In Sydney, you go to King's Cross. In Dublin, you go to Temple Bar. In Amsterdam, you go to the Red Light District. In Hamburg, you go to the Reeperbahn. Anyone who has gone to Hamburg has probably found themselves at the Reeperbahn. Here you find streets full of bars, clubs, sex shops, prostitutes and it has it's own Red Light District of it's own. This is my story:
For a couple weeks, Sonja had news that she'd been invited to a Hen's night, a party for a girl she didn't even really know. She was invited because this girl doesn't have many friends in Hamburg, so Sonja decided to go and make the most of it to give this girl her special night. I was left at home to chill out with Gina and Rainer. Rainer had perhaps the biggest music collection I've seen, and what was in display wasn't even all of it. When it was just at home, we would often sit on the couch and he would play me music from all over the world, all of it brilliant. He even introduced me to a Tom Waits song called "Reeperbahn', who'd have thought? So this particular evening, we were going back and forth with each other, as Gina would have to ask me something through Rainer, and Rainer would translate it to me, and I give my answer to Rainer (Sometimes I would have to spend a little while explaining) and then he would have to translate it back to Gina. I'll be honest, it was draining if we carried on too long like this, I can't imagine how Sonja or Rainer felt when I would do it to them every day.
After just getting comfortable, having sunk a few Holsten's (Top 5 beers of my life), we got a call from Sonja. She was telling me that the groom also happened to be having his Stag's night, and we knew absoultely no-one as he was from Canada. Great I thought! English speaker! The chaps on his Stag night so far were just the boyfriends or other friends from the Hen's night. I was invited to his Stag's night to make things a bit better for him. Having never been to a Buck's party myself, going on a Canadian/German Stag's night on the Reeperbahn with complete stranger's sounded like a bloody good start to me. I got changed, Rainer gave me his phone and he dropped me off at the first pub of the night. A billiard's bar. On my arrival, the chaps had already had a couple beers and a couple games and were just about ready to get out of there.
It turns out the Canadian groom was living in Canada, but had originally come from Austria, where they speak German as their first language, so I was still the only one in the group who could speak no German, but I still felt comfortable enough, probably more comfortable than the groom himself unfortunately.
As I said, the boys were just about ready to leave, so after only one beer, we all jumped in someone car and made our way to the Reeperbahn. Our plan was to wait out in a bar, and we would get a call from one of the girls when the Hen's party were going to arrive, and the boys would run out into the street and give the bride-to-be a huge surprise. From that point, we would all go out as a massive pre-wedding party I guess. Before all this took place, we decided to have a gander at the Red Light District, no Buck's party would be complete without it on the Reeperbahn. This Red Light District is one long street rather than spread out over a large area like in Amsterdam. On each end of the street is a huge wall with posters and graffiti on it that basically tells girls to piss off. No girls are allowed on this street. Apparently, the girls in the windows would throw urine or other nasties on any female caught on the Red Light District. I'd love to remember the correct German name for this street, but alas, this street is usually only combined with drinking alcohol, so whatever brain cells were created to remember the name were probably killed in the same night. The girls in these windows reminded me a lot of the one's in Amsterdam...The one's who stand in there and tap on the window and encourage you to go and talk to them. It was only a brisk walk and we got out of there pretty quickly. Sure enough, there were red lights, windows and girls wearing not much at all. Fairly predictable and not so much of a shock to see any more.
The wall.
The real shock lies in the girls who work the streets. As soon as you catch the pattern, you can spot a prostitute a mile away...Enough time to veer your course. How they decided this would be the dress code...I will never know. The prostitutes that walk the streets of the Reeperbahn are easily identifyable by their ridiculous white joggers, plain jeans, bum-bag (or fanny-pack, however you like to call it) and a bright, puffy jumper, usually white, pink or purple. I think it looks awful, but that's just what they wear. Anything else and no-one would be interested in them. Walking alone around these girls can be dangerous...They see you, hold on to your arm and will talk with you for ages, through streets, bars and whatever, until you forcefully push them away and get angry. Safety in numbers - Or if you have another girl with you.
Anyway, after the Red Light District, we made our way to the bar where I met the other half of the group who I hadn't met yet. I couldn't understand half of their names and can't remember the other half but they introduced me to a thing called Mexicana. They seemed to be far more drunk than I, which improves their English like crazy.
Felix - "Heyyyyyy, you're Geeeeoffffffff, the ooooshtraaaalien...Have youuu drinked MexiCANA!??!?"
Geoff - "Naaaaaaah man, what is it?"
Felix - *walks away and speaks to bartender* "Haaaaallloooo!! DREI MEXICANAAAAAAAA!!"
Everyone - "Prooooosst!!"
And the rest is history.
That night I will never forget, the night I discovered the Mexicana. Of what I can remember, mexicana is vodka, tequila, tomato juice and the most important ingredient - Tabasco sauce. Whether it would take off in Australia, I do not know, but after freezing your ass off, a Mexicana burning up in your gullet is exactly what you need on a night out in Germany.
So eventually, the girls finally made it. Hen's nights (And I assume Stag nights) in Germany are a lot more different than in Australia. The organisation factor goes beyond ok for my liking. Although I've never been to a Hen's night in Oz, I assume it's usually just a theme, something to dress up as, and maybe a stripper, and then everyone gets blind rotten drunk. I can't remember all the finer details of this one, but there are all these crazy activities the Bride-to-be has to do. For example, while on the underground trains, she had to get a group of chaps to sing a couple songs with her...They went to a hospital for drunk people (Drunk people were taking up too much room in the regular hospital, so this was specially made) and she had to carry out a number of tasks, like find all this stuff...And fundraising. To make money for the Hen's night, so the bride wouldn't have to pay for any drinks, the girls bought a couple boxes of cheap, nasty shots and sold them for a euro or two to people walking past in the street. With each shot probably costing like 50 cents, they basically made a 100% profit. Then they cut up a massive peice of sheet into a game. The sheet had two holes, one hard and one easy. The idea was to get people to kick soccer balls and try to get the soccer balls into one of the holes, and if they got it in, they would win something awesome. I don't really know successful it was.
In the end, everyone met up successfully, but 75% of the group disappeared. The remaining 25%, myself included kind of felt a bit bummed about it all and after sending out some texts with no replies, we decided to call it a night.
Despite a let down at the end, I believe the whole night went pretty well, I made enemies, friends, discoveries and can now say I've been to the Reeperbahn. Believe me, this was definitely not my only time at the Reeperbahn, there are plenty more stories, but that will do for now.
Thanks :)
This isn't relevant, but this is Sonja with the result of a bull castration:
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