On train from Kiel to Lund - crossing two borders as I go!
Listening to: Brahms's 1st Piano Concerto
What can I say, except that the German people at large have so far been some of the most welcoming I have ever experienced. The first contact I had was giggling with a German man when I heard something funny coming from inside my bag, turned out the baggage handlers had set off my beard trimmer, then when struggling with the ticketing system on the S-Bahn, someone behind me asked in very good English if I needed a hand. Realising I wasn't going to be able to even begin to fathom what ticket I needed, I gladly accepted his offer and before long found myself on the Reeperbahn, of all places. An elderly gentleman showed me to Kristansainallee where I was met by one Lucas Berg, my host for the next two nights.He appeared at the door looking more than a little dazed. He explained that one problem with living so close to the Reeperbahn was that he was always being invited out and getting phonecalls at silly o'clock in the morning. Sounds utterly horrid. He made me feel right at home, showing me to my bed - a rollmat and a duvet on the floor, but a sleeping surface nonetheless, and poured me a drink while I collected my thoughts and we had a good chat. Asking me what plans I had, if any, I said my only plan was to see the Brahms museum, other than that I had none. Feeling rather ashamed he knew nothing of one of Hamburg's prominent citizens, he declared he would join me, and then show me around Hamburg afterwards.As we walked up the Reeperbahn, he pointed out his favourite haunts and some of the landmarks around the area, and we chatted about all sorts until we found ourselves going down this rather picturesque little alley (PeterstraBe) and up to the door of Brahms's house - very luckily escaping the war unscathed.
An extremely friendly woman welcomed us in, and gave me a student price despite my lack of any ID. Also there was Stephan, an American gentleman who spoke fluent German and had a huge interest in Brahms - so much so that he unfortunately took it upon himself to regularly interrupt our absolutely charming guide to give us some facts, often of little importance, or even relevance, but he chatted with us a lot and had good intentions. The museum itself was small, but definitely worth it for €3. We were shown various artefacts of the Brahms family, including prizes he'd been awarded. Rather than a bottle of wine or flowers at the end of a concert, on the odd occasion he was presented with silver laurels, or even a silver ribbon with engraving on it to show people's appreciation of this compositions. Rather lovely a though, and the silver ribbon was particularly lovely I felt. They also had an antique piano, for anyone to have a go on.
This piano had belonged to the family of one of Brahms's pupils. I forget the name of the type of piano, but I shall look it up in my guide. It was a sort of baby grand, but the strings ran parallel to the keyboard. I sat down to have a go, plonking my way through some Chopin (alas I know no Brahms and I barely know Chopin) I laid my fingers upon those very keys Brahms himself would have demonstrated with, and started playing only for nothing to happen. The keys were remarkably heavily weighted, it took an enormous amount of effort to sink one of the keys down far enough to strike the strings, so there was this delicate Prelude in E Minor being forced out in fortissimo just to get any sound at all. Didn't help that I made lots of mistakes either, and I soon gave up, still happy that I'd managed to get a go on it!
Stephan suggested we go for a drink and I tried my best to be civil despite my exhaustion - 3hrs Wednesday night, 5hrs Thursday, 4 on Friday night. I was flagging to say the least. It was, however, a pleasant hour spent in his company where he showed us his ipad, we talked about music, about things not to do with music, he mentioned his neice, he showed me a photo, said she lives in London and we should almost certainly meet up. Naturally I said that would be lovely, not really thinking he would take it any further (although she was stunning so I wouldn't say no) but he then brought out his camera, took a photo and said he would send it to his neice. Oh my. I must admit, while I appreciated the sentiment, I do feel awkward in such situations. She hasn't ASKED to be introduced to me, I'm sure she already has plenty of friends in London and she'll be thinking "what on earth could this man want to do with me?" Especially as last night I checked my email to find Stephan had CCd the email to me, with the photo, where I look an absolute wreck. I do indeed look like I have been up for days. Still, she'll hopefully just think "well, that's just like my uncle to do something like that.."
It was now early afternoon, we bid farewell to Stephan and walked down to the harbour. Getting on a boat, we went upriver to Lucas's parents' house. They were away, but oh my what a house. An old mariner's place on the riverbank, it was extremely picturesque and we had some food before walking further along the river to a park where his friends had situated themselves. Lovely lovely people, they'd set themselves up with some speakers and turntables and were basically DJing for an outdoor party in the late afternoon as the sun went down. There weren't many of us there, it was more a test run to see if the equipment would work if they had a larger scale event the next day, but it was a very pleasant affair, and they were all very interested to hear what I was up to and how I found Germany.
Some beers later we went back home to change before meeting up with some more people in the evening - namely Sammy and Emily. Sammy was a very spritely girl from New Zealand, who would have been couchsurfing with Lucas had I not gotten in there first, and I think it was a similar story with Emily who was really really sweet, she was from switzerland and was travelling Germany before beginning her studies. However, lack of sleep had now caught up with me and I just had to excuse myself and go to bed before I fell asleep in the bar. I was back home at 2300 and slept for 11 hours which was just what I needed. Shame I couldn't stay out, it sounded like a great night they had - Lucas got back at about 6am having stayed out all night and then gone to the fischmarkt for breakfast. Gentleman that he is, he got up at 10 when I woke and took me around Hamburg again, showing me to the harbour and all the old customs houses, 
as well as the new development they're doing, which is on a massive scale, was pretty impressive. All the time I couldn't help thinking it'd be a good place for a Tall Ships Race once it's finished :)Met up with Emily again, outside the rather impressive Rathaus.
