Hamburg Blues

I just had a meltdown in Hamburg. This city has not brought out the best in me so far. While in Copenhagen, Levi told me he would be staying in Hamburg from Sunday afternoon until Tuesday morning. Of course I’m going to go and get a bier with him. It’s Levi. So, I send a last minute emergency request on couchsurfing and get a response from Jerry, a 50 year old living near the center of Hamburg. I get to his apartment and the next day we go see the city. Turns out Hamburg is just a city. I mean, it has some cool history, buuuut it’s just a city. I didn’t really like it. I also found Jerry to be not the most pleasant person. Not that he was unpleasant; he just had very negative views on the world. Granted, he’s a fifty year old whose “American Dream” fell apart. Until a few years ago he was living in a nice home in Seattle with his two kids, beautiful wife, good job, and faithful guinea pig. Now he is single, recently unemployed, and living by himself in a foreign country with a daughter who hates him for it. He was very pessimistic about the whole situation. Very pessimistic about the whole world actually. He tended to point much of his anger towards the values commonly held by the people (wife and kids in a nice little house) along with the ones pushed onto the people (Consumerism. Yum!) It’s funny because while he was bitching about never really wanting to have kids and hating the American way, I would add little comments such as, “I want kids!” and “I might get married someday.” In my opinion, the American dream has some aspects to it that are undesirable and it’s okay to disapprove, but in general I want it, and I’m ok with that. I want a good job (physical therapy!), kids, and good, safe place for them to grow up. Yup. I’m selling out, and my dream might fall apart like Jerry’s did, but at least I should try and be happy with whatever comes from my efforts.
But all in all, Jerry’s a good guy, and he really helped me out. Gave me a place to stay and bought my breakfast. Thanks, Jerry. Viel Gluck!
After staying at Jerry’s for two nights and leaving his apartment midday on Sunday, I went off to the Hauptbahnhof (central train station Hbf) to try and meet up with Levi. He told me what platform he would be arriving at and I secured a position overlooking it. Little did I know that his train had switched platforms, so after about thirty minutes of standing there knowing something is wrong but hoping that standing there for longer would help the situation, I finally left and decided to find a place to stay for the night. I also proceeded to have a mini tantrum. “I hate this city! I want to go home!” I almost bought a ticket home right then and there, but realized I would arrive at about three in the morning and have to walk for an hour home from the station in the middle of the night. So, I didn’t. I had written down directions to the A&O hostel near Hbf, so I grabbed a map and tried to find it. All the while, hateful thoughts of Hamburg still angrily marched through my mind. “I’m leaving first thing tomorrow. Earliest ticket home. Stupid place. I hate it.” Grumble. Grumble.
I find the place, get a room, and check my mail. I contact Levi, and we finally meet up downtown.
Let me try and explain how I felt when I first saw Levi. I’ve just moved to another continent and have been traveling around for a week and a half in a country where, yeeaaah they speak my language but it’s not quite the same. I’ve never traveled by train in Europe, I’ve never couchsurfed, I’m all by myself, and while it’s been an amazing trip it’s also had quite a bit of anxiety to go with it. I’ve had some serious anxiety more than once revolving around whether the bus or train I’m on is going to the place I actually want to be. Basically, I’m in quite a state for a person to be in.
And then I see my old friend Levi. My good old American buddy. A MUCH needed familiar face in a sea of strangers and new found acquaintances. I run up to him and give him a hug. I was so relieved.

I can’t even imagine how I’ll feel when Ariel comes. I’ll probably pee my pants.
Levi, his roommate from Liepzig named Fokko, and I go and eat dinner, and then off to a Kniepe (bar) in the same district I saw a protest the day before. We hang out, try and speak some German, and have a good time. I go back to my hostel and meet up with them the next morning. We go on a lovely boat tour around the harbor that partially repairs my opinion of Hamburg.
Only partially, though.
After a few more hours of wandering the city, we go to Fokko’s house to eat some dinner and take Levi’s bags to the airport. Levi spent one month studying in Leipzig and one month working on a goat farm, and he’s due to go back to America the next morning.
After we eat, I go and check my mail for the first time that day. At about 19.00 I open up an email informing me that my orientation for my job is scheduled for Tuesday, July 27 at 7:45 am.
FUCK.
There are three numbers given on the email. I call them all. No one answers, and there’s no voicemail. I desperately check the train schedule. The soonest one will get me to Ramstein at 7:20. I even go as far as checking place tickets, which yields no better results. I send an email to Leah telling her my situation and pray that everything will be ok, which at that point I wasn’t sure it would be. I think it was the way she ended the email saying, “This will be considered your first day of work” that really got me.
But I stayed pretty calm during the whole thing, despite occasional images of me jobless in Europe that I couldn’t quite suppress popping up every once and a while. What I worried most about was fucking things up for Ariel. Her quitting her secure, well-paying job in America and showing up in Germany with me somehow already having gotten fired from this new job before I even started. How great would that be? No, it would be awful.
I eventually go back to my hostel and go to bed not knowing what tomorrow would bring. We shall see!
The next morning, I arrive at the train station ready to make my ticket purchase. I plug in everything into the ticket machine and insert my card. “Card could not be read.” Ok. I insert it again. “Card could not be read.” I flip it around. “Card could not be read.” I flip it again. Same thing. I take out my credit card. Same thing.
“Ok. Maybe the machine is having a problem. I’ll just go get some cash and use that.”
I go to the atm, put my card in, and enter the amount I want.
“Transaction could not be processed.”
Fuck.
The way Fokko worded my entire European situation while I was trying to explain it to him the day before were the best thing for me to draw off of in this current one.
“So, you have a job, Sarah?”
“Not yet.”
“But you have your own place?”
“Uhh, no.”
“So, let me get this straight. You’re jobless and homeless all by yourself on another continent?”
“Haha, I guess I am.”
It really made me feel better to think about that while I was missing my first day of work with 40 euro in my pocket and a useless debit card.
I would guess that I kept it together for about five minutes. After that, while looking through my bag for a pen on the train station stairs, the floodgates slowly started opening. My eyes started watering as I dialed Fokko’s number and asked if I could come over to his house to call my bank. On the way down the escalator to the U2, tears started dripping from my eyes while I would hastily wipe them away with the back of my hand. While on the subway, I let go a little bit and had a mini sobfest whilst sitting in the corner wondering what the German lady sitting across from me was thinking about all of this.
I was crying while walking through Fokko’s neighborhood, which I’m sure didn’t cheer up the German neighbors on their morning walks.
I got to Fokko’s house, rang the doorbell and said, red faced, “Nothing catastrophic has happened. I’ve just had a bad day and need to be by myself for a few minutes.” He showed me where his room was and I proceeded to bawl my eyes out.
I can’t say I’ve really cried yet while in Germany, and it was WAY overdue. I’ve cried a couple tears here and there, but hadn’t really let go yet. Hadn’t had a cry that releases all of your tensions and anxieties.
Five minutes later, I come downstairs and sit down next to Fokko. “Here’s what happened.”
I call the bank, and after a lovely chat that started as, “I’m in Europe by myself, and my card isn’t working. Is there anything we can do to fix this?” I get it all straightened out.
An hour later I’m on the train home. Thank GOD. I am ready to go home.