hamburg quirky

Hamburg was a brief but intense interlude between cool Scandinavia and familial Amsterdam...
and the Hamburg that we had to so quickly experienced was unexpectedly warm and welcoming, from our stylish guesthouse aptly named Schlaflounge ["sleeping lounge"] in a residential neighbourhood full of quirky boutiques and a secret restaurant with no signage - only recommended by word of mouth and where our hour long wait for a table was worth every mouthful...
to the Sunday morning walk down to the lengthy harbourfront on the Elbe river full of robust strollers out enjoying the fall sunshine and the determined revellers chomping along to an elderly rock band in the fish market cum concert hall that is the ever rollicking Fischmarkt...
to casing artist and anarchist-occupied buildings that ranged from be-happy-boho orderly to jungle-rule come one/come all flop-palaces...
to the idiosyncratic semiotics of a particular nordic-germanic culture that can be both gruff-gritty and coolly elegant, oh-so-dated and yet hyper-progressive, overtly sleazy in one area and understatedly opulent in another, ultra affluent but only sedately flaunting it, all in service for and by rough and ready partiers as well as hardcore work ethic meisters...
and all the more inviting to the curious explorer of this eccentrically enlightened "Free and Hanseatic City"...

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en promenad i stockholm...

Empty the street in morning twilight

slithers, pushes into the distance,

gropes its way along city blocks,

cuts and crosses house lots and alleys...

*****

Rows of houses, grey-brown walls,

mouldings, drainpipes, balconies, railings,

baker's pretzels and grocery bushes;

level sidewalk stones as margins...

*****

Now, far off on the brow of the hill 

rises up a head that is moving,

and two hands wrapped around a cane -

like a mirage it rises up...

*****

 

But over there, and even higher

hovers the smoke-blue city skyline

there is the sun, the cottages gleam,

there is the breeze, flapping the flags...

*****

*selected verses from "Street Pictures" by August STRINDBERG (1849-1912), translated from the swedish by Lotta M. Lofgren, 2002.