My big wish for the day came through: It is getting warmer and sunnier again! The wind finally died down and we no longer had to contend with “felt like” temperatures in the unpleasant lower 50s under gray skies. Instead, I woke up before 6 to some blue sky, and by the afternoon it was sunny and we had a high of 67 F (19 C) that felt very pleasant!
I took advantage of the improved weather situation by going for a run first thing in the morning; then we sat and chatted for a bit and Mark and I went for another walk through the nearby Eichtalpark and enjoyed the flora and the fauna (various water birds and some very happy turtles).
Then I made pasta and salad for everyone while Andrea and Peter ran through some of the logistics questions that had to do with Andrea’s interview later today (for a job making and selling orthopedic insoles). Then it was time to divide and conquer: I left about 1 pm to meet my former professor and masters’ thesis supervisor at Hamburg University, Peter Hühn, with whom I have a coffee every summer. We had a wonderful and wide-ranging conversation (at a table outdoors, finally an option again!) at a café by the Klosterstern, which is a cute little park (and U-Bahn station) not far from Hamburg’s campus. Although Peter is an emeritus in his 80s, he is still giving lectures, for the university’s program for senior citizens. We talked at length about his lectures on the literary and visual representation of melancholy, but also about Germany’s past and present, the state of universities both here and in the States, his hiking vacations. A life-long hiker, even now, his multiple-day hikes clock in at about 20 miles a day, and his favorite way of doing them is to stay at youth hostels. I also learned for the first time that he started out studying Japanese as well as English literature and culture. It’s always a blast to talk to him (though I always talk too much), so the two and a half hours at the café just flew by.
Then I hopped into the U-Bahn, managed to go into the wrong direction for a couple of stations (rookie mistake! how embarrassing!) and then made my way home within minutes of Mark and Peter arriving at the bus station from the other direction! They had gone to see a 1976 Russian submarine that has been on display in the Altona harbor since about 2002, and had a great old time checking it out. They even got a guided tour (in German, but Mark’s Airpod Pros with the live translate option worked fairly well–long live the real-deal Babel Fish!) and for an extra Euro, were allowed to take photos. Thusly, the day’s photos from here on are all of things I didn’t get to see.
In the meantime, Andrea had gone to her interview and came back with lots of details and stories (she will go back for a trial day in early July, so this was a great start), which we listened to while we had “German Abendbrot” (the evening meal that is obviously just called “Abendbrot” in Germany, but which Andrea and Peter have begun to call “German Abendbrot” for a joke because that’s what I say in my blog). We also started some laundry and a first pass at packing for our departure for Vienna tomorrow night, because we still have some things going on tomorrow during the day and we don’t want to be rushed. Peter also made sure we were properly prepared by playing two fabulously terrible early-1980s Vienna-themed music videos (OMD’s “Vienna” and Falco’s “Vienna Calling”). For balance, I asked for the trailer and theme music for “The Third Man.” After that, an early bedtime for Mark and me.