Day One: Mannerisms

As soon as we got off the airplane, my mother and I were pretty much ready to find our hotel and crash. After waiting a good half-hour for my brother (who is practically our tour guide in Hamburg) to navigate some out of service U-Bahn lines, we all three climbed into a very classy Mercedes taxi cab and meandered our way through the streets.

The first thing we noticed upon entering said taxi is that Germans can get impatient if you're not entirely on the ball. As soon as we had loaded our luggage into the trunk and sat inside, the driver began speaking to us in rapid German, which my brother (who "knows" some German) and I found difficult to interpret. After an additional prompt, he turned to look at us sharply and said "Americans?" Lesson 1: If not confident in your foreign language abilities, let them know. When attempting to order a taxi over the phone, I started out okay in slightly-mispronounced German but faltered when the dispatcher asked me something. A similar situation; I hesitated and she got rather annoyed. However the exchange ended without international mishap, so I suppose it wasn't all that bad. From what I can gather walking the streets both before and after working hours, people in Hamburg don't hold the same mentality of being nice to even the most stupid of customers you usually find in the US. They are blunt and to the point and I kind of like that about the people here. It may seem a bit rude to someone from America or elsewhere where the customer is treated to the best possible, but I think it teaches people to understand no matter what job they have to be humble, and to respect that the people handing you coffee are just as disgruntled with the hassle of a job as you are. I think many persons in America could ironically learn to be a bit nicer this way.

Part of a monument in front of our hotel

Getting in to the spirit of things