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...
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