A Traveler's Tale

July 18, 2008

9:15 AM flight leaving from London City Airport meant no Salsa Thursday night. Alarm was set for 5:25-5:30 AM. I only started reviewing the trip in earnest ~7 PM previous night and was in bed shortly before 1:30 AM. I took the 6:15 AM train to London Kings Cross. This time I remembered that these early morning trains get very crowded as it collects more passengers along the way. Once in London, a diversion to London Bridge instead of Bank for DLR was recommended for the tube. I mistook Canary Wharf for Canning Town resulting in ~20 minute delay. No harm done though as I made it to the airport with barely under and hour before departure time. The extra time did give me time to remember that I probably had some Euros stacked away somewhere at home from some years ago.

I was relaxed because I knew that life is pretty simple at the London City Airport – compared to Stansted and especially to Heathrow. The fact that there was only one self-help booth open (second one was not working) for Lufthansa and that people in front of me were taking exceedingly long time was a little annoying, but really no problems. As I neared the gate, I made sure to check and see that no fuel was leaking from the engine of the airplane; I didn’t want a repeat of what happened last time I took a flight from this airport. A small turboprop plane operated by Contact Air for Lufthansa performed flawlessly. I had considered doing some writing or editing as well as reading the guidebook, but I ended up staying with Anabasis (Xenophon).

Hamburg airport was very efficient. No long walks. No long lines. I decided to take public transportation into downtown. I was slightly surprised that the bus from the airport to the nearly S-Bahn/U-Bahn station Ohlsdorf was part of the public transit system as opposed to a free shuttle service – this meant I bought the ticket at the bus stop without English instructions. This will all be obsolete in a few months because an extension of S-Bahn to the airport is scheduled to open later this year. I was tripped up for few minutes by there being a interruption to the U-Bahn service southbound from Ohlsdorf; their webpage without English translation was too much of a challenge for me to figure this out in advance previous night.

Two things really stood out while I was riding the S-Bahn S1 toward downtown. First was that I found Hamburg highly verdant. The place was full of trees! I don’t remember seeing any urban setting so heavily populated with trees one might expect only in real forests anywhere. Second was the size of the Bahn trains. The Hamburg trains are not sparkling new (no worse than NYC, about the same as some of the older London tube trains, definitely more worn than nice Boston or Portland subway or light rail services), but they have really high ceilings – higher than any urban rapid transit trains in American cities (let’s not even try to compare them to the London underground trains, which I think feels cramped and slightly claustrophobic even if they are sparsely occupied). Somewhat less striking was that the look of buildings (houses, etc) felt quite different even compared to other German cities I have visited previously – meaning Munich, Leipzig and Tubingen.

After changing from S1 to S31 at Hauptbahnhof and congratulating myself for making a rare correct split second decision in these travel-related regards. I decided to give myself a small challenge of finding my hotel without consulting a map or asking for help. I tried to recall the layout of the map and the satellite image. Then I determined the orientation (North-South etc) by using the direction I came from on the S-Bahn and using the tall SAS Radisson building, the shape of the Dammtor train station, the shape of the streets and the locations of the grassy area for confirmation of the map I had visualized in my head. I couldn’t use the sun because it was completely overcast, and I did not remember a single street name (or for that matter I couldn’t remember the complete name of the hotel). It was supposed to be a short walk – no more than 5 minutes. It started to rain. I was in the hotel lobby within 5 minutes. I thought it was pretty good considering I had not looked at the map since last night; in fact I had not touched the guidebook all day. I had seen a photo of the hotel exterior, but there was nothing particularly unique about it and there were no big signs of the hotel name.

After checking in and taking a moment for a breather, I ambled over to CCH no more than 5 minutes away. While I was waiting on the line I heard someone to my left saying “Hey.” I turned around and saw Mario H. How did I miss the big guy? I chatted a little with him while waiting. I looked around meanwhile and spotted rest of his gang – Shaan, Inaki among others. Franco (Steph’s friend from Berlin) was also hanging around with Mario’s group. I overheard Shaan saying something about someone’s timing being a little iffy. Not Eddie Torres. Mario chimed in, “Eddie is the best. Teacher of teachers.” Best teacher? No, best dancer too – still better than everyone else… including Frankie.” I simply nodded. Of course it makes a certain sense. Frankie for example looks great, but I could make something of the notion that his partner-work or turn patterns is not exactly groundbreaking unlike say his movements done apart from his partner.

Anyhow I should get back to the real world. Go sightseeing or get a more substantial rest. It’ll be a long night of dancing.