At last I’m off, it’s been a very long wait. I boarded the flight, headed for Hamburg, just a little bit nervous, but very excited. Fourteen hours later I had a few hours to kill at Dubai airport. Speaking of arriving in Dubai, we taxied for ever and seemed to park in the furthest spot possible.
No air bridge for us, down the stairs and on the bus for a 10 minute ride to the terminal. I’d promised to get Julie from work some perfume. Dubai seemed like as good as a place as any. I did a couple of loops of the shops to get a feel for the place then dived in. Very well traveled perfume by the time I delivered it! Thankfully they also have free Wi-Fi. On to the second, much shorter leg of the trip to Hamburg. The crew on both flights decided that they were ‘night’ flights. Despite being able to see daylight outside for the bulk of the flight.
I arrived in Hamburg at 2pm on the 12th April. Got through immigration quickly, handy having a Euro passport! He looked at the passport, then at me, said ‘ok’ and I was done. Then waited and waited for my bag to show up. I think it was the second last bag to appear. I jumped in a cab and did a double take. Damn steering wheel is on the wrong side! Now I’d been assured that ‘everyone’ in Germany spoke English. Except my taxi driver. But he still spoke more English than I spoke German. 10 words vs 5. Lucky I’d written down the hotel name and address in German. It was a quick 25 euro trip to the hotel.
After checking in and looking longingly at the bed I decided it was probably better to go for a walk. If I lay down I’d be asleep in seconds. Way too early for that.
I walked a few km loop to get a vague feel for where I was. Turns out I’m just around the corner from the notorious Reeperbahn area. The walk didn’t really help, I think I was too tired to take it in, oh and it was wet and quite cool. I headed back towards the hotel and found a restaurant nearby for dinner. A quick steak and a beer and I was ready for bed.