, I willingly ate tomato chunks and didn't absolutely hate it. WOOHOO! I told Martin he had no idea what he had just accomplished, getting me to eat those...He didn't seem to understand the historic, monumentally signficiant moment in my life that had just occurred. But that's okay. He also served us wine and made us fresh haloumi (fried cheese). SOoooooo GOOD. After all of this he served us bowls of freshly cut up strawberries which we tried with olive oil and also with vanilla sugar (which I'd never heard of before, but it was delicious). Then he made us fresh, homemade raspberry ice cream right in front of us. He took frozen raspberries, vanilla sugar, and milk and blended it while pressing it down. It was very much like a sorbet. It was fantastic! Throughout the whole meal, we listened to Martin's favorite German artist and some popular German songs - seriously, where else would we be able to do that?!

After this incredible meal, Martin left for the train station to go pick up two more CouchSurfers. These girls are both from Peru but are studying abroad in Barcelona. While he was gone, Laura and I did the dishes and I felt like a very good guest :) The girls from Peru were so sweet but I didn't get to talk to them that much because I wasn't feeling well and wanted to use the downtime to try to catch up on blogging - which is an ongoing losing battle! The time I did spend with the two girls though was really great, and maybe when they finish all their studies and if they go back to Peru I'll be able to visit them there someday :) Given that I know no Spanish, connections in South America would be faaaaaantastic :)

Oh yeah, and the contrast of pace between the day with Alex and the evening with Martin was so acute. It was the perfect way to recover from that hyperactive tour, having a long, European, home-cooked meal, sipping wine, listening to German music and talking with CouchSurfers from Peru.

I realize that so far, we have spent more time in Poland and Germany than any other country. I know we are trying to do a lot on this trip, but it is really nice to be aware of the countries that we are spending more time than usual in. I feel like seeing the different cities and meeting different hosts and accumulating all these varied experiences really helps us to get a feel for the country in a much more unique way. I was unsure about even going to Germany - it wasn't so much a country I really wanted to see, it was just in the middle of everything I did want to see - but now, I am so happy that we had the opportunity to spend so long here. I have learned so much, seen so much, and eaten so much. It has been a very significant experience for me.


Accomplishment:
ATE TOMATOES! Just a few small chunks. And I didn't completely dislike them, they were actually kind of good. THIS IS BIG, PEOPLE!!!