Short Resumée & Plan for further Days

As you have probably noticed, what I have been writing so far was primarily stuff that I had seen and very little about the thoughts that I had. This was basically my approach during these first one and a half days of research that I was able to spend in Hamburg. I tried to shut out my thoughts and just took notes - a lot of notes, I might add - about everything I saw. This, I thought, was really good in the fact that it made me look a lot closer towards everything...getting impressions...seeing the place rather than just walking through it and being concerned with my own thoughts and problems etc.

What it lacked though was the feel! I did get a sense of the people who live and work and stroll around here every day, but I didn't really get to feel the place...which is what I tried during my second stay in Hamburg that took place last week from Wednesday, August 25 to Sunday, August 29, 2010.

More to follow...stay tuned!

Day 2: 6.30am to 2pm - Part Four

In a side street of Hans Albers Platz, I also found an interesting museum, which I will tell you about a little more in one of my next posts. Again, as I strolled along the Reeperbahn, a woman came towards me asking me if I wanted to get into a stripclub. I told her that I needed to work, which to a certain extent was true ;) and that I might come back in the evening, although knowing that I never would. Walking down the Great Freedom again, a band was jamming there and at a pub called Nordlicht (engl.: Northern Light) a lonely old man was sitting outside sipping on his beer...

Back on Hans Albers Platz, there were a couple of cabs awaiting customers. The drivers were a bunch of black guys who obviously knew each other and seemed to be having a good time. One of them even brought a football and kept juggling it, while waiting for his next customer. It was quite funny when he actually didn't notice that he had one, because he was so engaged in his playing. The other guys started laughing and told him. It must have been about 2pm now. The first tourist group also arrived and stopped at the statue of the Hamburger Jung Hans Albers.

So, after I stayed for about eight hours, I thought it was time to call it a day. Passing the Golden Glove - one of the bars which never close really - I saw drunken woman inside dancing to a German Schlager song called Schöner Fremder Mann (engl.: Beautiful Stranger - has nothing to do with the Madonna song, though). The guy sleeping on the mattress in Simon-von-Utrecht-Strasse still hadn't moved a single bit and when I came to another part of Hamburg, I saw two rather tall girls with their SLR cameras in a courtyard taking photos of something that I couldn't see. I had seen those girls before strolling over Hans Albers Platz...

Day 2: 6.30am to 2pm - Part Three

I saw a man with a long beard and wearing a mini skirt digging into a garbage bin and pulling out a newspaper. After paying 30 cents to use the restroom behind the famous currywurst stand next to the Davidwache (police station) and Burger King, I went along the Hamburger Berg (side street to the Reeperbahn). Apart from the pubs that never close it seems, there was a lot of construction work going on. Workers throwing out literally everything from a room that had once been a bar, I guess. There were two men sitting in front of the big pile of old and broken furniture and other stuff, one in a chair and the other one on his wheeled walker. They were speaking English in kind of a weird high-pitched voice... and I didn't know what to make of it quite honestly...

I took a turn into Simon-von-Utrecht street, which runs parallel to the Reeperbahn. On a matress on the sidewalk a guy was sleeping and he didn't move a bit in three hours when I came by there the second time. A nun was walking in the same direction as I did, probably needed to get somewhere near the church or so...I felt really quiet and calm. An amazing sound then occured, which I had heard a million times before, but somehow it struck me at this moment in time. It was the sound of a bird out in the middle of the street suddenly flapping its wings and flying away...the sound somehow startled me, I don't know why, and I was amazed how loud it actually was. I had never noticed that before.

After having a quick doner at the Reeperbahn, I returned to Hans Albers Platz at about 12.30pm. A couple of young women in mini skirts were strolling past and taking a turn into Herberstrasse. I figured they were going to work. Another woman with a see-through top and a black bra went down the same alley with her little dog, saying hi to the woman who was working at the Reitclub bar.

The bass rumble of an old airplane with propellers flying by...

A small sign of trouble, the first one since my first visit, occured when a delivery guy brought a load of cases with empty bottles to his truck and a teenager had a look at them and tried to nick a couple of bottles to get the money for them at the supermarket. 'What the hell do you think you're doing?' the delivery guy shouted across the place, which truly rattled the young guy in his bones. He suddenly became so small and so nervous...something I guess all of us have experienced when we got busted doing something forbidden...the delivery guy came with huge steps. 'Take your hands off!' The young guy innocently spread his arms, but couldn't utter a single word. When the delivery guy saw that the boy didn't actually take anything, he just uttered a quick 'Get lost!' and the boy ran into a side alley, never to be seen again.

