Auf der Reeperbahn, nachts um halb eins!

Prostitutes prostitutes prostitutes! Let me tell you, if there’s one thing that sets the city of Hamburg apart from its brother and sister cities throughout Germany, it’s not the history, politics, or economy…it’s the ladies of the night.

OK, first a little setting: Kate and I went to Hamburg for a week to take a class on Germany. I had to do it for work and Kate, well, Kate was nice enough to come along and provide me with distractive notes and drawings during class. We both learned a thing or two about our host nation and can now proudly say that the American education system should probably never be critiqued by a German, as their system is apparently no better.

Hamburg, for those who may not know, is big and beautiful, complete with lots of green areas (above) and lots of wet areas (below).

It plays second fiddle to Berlin for the rank of Germany’s largest city, but manages through its booming port to squeak by with the title of “largest economy.” It is one of three city states in Germany – the others being a small coastal neighbor called Bremen and, of course, Berlin.

Speaking of Bremen, we actually stopped by this Hanseatic port on the drive up to see what this diminutive city-state had to offer foreign travelers.

The answer: not much. The best Bremen could muster was an old windmill, Becks beer, and this peculiar manifestation of a Brothers’ Grimm story called the Bremen town musicians.

Here’s the link to the story; it’s kind of cute: http://www.fln.vcu.edu/grimm/bremereng.html

OK, back to the prostitutes…. The class was held in a moneyed suburban neighborhood called Rissen, located on a hilltop overlooking the Elbe River. On two of our nights there, Kate and I were able to jog around the woodsy hillside and watch the sun set behind big old ugly juggernaut container ships. Nice, in a post-industrial-commerce kind of way.

On another night, we were able to go out on the town, drink a couple beers, and remark at the inimitable locale of St. Pauli – the seedy region best known for its ladies.

According to hamburg-tourism.de, the area is apparently more than just strip shows and sex shops. They have musicals and cafes, the site argues. But, come on. An area does NOT earn the distinction as every North Sea sailor’s favorite port for having cafes and musicals. Unless they’re fans of the Village People’s “In the Navy,” that is….

Kate and I enjoyed the area, actually, not because we partook in any of the sordid activities there, but because it seemed like a fun, alive, and interesting subculture that, to former urbanites like us, seemed pretty non-threatening.

Perhaps, though, that was due to the regulations there. Like most things in Germany, there are lots of rules there – specifically concerning the prostitutes there who, funnily enough, all wore similarly colored pink jackets, tight washed out blue jeans, and had their hair blanched light blond. Apparently, they all have to abide by stringent solicitation rules on times, places, and methods of solicitation. Like Amsterdam, there’s an area where there are negligee-wearing ladies summoning gullible and desperate prey to their windows with their siren-like ways. Unlike Amsterdam, however, this area is completely closed off to minors, women, and those at high risk of heart failure.

To be fair, there was more to the city than that. Gastronomically, it’s home to the hamburger, for instance.

We also happened upon a city fair while there where we rode the vomit-inducing “High Energy” ride, which was basically like a cat-o-nine-tails that flips and spins at the same time. Blarf!

So, it was a good week as well as a fun week and sure as heck beat going to work for a week. The dessert to this dish, though, was the weekend, which we spent in Amsterdam with Kate’s brother, Edward, and his girlfriend, Jen.

Here's Edward with a mustache! More on that later...