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.