I heard parts of an argument between what I thought was a mother and her daughter coming from a building with a couple of open windows. Then a guy turned up, half bald, sweaty, dressed in a dirty green shirt and darker green pants. He was heading towards one of the benches whilst muttering something to himself: 'Soon I sit. Soon I sit and then and then I'm done.' That was what I heard. Having sat down, he greeted someone else with a quick 'Moin' and told himself that beer tasted a lot better when you have it with a cigarette.

Another guy arrived with his dog and they started talking. The guy in green told him something about his job, but I couldn't figure out what it was he did. He also talked to the dog once in a while and the dog seemed quite happy.

Day 2: 6.30am to 2pm - Part Two

Metallica's The Unforgiven was playing somewhere and I saw the man again who previously had had trouble filling wine into his plastic bottle. He crossed Hans Albers Platz an headed towards the Welcome Inn pub, which wasn't open yet, but of which I've already seen people walk in and come out of at arious times; if it was cleaning staff, people who knew the owner or if the place was actually open, even though it didn't look like it, I didn't know. So, the guy was heading towards the pub, I thought, but as it turned out he wasn't. He was heading towards a bar table that was standing right next to the pub...and on the table there was a plastic cup with some liquid left in it. The guy took the cup, smelt at it and then got out his plastic bottle, which had been filled up to maybe one fifth and poured whatever sort of liquor that was into his bottle...I've seen many people now collecting cans and bottles, but he was the first one to have actally collected actual drinks in order to concoct his own.


Looking down the row of pubs and pizza places, I also thought about how international this whole place is and right in that moment an Asian girl walked across the square. Concerning this topic, I also found out more during my second stay in Hamburg...I will let you know more about it at some other point.

People were occasionally greeting each other with a casual 'Moin!' (Northern accent for 'Good morning!'). It must have been around 8.30am when one of the men I saw sitting next to the pub Rettungsring walked up to the Hans Albers Klause, got himself something to drink and took a seat next to the entrance there. He was actually looking quite normal, white hair, a blue suit jacket, jeans, shaven; truly not someone you'd usually expect hanging around the pubs at this time of the day. But he sat there and talked to a lot of people he, as far as I could see, knew apparently, and didn't leave until 1.oo in the afternoon...I figured he might go to another pub then :) interesting character!

A battered brown Volkswagen beetle was driving by and reminded me of the one I saw in the Coen Brothers' film Blood Simple, of which I just finished reading the script. I heard the evil laugh of the guy at the Reitclub again. Probably he found someone again that he could show it to. But apparently he must have been laughing about something else, because a minute later, he was screaming a loud 'WHYYYYYYY?' and after a reply I couldn't hear properly from inside, he answered: 'Fuck you, do what you want!' and left. Before he did, however, he laughed at a woman who walked by and wore a pair of tracksuit pants, a brown shirt and carried a plastic bag.

At around 8.45am Cowboy and Santa came back and Santa headed into a doorway. He lived there most likely. Cowboy kept strolling, though. At around the same time, an old man with cap arrived at the Welcome Inn - I had seen him walk in and out of this place a couple of times already - and started throwing all the plastic cups that were still standing on the bar and beer tables out onto the street. Then, he went inside. At 9am I knew the answer why he did it. The Hamburger Stadtreinigung ('city cleaning department') came and did their work at Hans Albers Platz. When they were gone, I suddenly heard a piece of classical music coming from somewhere, which reminded me of the central station here in Hamburg. They play classical music there through speakers to keep people from lingering and sleeping there.

Between 9 and 10am the place became more and more alive. More tourists came, a couple of cafés opened and people already sat down outside, delivery trucks arrived etc. etc. I just tried to find a bathroom :) I found one near the Beatlesplatz, but I had to order a coffee. Understandable, because otherwise people would be running in and out there without them making any money. If you don't want to order anything they actually charge you 50 cents to use the restroom, something they do almost everywhere along the Reeperbahn. So, I'd rather went with the coffee option. A man with a proper tan and a white shirt was sitting next to me reading the paper, having breakfast and making some, it seemed, important business calls...what kind of business it was I didn't know. I imagined it to have something to do with girls and money...but it could have been something completely else also. The Chrysler standing only a couple of feet away from us, surely belonged to him, I figured. During my stay at the café, a man in an electric wheelchair also drove by and I saw a man with an artificial leg wearing shorts...

When I came back to Hans Albers Platz, the place felt more quiet again now. It felt a bit like life was passing by along the Reeperbahn, since all the cars and most of the people were passing by there. At one point, however, the place was so quiet that I could hear the beggar across the street (ca. 100 yards away) properly while he was playing his guitar and singing.


