When I first knew that I would be coming to Hamburg one of my first thoughts, aside from being incredibly excited, was that almost everyone I met would be German, and that any other internationals would be few and far between. This has turned out to be most definitely not the case. The huge range of different nationalities I have had the pleasure to meet has so far included; American, Brazilian, Croatian, Czech, English, German, Greek, Indian, Iranian, Irish, Japanese, Kenyan, Moldovan, Mongolian, Pakistani, Polish, Russian, South Korean, Spanish, Swiss, Taiwanese, Turkish and Ukrainian. This has been pretty amazing to not only be immersed in German culture, but to also meet and learn about other countries of the world at the same time.
Continuing the multicultural theme last Thursday a group of us decided to head out for a meal to celebrate 1. May, a national holiday here. With the idea having been put forward by the Greek member of the group we ended up at a cosy Greek restaurant, where much of the time was spent trying to figure out exactly what each meal consisted of. In spite of these Greek language problems a good evening was had, and everyone managed to make their way home, even with the ‘help’ of our friendly German guide.
There was also the harbour tour and visit to the Miniature Wonderland organised by Piasta. It was great to be out on a boat round the harbour, and it made you realise just how far the harbour extends. It was also a shock to travel past some of the cargo ships and see just how massive they actually are, particularly from our tiny tour boat. After travelling through the harbour and the warehouse district we disembarked and headed to the miniature wonderland. Although described as a model railway, it is more akin to a massively detailed world, complete with a mini Hamburg, a range of European countries and even an airport.
Aside from this life has been relatively normal, although I have learnt the hard way that the grades in a German barber are not the same as the grades back in England, consequently I’ve now got a bit of a skinhead look. After having signed up for a Russian for beginners course at the start of semester, I had the first session last week. It was a pretty odd experience, to begin learning a language whilst being taught in a foreign language; however it was pretty cool how quickly you could begin to recognise the alphabet.