Honey on the pavement

Hamburg is the place where I was born and the place I have always returned to. It is also the place where my parents met. The place without which I wouldn’t exist. My paternal grandparents came from Breslau, they met again in Hamburg after the war and after fleeing. My mother came from the Emsland, her mother had fled there from Magdeburg. Now her daughter returned to the Elbe for her education. There aren’t many Catholics in Hamburg, and if you ask them, they are all immigrants in one way or another. I grew up in Bergedorf. Is that really part of Hamburg? ‘I’m going into the city’ means travelling to the Sachsentor or the CCB. If you drive to the Alster, Mönckebergstraße or even further, then you are driving ‘into the city centre’. But the suburbanites insist, they arefrom Hamburg. I went abroad immediately after my high school graduation . I went to Paris, then I volunteered in the social sector for a year , then I completed an apprenticeship in Oldenburg. Travelling. Sailing. And afterwards? Back to Hamburg. Home is the place you always come back to. No matter how beautiful it is somewhere else. I never found a place like Hamburg when I was travelling. 10 years later, I packed my bags again. USA. Chaising the one true love. There are beautiful, large cities there. I like Philly. Why? It has similarities with Hamburg. There’s a lot of space there, nature, wilderness, vastness. Sea and rivers, lots of room to sail. No room for me. Homesickness followed me everywhere. When my beloved moved on to Italy after a year, the decision was clear: I would rather have a long-distance relationship than a life without Hamburg. So, I went back home. This time to the ‘real’ Hamburg, not the suburbs. A new world, but still the same city. Only better. Buy a small boat, go sailing. Get everywhere by bike. Enjoy being at home. My friends, scattered across Germany and the world, also have their anchor point here. Some, like me, have returned at some point. The others come to visit. Even when you leave Hamburg, the city never leaves you. Nowhere else is the sky a more beautiful grey, nowhere else does it drizzle so cheerfully, nowhere else do so many lime trees bloom that you slip on their honey on the pavement. Nowhere else are there places where ‘storm surge’ automatically means ‘no parking’. Nowhere else are there more bridges. Nowhere else is help offered to helpless-looking tourists just like that. Nowhere else is understatement a philosophy of life. “Büschn Wind”(a bit windy), “dafür nich”(no problem), “läuft” (it’s going). What I missed above all, wherever I was, was not just the city, the Elbe and the Alster, but above all the people of Hamburg. Nowhere else can people put a smile on someone’s face with just two words. I love travelling. I have seen beautiful places. I could move to a place where others go on holiday. To a place with palm trees and a turquoise sea. But I know I would only wish I was back in Hamburg.