Next to him two cops were talking to two beggars. A pair of tourists came up Hans Albers Platz looking for some place while pulling their suitcases behind them. The old guy who looked like a skinhead, who I saw on Day 1, also strolled past and a tattooed girl in soccer shirts and scars on her forearm I beleived to be self-inflicted came by, too. I wondered for a while what the woman in the pink top and the man with a moustache, who were standing in front of the Reitclub having a cigarette, were talking about. I also wondered again what it would be like to stay in the Hotel Alt-Hamburg for one night and planned to make arrangements for my second stay here.

I also had a look inside the Sexy Angel, the sex shop at the corner of H.A.P. and Reeperbahn. Those were the Days was playing through the speakers there. When I came out a guy was changing the adds in the advertising column.

Up at Hans Albers Platz again, I heard a constant and very fast clicking all of a sudden mixed with someone cursing very loudly at the whole world in some other language (Russian?). I saw him sitting on one of the beer benches. What he tried to do was lighting a lighter to light his cigarette. Since I don't smoke, I didn't actually know what the purpose of his action was and the whole thing looked quite funny to me actually; but my friend explained it to me later: The problem that the guy had was basically that the one lighter was actually empty, but the other lighter was actually broken, so what he tried to do was getting a spark from one whilst letting out the gas from the other lighter...looked really funny, though! And after about ten minutes he gave up and started asking people - including me - if they had a light for him.

Meanwhile, I could hear the song All die ganzen Jahre (All these wasted years) by the German punkband Die Toten Hosen emerging from somewhere and at 11.15am I started my second big stroll for the day...

Day 2: 6.30am to 2pm - Part One

I got up at 5.45am today and arrived at the Reeperbahn around 6.30. As expected, the place was really quiet and deserted and aprat from the Sexy Angel, which is open 24/7, all the sex shops were closed. Walking towards Hans Albers Platz I accidentally stepped on a plastic cup and scared a couple of pigeons away. In Silbersackstraße (engl.: silver sack street), a side street to the Reeperbahn, I got myself some breakfast at a bakery. I walked past the Rettungsring (engl.: life ring), a pub which was already open. There were two middleaged men sitting on either side of the doors, looking as if they were guarding the place, like securities at a night club, only that the place was totally empty inside. Hundreds of pigeons were sitting on the rooftops this morning, overlooking the place, maybe thinking about were they would find their meals today.

When I arrived at Hans Albers Platz, I sat down near the Welcome Inn pub. I almost immedately noticed a constant humming. I didn't know whether it was coming from the subway or if it was a noise that actually emerged from the pub. Once in a while a breeze of wind came in and made the flags wave a bit. There was a Germany flag and a St. Pauli flag hanging at the Alt-Hamburg and another one with a black skull hanging at an open window.

After a while, the man at the pizza place came to his kitchen and started preparing the pastry for his pizzas for the day. The place felt very peaceful so early in the morning; garbage and dog shit were lying around peacefully next to each other until the litter service arrived at around 8 o'clock.

I could hear occasional voices emerging from down the alleys. An old bum who had a beard like Santa came walking across the square and disappeared again, another woman got some money out from the ATM right next to the entrance of the porn cinema at the Sexy Angel. Two men arrived on their bicycles to search the trash cans for any recyclable bottles. Judging from the bags that were hanging from the handlebars of their bikes, the day hadn't been too successful so far. People were coming and going. There was the scent of spilled beer mingled with fresh morning air.

In some flat somewhere, somebody then put on Thunderstruck by AC/DC, but that didn't disturb anyone. It rather contributed towards the atmosphere. Seagulls came flying past, crowed their 'good mornings' to everybody and flew along their way towards the harbour just about half a mile south.


At around 6.50, a taxi arrived and picked up an old man who came out of the Reitclub, a bar about fifty yards away from Herbertstrasse. It took the old man a while to get into the car, while the other guy wearing a blue overall (probably for work) went on and paid the cabdriver. On the other side, down the Reeperbahn, I saw an early morning jogger runnig past the KFC and closed strip clubs. When the pizza man came back to his place, he saw me and probably asked himself what a guy with a black hat and a notepad is doing here at this time of the day...

I noticed the church bells at 7am and started wondering where the closest church might be and how filled they might be during the services. I also kept thinking about the sign hanging at a wall saying Hans Albers Hotel, but with all the windows being boarded up and paintings of pin-up girls hanging there now, this obviously wasn't a hotel anymore. But when was it a hotel and what happened there, I wondered. I just needed to find out more about this place.

