Borkum, German Customs Ship

This past weekend I was Nautical Adam – I popped up to Hamburg to see Mr. Letters Home and his family. Completely by chance, it happened to be the Hafengeburstag weekend.

That is, it was the harbor’s birthday – and I’m not really sure why, because it seems pretty young to me, but the locals were celebrating it’s 823rd birthday.

All kidding aside, it was one heck of a party, and I enjoyed myself, which is saying something because I’m not really a boat person. Friday we watched a few ships sail up and down the Elbe, before grabbing amazing Chinese food.

Saturday we were allowed to go onboard ships, and we hit up two, the мир, a Russian sailing ship, and the Borkum, a German Customs Protection hydrofoil (at least I think that’s what it was). Saturday evening we enjoyed the very best fireworks I have ever seen in my life.

Bow of the мир

Hello, мир Sailor!

Sunday we took a ferry up the Elbe watching people, before landing back at the Reeperbahn, where we had a late lunch (or, in my case, an early dinner) before I headed to the train station and to Berlin.

Moorwerder

I took a ton of pictures – a few highlights are here and a Flickr Set – but I didn’t get any of the fireworks. I’d left my camera at home fearing the large crowds and the lack of a tripod, which I think was a good decision. I’d only want to take pictures if I could protect myself, and my camera, from the large number of drunk (and semi drunk) people celebrating 823 years of harboring ships.

San Francisco Bridge - A Container Ship that happened to pass through!

The mighty Troll

With a name like "Classic Queen", you'd think that I would hop right onboard - but the captain (in the photo) was smoking a cigarette and looked like he was more fit to captain the minnow for a three hour cruise than pilot a boat safely up and down the river for an hour.

]]> http://www.elmada.com/?feed=rss2&p=8578 3 http://www.elmada.com/?p=8576 http://www.elmada.com/?p=8576#comments Mon, 14 May 2012 17:32:59 +0000 Adam http://www.elmada.com/?p=8576 Some how I missed the fact that I converted elmada.com to the blog format 8 years ago Sunday – so I’m celebrating it this evening.

Weeee!

I had three posts that first Thursday…

And just in the nick of time – it started raining around 6:30, just as I headed home.

Beyond that I recently read Ken Follett’s The Pillars of the Earth, which is, apparently, a famous best seller – but, as far as I am concerned, it could be shortened by about 20% and made more interesting. Further, every jerk in the book likes rough sex and is ugly, while all the good characters are cute and have loving, tender, sweet sex.

Right now I’m reading World without End – the sequel. Right now, I’ve read 150 pages of it and I still have no idea what it’s about. At 1200 pages, I’m willing to bet that it too could be reduced by 20% and made far more interesting – and better paced.

Not yet sure what I will do, but I imagine it will involve sand.

No comments will be accepted for this post.

ECB's info on this special coin.

I have to say that I cannot help but wonder if this is, indeed, the moment to be celebrating the Euro.

That said, I do believe this might be the first (and only) time that something in Frankfurt has ever been celebrated on a coin: if I’m not mistaken, that structure just to the left of 2002 (and consequently a wee-bit upside down) is the European Central Bank building in Frankfurt. I can only tell because there appears to be a gigantic € statue in front of the building, just like the one in Frankfurt.

More: ECB: €2 Commemorative Coins

First, should I ever blog about something that I’ve received for free or for a discounted price because I am a blogger, I will disclose that fact clearly and prominently. In fact, I probably have mentioned one or two things along the way that I have received for free, and every single time, I’ve made clear that it was a gift that I was reviewing.

Secondly, I do not delete legitimate comments made to my board, except under some very specific circumstances – and regretting calling me an asshole isn’t one of those circumstances. So far this calendar year, I’ve deleted exactly one legitimate comment made – but only because the poster hit submit too quickly and ended up making two comments in a row that were essentially the same. And when I deleted it, I left a comment to the effect that I’d made a special circumstance deletion.

Thirdly, I don’t let commercial comments get posted. There’s some asshole who occasionally leaves comments that attempt to be on-topic (but aren’t), but link themselves to “Expatriate Tax Services” or some bullshit like that. Those comments are not legitimate (nor are penis enlargement comments) and are rejected.

Fourthly, I do not, currently, accept advertising for my blog. I pay for my hosting out of my own pocket. I also pay for my own Flickr account out of my own pocket. Personally I abhor commercial crap – I will (and do) pay more for products that are free from commercial advertising – and I will not inflict it on my readers at this time. (That said, I could imagine in the far distant future that maybe I might consider placing Google ad words on my blog. But I can afford hosting and my annual Flickr fees, so I don’t actually see the point of allowing advertising on my blog.)

I do not begrudge those that are trying to monetize their own blogs and their own lives – people are entitled to do so. However I rarely allow commercial businesses into my personal life, and when a so-called friend starts having excessive numbers of commercial posts in their blogs or Twitter, I am quite likely to stop following their blogs or their Twitter.

There’s a fine line here – I try my best to error on the side of ethical behavior, and on the side of having to cough-up money out of my own pocket, rather than rely on commercial interests to fund my hobby.

Since Tuesday was a day off, a friend came over for dinner and we watched Pretty Woman – a movie that I’d never watched before.

Amusingly, I decided that I wanted to be a sophisticated host, and two hours before my friend arrived, I stuck a bottle of wine in the fridge to chill – I’d thought there was something odd about the bottle, but I gave it no mind – and when I took it out, I discovered it was a bottle of red wine: I don’t buy red wine because I often get headaches after drinking it, so I was immensely puzzled as to how this bottle had ended up in my small wine cellar (which consists of a maximum of 9 bottles).

I slept in Tuesday – until 8, then had a very lazy morning, including switching out my winter wardrobe for my summer wardrobe. Hopefully I haven’t jumped the gun too early with this maneuver: temperatures are going to drop this coming weekend.

However Tuesday was quite warm and I ended up coating myself in sunscreen before heading over to a nearby park to read a backlog of American Rolling Stone magazines that had just caught up with me here in Germany.

Seriously, a better day could not have been had, except for the fact that after I finished reading the magazines, I came home and took a nap!

Hot diggity dog!

Really – it couldn’t have been any better, except that it did get better: my fellow expat bloggers in Germany voted to have the Berlin WEBMU 2012 on the weekend when I will be 14,095 days old – which for reasons I will not go into here, is actually a very important day!

Sweeeeeet!

In the evening I found myself at the gallery opening for wenn ich renne, rennt auch die welt mit, a gallery exhibition by Bauhaus-Universität Weimar students, curated by one of my friends in Weimar.

As it was opening evening, things were still not ready when she took a break for dinner with me, so we ate early and I had a chance to see the gallery before the grand opening. Lots of cool things on display – a few of which are below.

Expect notes from the road…

But clearly, all of these events are competing to be the second best event in Berlin this year because the best is, hands down, no questions asked: WEBMU 2012.

Yes, the Whiney Expatriate Blogger Meet Up is going to be in Berlin this fall – with the only remaining question being, “When?”

If you’re an English language blogger, based in Germany, I’d like to invite you to pop on over to the WEBMU 2012 Planning Forum to vote on a date.

Right now two weekends in September are tied for first place… maybe weekends in October will make a come-from-behind dash and win first place?