Having bought ourselves icecream, we made our way over to Brahmsplatz, via the opera house where I saw Lohengrin was on that very evening, starting at 5. The time was 2 and the box office was shut, so we carried on and visited this place which is full of squatters, all of whom are artists. Some companies and the council wanted to redevelop the area and these artists said absolutely not and now they populate the buildings, spending their days making art, having time to themselves and leaving the doors ajar for people to wander in and look at their work. It felt really bohemian, I loved it! And most of the art was really clever actually - one or two were less so, but a lot of them obviously took a lot of lateral thinking to come up with :)We went back home so I could change, and Lucas would stay there so he could catch up on sleep. Donning my navy jacket and cream chinos I strode out into Hamburg once more, ignoring all the local laws about jaywalking which I knew nothing of. Good thing I didn't get caught, I discovered yesterday one can be fined up to €60 for it... Utterly illogical though, it only applied when crossing at traffic lights, anywhere else on the road is fine, and what's more is that it works like Vietnam, when the man turns green, the traffic can still flow across your path if it's turning right. Still, I found a bus and in my best German said "Oper, bitte" which wasn't understood so I wrote it down and he nodded in assent. When I tried to pay him he just gestured me to sit down and not worry about it. After ten minutes we were just around the corner from the place and he told me where to go and sent me on my merry way to the box office. They were very helpful, and tried their best to find an English programme or libretto but unfortunately had none. Had I thought ahead, I would have printed one out beforehand, but it was all a bit rushed when it came to leaving the house. Anyway, I bought my ticket for a seat in one of the boxes, third in from stage right. What a brilliant choice that seat was, I found myself with a completely unrestricted view of the stage, and of the surtitles, unhelpfully still in German! A lady came and sat next to me and started chatting away in German. I apologised profusely, stating I couldn't speak German and "sprechen sie Englisch?" As it happened, her English was amazing on account of having lived in London for a few years. We chatted endlessly about music, she asked me if this was my first opera, I said it was my first Wagner, she asked what I was doing in Germany and it was all lovely. The lights were about to go down and the woman infront of me asked (in German) if my view was ok and to just tell her if she blocked it at all during the performance. Seeing the lost expression on my face she repeated it in English and it was rather touching that she should actually care - uncommon for most audiences I have been part of.
The orchestra started playing, and thus began four hours of absolutely wonderful Wagnerian goodness. Trying my utmost to make sense of the plot, this is what I ascertained - man and woman want to marry. Other man and woman don't want them to marry. Other man and woman suppressed during wedding. First man and woman regret marriage later that evening. Man kills other man. Everyone celebrates. Woman chastised a bit. Other woman sort of forgotten about. Man goes away somewhere. Thus endeth the opera. What I'll do is look up the libretto when I actually find an internet connection, see how close I was! I kept staring at the surtitles, thinking the longer I gazed at them, the more likely it would be that I'd suddenly understand what was being said. That sadly was not the case, although I did pick up odds and ends from when I'd been studying German lieder, some words had stuck in my head! What's more is that in the final act - of course my suspicions of this being "that" Wagner opera were confirmed when they broke into Here Comes The Bride, but the climax for me was when the offstage trumpets chose where I was sitting to play. There was one to a box, and I was at the edge of my box so two metres infront and to the right of me was one trumpeter, with another just two metres behind and to the left!! It was absolutely enthralling, it felt fantastic! I strode back home, buzzing with sheer elation that this trip is one of my best ideas in a long while :)
I was introduced to Lucas's friend Tom on my return, a really nice guy who joined us as we went out for drinks in some of the lesser known (and cheaper) places. 3am rolled around and we thought we should probably be responsible and go to bed owing to a relatively early start the next morning to get my train bound for Keil. After he'd cooked me some scrambled eggs in the morning, I just just made it in time. I sat down with plenty of space all around me and feeling a little guilty I hadn't listened to enough Brahms whilst in Hamburg, my journey was filled with Ein Deutsche Requiem. Sublime, and fitting given the horrible weather that took me by surprise after two beautiful days over the weekend.
Arrival in Kiel saw me reunited with my good friend Ollie, who's studying there this year. We had a brilliant and long chat about all that's been going on, we walked through Kiel (where both Woolworths and C&A still survive!) and along the waterfront, where I spotted our rivals from last year's race - Peter von Danzig!!! No-one was on board though, so we continued until we found this cafe by the name of Louf. Ollie treated me to a beer and a waffle, which I had with cinnamon and sugar and it was loooooooovely!!! Also tried some of the cherries that came with Ollie's waffle, thinking it all looked very Germanic and lovely, and indeed it was! Wandering back, we collected my bag from the Hbf and found a bus to take us to Ollie's flat, attempting my best German to ask for a ticket there. Dumped things, checked email very quickly, then I collapsed for a nap while Ollie did some French work. And hour or two later and we were having supper with his friend Marcus and later on, drinks with them and their friend Laura. Earlyish night and we went home and straight to bed. Awoke thismorning for my train journey to Lund - all six hours and thirty nine minutes of it - where I am now. Seat 67 on the ICE enjoying what rural sights Denmark has to offer me. As we left Kiel we were surrounded by lovely countryside and the sun came out, inspiring me to listen to a little more Brahms, opting for his 1st piano concerto owing to it's lovely organic sounding introduction. Certainly fitted with the rolling fields spreading from the tracks. But alas, this is as far as we have come! I am coming up to a change, so should get the laptop put away and I will upload this along with photos a bit later.
Much love!
Freds xxx
Quick update - going through photos as we go from Copenhagen to Lund. Don't have any Swedish composers on my ipod so I'm listening to Grieg first, then Sibelius. Being geographically either side of Sweden, surely it balances out.....? Although the Grieg is being played by Lief Ove Andsnes who I think might just be Swedish.. We'll see.
And another edit - been having a lovely time with Loz in Lund - a very pretty town, but I shall write about that when whiling away the hours on the night train to Berlin!
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