I took a stroll along the Reeperbahn and took a turn into the Great Freedom, a side street. Pigeons were picking up their breakfast now, the remains of people's food leftovers from the night. Homeless people mostly were still asleep on the street or already sitting at the doors of the Salvation Army's building. A thought came to my mind that I had never walked through Herbertstrasse - a place where only men are allowed and barely dressed prostitutes are sitting at the windows trying to lure you in (the German word for this is 'kobern'). So I went past the red walls that keep everybody from having a quick glance inside and took my morning stroll along these sixty yards of cobbled street, big windows and empty stools. Only one was actually occupied by a woman in her forties with short black hair and red lipstick. She was reading the Morgenpost (newspaper) and seemed a bit startled by this lonely guy with a black hat walking along at this time of the day. Nonetheless, she brought out a quick 'Komm' doch rein!' ('Why don't you come in?') which seemed like a reflex to me. I shook my head and walked back out on the other side, leaving the red walls with a giant add for Astra beer, the beer of St. Pauli, behind me.

Strolling along the Reeperbahn again, I saw cowboy (beggar I saw on the 1st day) again. He met Santa (beggar from earlier) and the two started talking. An old doorwoman, blond, dressed neatly in a white shirt and red vest, tried to coax me into the only open strip club, which was the Red Cat.

'Why don't you come in?' she said.
'No, not at this time of the day!' I answered. It was ca. 7.30 now.
'But why not? At least the girls are not in a hurry now and can take their time with you.'
I smiled and carried on. To be honest, the old lady was actually right. At night, with a huge number of guys being there, the girls tried to make as much as possible and thus maybe worked them off like they were coming down the assembly belt, but at least at this time of they day I could be sure that I was one in mabe just three or four guests or maybe be the only one. And had I ever gone to a stip club at 7.30 in the morning? No, I hadn't...and I didn't :) instead I took a right and went along the Great Freedom.

Here, I saw something interesting. A down-and-out had troubles filling the remains of a tetrapack of wine into his empty 0,33l plastic bottle. He tried it for a few minutes and spilled most of it and then he just stood there looking at his two hands, groaning uncontently. I was about to see this guy two more times that day, but more about him later. At the end of the Great Freedom I found a church. And a small sign at the wall said: 'Es gibt nichts womit Jesus nicht fertig wird.' ('There's nothing that Jesus can't cope with.') When was the last time I'd gone to church, I wondered. I couldn't remember and decided to look up the times of the services at home and go there on my next stay in Hamburg at the end of August.


The Reeperbahn was already a busy place compared to the attached Hans Albers Platz, even though there music was emanating from some of the bars as well. Hard rock music came out of the Hans Albers Klause and the Reitclub ('riding club') was playing 99 Red Balloons. While I was walking past a bank, a woman with a puffy face asked me for some change, but I shook my head and carried on.

It was 8am now. Back at Hans Albers Platz, a guy wearing an army jacket and carrying an ikea bag was looking for some cans and bottles in the trashcans. Same with an older man who looked quite normal, and who I thought was just heading for work, but who also stopped at almost every trashcan just a couple of minutes later. This reminded me of a conversation that I recently had with my friend who lives here in Hamburg. 'That's the curious thing about it', he said. 'These can and bottle collectors seem to come from all sorts of classes and backgrounds. Poor people as well as rich people collect them and save some money the next time they go to the supermarket.' So, here it was, true story!

When I saw an interesting image and didn't have my camera at hand; I made a quick line drawing of them. (Maybe I can make it a bit more accurately and post it here as well...) It looked really funny when I saw two bodybuilders, two girls in very tight mini skirts and two old men walk along the pavement back-to-back...kind of reminded me of school somehow and when we had to walk in pairs all the time we took a trip somewhere. Then, I heard the sound of coins clinking somewhere and started looking for its source: A man was refilling a cigarette machine and getting out the day's or week' earnings.

A woman, the Sarah Jessica Parker type in Sex and the City, also came by wearing her mini skirt, talking on her 'mini' cell and walking her two 'mini' dogs; a man came out of the sex shop and dusted off his floor mat while another drunk was stumbling towards a door, had some trouble finding his key but got in eventually - I guess his day didn't start, but was rather over now...this place really is interesting.

Pigeons of St. Pauli

Here's a little video that somehow reminded me of all the collectors of recyclable cans and bottles that I have seen here (I don't want to seem too harsh here, but it's just what came to my mind when I saw this):

LooooLa - Lalalala Lola :)

Just looked up the lyrics to the Kinks-song Lola that I heard in the Hans Albers Klause. For those of you who don't know yet, the song is about a romantic encounter between a young man and a transvestite he meets in a Soho bar in London, something that can truly happen here in Hamburg also. Here's the lyrics:

I met her in a club down in North Soho
Where you drink champagne and it tastes just like Cherry Cola
C-O-L-A Cola.

She walked up to me and she asked me to dance.
I asked her name and in a dark brown voice she said, "Lola"
L-O-L-A Lola, lo lo lo Lola

Well, I'm not the world's most physical guy,
But when she squeesed me tight she nearly broke my spine
Oh my Lola, lo lo lo Lola

Well, I'm not dumb but I can't understand
Why she walks like a woman and talks like a man
Oh my Lola, lo lo lo Lola, lo lo lo Lola

Well, we drank champagne and danced all night,
Under electric candlelight,
She picked me up and sat me on her knee,
She said, "Little boy, won't you come home with me?"

Well, I'm not the world's most passionate guy,
But when I looked in her eyes,
I almost fell for my Lola,
Lo lo lo Lola, lo lo lo Lola

I pushed her away. I walked to the door.
I fell to the floor. I got down on my knees.
I looked at her, and she at me.

Well that's the way that I want it to stay.
I always want it to be that way for my Lola.
Lo lo lo Lola.

Girls will be boys, and boys will be girls.
It's a mixed up, muddled up, shook up world,
except for Lola. Lo lo lo Lola. Lo lo lo Lola.

Well I left home just a week before,
and I never ever kissed a woman before,
Lola smiled and took me by the hand,
she said, "Little boy, gonna make you a man."

Well I'm not the world's most masculine man,
but I know what I am and that in bed I'm a man,
so is Lola.
Lo lo lo Lola. Lo lo lo Lola.

First Day: 7pm - 8pm

When I left the Hans Albers Klause on my first day I went down towards the corner of Hans Albers Platz & Reeperbahn. I saw a really interesting person there: a man with black pants and a white sleeveless woman's top. He wore sunglasses, make-up and had a proper tan. In short, he was a tranvestite talking to somebody at a public phone. I wondered what they might have been chatting about on the phone, but it was probably just ordinary stuff.

At the entrance to another bar, there was a man with ginger hair - actually, the one who was asked to leave the premises of the H.A. Klause - and was telling him about his evil laugh. He showed it to him several times, which actually sounded quite funny...

I had a stroll to the bus stop and had a look around there:


And when after a few minutes, it was around 7.30pm now, the rain solidly kicked in, everybody tried to find shelter under whatever roof they could find. I found a beer bench that was covered from the rain by a big sun umbrella. I definitely wanted to stay until 8 o'clock! I already knew that this was usually the time all the prostitutes started to work here, but I wanted to know for sure, if they also came out in this heavy rain. An amazing image that I saw whilst waiting there was when a seagull came flying in through an alley and kept circulating the tree for a while until it flew off into the direction of the harbour. It was just an image that reflected lots of Hamburg's character for me.

For a while, I also focused on listening and focusing on the tiny stuff, since almost every person there was standing under some roof. There are a lot of broken glasses and bottles scattered all over the place, small empty liquor bottles lying around in between the cobblestones. Reminded me of a dirty set of false teeth somehow! Apart from the cars driving through the rain down at the Reeperbahn, the sound of rain running down the gutter was very predominant.


There was also a family of father, mother, daughter and son sitting on one of the other benches. They must ahve had an argument or so, because their faces didn't look quite happy and the daughter, maybe 17 years old, left by herself and disappeared around the corner. The others soon followed her.

At 7.58pm sharp, it was really funny to see her how everybody - including me - was looking at their watches when a bunch of about 30 prostitutes started to gather around Hans Albers Platz. A couple of tourists took a final photo of the Hans Albers statue and then left under the cover of their umbrellas. I stayed until the first one had talked to somebody - it was a man she picked, maybe in his late 50s and they appeared to have a nice conversation, but the man didn't go with her. Instead, he left towards the subway and I followed him down the same direction. I felt exhausted now; the first day took a lot out of me to be honest. But when you've been observing for four hours straight, it is kind of difficult to stop. For example, just before I went down to the subway I heard an unfamiliar noise and I suddenly caught myself looking around to see where it came from. It actually came from down the stairs of the subway where a drunk slipped and fell adn when I came down there he just stood there and started talking to himself while trying to tie his shoelace.

At the platform waiting for the sub, I also noticed the yellow signs for the first time telling you that weapons and glass bottles and all other stuff that can be turned into a weapon are forbidden her. This sounds quite interesting, especially when there are two or three gun shops just down the street.

On the subway, I tried to finish my observation for the day, but one final thing struck me. The train was packed with people - not like it can be in London, but still. On one side there was this happy young couple, kissing all the time, while on the other I could see a young father with his two kids in a buggy struggling to get one of the babies quite while fastening its 'seat belt' and at the same time arguing with his wife, who then left for a free seat she saw. He looked pretty annoyed! It was just total opposites: The loving couple in a fresh relationship and the other couple I imagined to be the same one - just a few years down the road! Loved the idea of it, even though I really felt with the poor guy struggling with the kid AND his wife!

First Day: Coffee Time @ Hans Albers Klause

When I entered the Hans Albers Klause, there were only four people in it. Two women running the bar, one in a red and one in a green shirt, and two guests. I asked if they had a cappuccino and the bar maid with the red shirt shook her head: 'Only coffee and milk or a hit chocolate, love', she said. A rather curious answer. I smiled, ordered a coffee and sat down. It took the woman in the red shirt a while to get the coffee. She apologized and told me she was having her first day and didn't know how the coffee machine worked yet. The other woman, who once in a while was talking in another language I imagined to be Croatian (but I didn't know actually) quickly explained it to her. At first try, she forgot to put a pad in and only brown water came out. The second try worked though and she brought me the coffee in a silver mug. I found the place really interesting. Framed pictures of Hans Albers were everywhere and strangely enough every twenty minutes or so a song kicked in through the speakers at a really loud volume, so I couldn't hear anyone speak anymore.

The two guests were a rather tall man in his sixties with white hair and a beard - he was only shaving his chin and neck, so he had these big sideburns & moustache - and a woman rather small and very very thin hair. I immediately thought she might be suffering from some sort of cancer or so.

Altogether, the four of them really seemed to be enjoying each other's company and observing them and listening to them really made me forget everything else around...and when I couldn't hear what they were actually saying, I tried to imagine what they could be talking about. Amongst other things, they were talking about the bar maid's first day, uncontrollable drunks that every once in a while happen to stumble in and an event from the day before called the 'Schlager Move' where people got loaded and were stumbling through the streets while listening to German Schlager music. I tried to get something down on paper verbatim, but since they were talking at a low volume and every once in a while the music kicked in, this might not make much sense at all, but here it is:

Woman in red: 'I have first day today. I don't know much yet, you see - just with the coffee just now, I forgot to put in pad. (...) My boss told me. (...) When somebody is bad he thinks the world is bad. When somebody is drunk, he gets his face smashed in...'
Woman in green (boss): 'She's doing her job and she's doing it well. (...) You don't have to let yourself down onto same level as them.'
Woman with thin hair: 'I still have chemo four times. After that I gotta go to radiotherapy every day.'
Woman in red: 'What is it you have exactly? Has it spread yet? You know, my husband had it and it spread. If it's small-celled it will spread, if large it won't. With you I beleive it must be large-celled because you'll have to go to radiotherapy.'
Woman with thin hair: 'Actually, I don't know what it is...'

Loud eighties pop music starts and I can't hear anything anymore. When the music stops after a few minutes, I hear them talking about diets. While a delivery person brings in a case of beer, woman in red talks about her not being allowed to eat any more cake and instead eats only fruits in the evenings.

Outside the sky slowly turns grey and I hear chanting from a group of guys touring through Hamburg having a stag party or something. The man with the sideburn-moustache lights himself a cigarette and when he starts talking, I notice that he is lisping:

Man: 'That's not how it works. I only like to drink in a place where the staff is pleasant and when I even know the bartender, that's even better. The bartenders sometimes tell me that I'm a little crazy, too, but when you have gone to a place for years, they kind of know how to take it...'

At 6.10pm another song kicks in. It's Lola by the Kinks! I knew song since I was a kid, but never really listened to it's lyrics properly, I noticed. Since I couldn't hear anything anymore apart from the song, I caught myself writing down how I felt while sitting in this place. Amongst my three lines of notes about the place there is one thing that was very interesting. I wrote down the words 'feeling comfortable'. This place actually made me feel sort of 'at home'...

The woman with thin hair ordered another alcohol-free Becks', while the man was talking about a so-called 'Saufkneipe' - basically a place where you can get drunk. Outside a man with ginger hair was walking by saying 'Slainté!' to someone else and a tattooed man with a leather vest and a beer in his hand came walking in. Quickly realizing that it was almost empty, he walked back out and took a seat there, but after a couple of minutes was asked nicely to leave, if he won't order anything. The two at the bar then had a laugh when she asked him if he wnated to drink from her alcohol-free beer and he answered: 'That'll throw me back at least an hour.'

I realized now that most of the time, it was either him or the barmaid in red talking and that she who had cancer was mainly listening to what they were saying. I wondered if she didn't need to say anything and mainly enjoyed having the company, people around her, or maybe she was just waiting for a moment when she could talk about what was going on inside of her. The moment came when she started talking and, to be completely honest with you, it touched and made me feel bad at the same time. I somehow felt like an intruder who listened in when she poured her heart out.

'It's the hardest thing having to sit there for five hours and knowing that you have to do this every day. (...) It's ironic that my neighbour, she is 73 years old and can dance and jump around anyway she wants, but when I go out by myself alone (...) There are moments when I'm not in a good mood and I just want don't want to this anymore (...) Other times, I wake up in the morning and everything seems to be okay (...) I'm not a hopeless case, not yet. I'm still alive and you're not getting rid of me yet, I'm still here.'

Then she leaned in, he took her in his arms and they put their heads together. They didn't say anything for a long time, but I guess just the gesture was enough for her to be comforted. I, myself, was on the one hand really greatful to see or hear something like this, but as I already mentioned, it also made me feel like I was eavesdropping on something I wasn't supposed to hear. So, at around 7pm I decided to pay my two coffees and go somewhere else. It didn't take long and the rain came pouring down in buckets...

Little 'first impression' video:

That's basically how it started: July 31, 2010, around 4.15pm.

First Day: 4.30 til 5.30pm

I change places and sit down on a beer bench from where I can see the whole place. Inkasso Henry and his group of tourists are still standing at the statue. The cowboy is walking by again and a tourist is asking him something. A man is walking his dog. A curious thing that makes me laugh is the fact that the dog is carrying the plastic bag with his excrements himself. I hear the wind rushing through the leaves of the tree and I realize for the first time really that the tree is the only piece of nature in this place...just the one, standing tall, apart from it there are no other plants here. Church bells coming from somewhere and I ask myself where the nearest church might be.

After a while, a couple is sitting down on the bench opposite me. It's a quite interesting-looking couple. They look like two bikers, him being bald and with tattoos all over his arms wearing a leather vest and her with curly hair and tattoos as well. They are talking about going some place, but she doesn't want to and wants no discussion about it. They appear to be making a deal about going to this place today and going to another the next week. A couple of men appear to be collecting bottles (explanation: in Germany, if you return certain kinds of bottles or cans, you get up to 25 cents per bottle, so people sometimes collect these and return them at the super market. Don't know if that exists in England, also!?). They remind of a woman I once saw on the subway or wore a pink track suit and had a moustache (!!!). She came down the escalator with an empty shopping cart and got on the same train as I did. About three hours later, I was returning from a concert at the local university, I saw the woman again. Again, she boarded the same train as I did, but now the shopping cart was filled to the top with bottles and cans and on top of that, she had two waste bags filled up to the top hanging at the cart as well. She had trouble getting on the train, so a teenager offered to help her...how the hell did she collect so many bottles in just three hours? She must be a pro at doing this!!! ... but back to Hans Albers Place now!

The biker couple observed Inkasso Henry and the tourist group as well just as I did. We got into talking and they told me a bit more about Henry. When I told them about the exercise, they quite liked what I was doing and responded that that is what they like doing on the Reeperbahn as well. Just sitting there, having a coffee and observing people. It's amazing what kinds of people you encounter in this place. Then they left to have a cup of coffee somewhere...


I saw a man who with his beard and his hat reminded me a bit of Pippi Longstocking's dad - only that he had trouble walking by himself and needed a wheeled walker to support him. His legs were bandaged as well. He walked towards the Reeperbahn and stopped at the advertising column there and looked around for a while. His friend, who left him after a couple of minutes, immediately had a look into the nearby waste bin. I guess, he was looking for bottles or cans as well. But the man with the walker stayed there for a while and I began to think that he might be living around here somewhere and that he might have felt a little cooped up at home and needed some fresh air and see people. He left once down the Reeperbahn and came back again...

After I saw a couple of tourists taking photos of the clothes displayed in the windows of the Sexy Angel, a sex shop and cinema athe courner of Reeperbahn and Hans Albers Platz, I decided that I also felt that I needed a coffee and that I need to get to know the place from all angles. So, I had a bit of a break in the Hans Albers Klause...which ended up not being a break at all, but probably the most interesting experience of the day.

My first 45 minutes - Write-Up

In the afternoon (ca. 3.45 - 8pm) on Saturday, July 31st, I made my first visit to Hans Albers Platz. Here's a summary of the impressions that I got in the first 45 minutes already:

I get of the subway station Reeperbahn around 3.45pm. Compared to a saturday evening when the platform is crowded with partying people, there isn't much going on. Everything is really quiet. An add for condoms strikes me as I come up the escalator. Of course, they need them here. When I take the turn towards Hans Albers Platz, the place almost looks like it is closed down for the day only to reopen in the evening when it gets busier here again and the place is filled with people.


The weather is cloudy and windy. Empty beer benches and the smell of spilled beer and other stuff everywhere. Punk rock music coming from some basement. I haven't had any lunch yet, so I go to a pizza place called Pizzeria Alt-Hamburg (Old Hamburg) and order two tiny ones about the size of my hand for 2,50 euros each.

The woman at the stand is rather obese and makes the pizzas with her rough hands in a big stone oven behind her. She looks like she's been through a lot in her life - and the pizza place, I notice, is also a proper restaurant with a very lowbrow tavern and hotel attached to it: The Hotel Alt-Hamburg . There are still signs there, where the rates for the night are written out in deutschmarks, which in all of Germany you can only still see in places that have been closed for at least a decade. Two (what I believe are) Russians - somewhere from Eastern Europe, I'm sure - are ahead of me ordering their pizzas. I don't actually understand what they are saying, but they appear to be having a good time. While I'm having my pizza, I hear the occasional airplane fly by and the whole place at this time of day feels kind of deserted and unfamiliar. Most of the time, I've been here during the night, partying myself. So, it's quite unusual sitting here, sober (to be honest ;) ) and observing everything, which is hard to do to begin with, because every once in a while I catch myself wandering in my mind and daydreaming. I tell myself to try and focus on what is happening right in front of my eyes. The Russians are sitting at a beer table next to me and a pigeon is landing there as well. I think they are starting to talk about the bird. It finds some pizza crumbs and flies away again. The occasional group of tourists walks by and stops at the statue of Hans Albers, a famous German actor and icon of Hamburg - an old woman with a white rucksack and blue hair strikes me the most.

I take a stroll around the place. There are pictures of Hans Albers everywhere and many places are named after him, too, like for example Hans Albers Hotel Hans Albers Klause (a tavern) or a place called La Paloma, named after the famous song.


I count four pubs. There's one where a bunch of English guys are sitting outside having a beer, an old man is with them, bald, looking like a skinhead. There's a steak house and the Quer club and Mary Lou's Cult Bar on the other side. All the places are either closed or open but empty. Overall, I can count the amount of people there with the fingers of one hand at this time of the day. People are mainly passing through only to get to the shops, restaurants, strip clubs or the subway station at the Reeperbahn. A constant noise of cars driving by coming from that direction.

After a while, I sit down on a big cement block and just look around. A red pillow is lying around somewhere with a half-empty cup right next to it. I try to imagine what other people see or where they go and get the idea of making character profiles of everyone I believe is interesting. I take photos and notes of the people and what they look like. I also think about the Hotel Alt-Hamburg and decide that on my next stay in Hamburg at the end of August I need to stay there for at least a night or two. There is music coming from a bar now, ambulance sirens and people talking in English, others in Polish or Russian. There is an old man talking to a quite neat-looking Asian couple. She shakes her head and the old man spreads his arms, probably saying 'sorry' to her, then she joins her waiting boyfriend/husband and they leave.

A tourist group is walking by, the leader being a small muscular bald guy with a tan, sunglasses and a moustache. When I ask one of the tourists who he is, he shows me a flyer with a link to website: www.inkasso-henry.de! Inkasso Henry turns out is a famous Reeperbahn icon, who calls himself the 'longest-serving porter in Hamburg'. He talks to the group of about 40 people about Hans Albers being 'an old friend of his' and that he once was sitting in Hans' lab when he was a little kid. I need to check him out more.

A man, around sixty years old I'd say with jeans, a black leather vest and a black cowboy hat walks by. I call him 'cowboy' immediately. He doesn't quite fit in here as a cowboy and reminds me of other cowboy characters in films that don't quite fit in - like the one in David Lynch's Mulholland Drive and there's also one in a film called The Big Empty played by Sean Bean. I look at my cell and see that it is 4.30pm now. Only 45 minutes have passed since I've come here. If this is what happens in 45 minutes, then how many impressions am I going to have during the course of at least five days? Amazing! This exercise is getting real fun...

My place...

The place that immediately jumped to my mind when we got this exercise was Hans Albers Platz & the Reeperbahn in St. Pauli, Hamburg. It is a place that due to its history and infamous nature has always fascinated me. Since I had to stay in Hamburg for a while in July anyway due to a job I got there, my first properly paid one in the film industry, I decided to stick with this idea...and in my experience the first ideas are the best usually...so I hope you'll enjoy the happenings on this blog :) the curtain is about to be lifted...