Reisen Hamburg 2006 part 2: the Sightseeing Experience

Current book read: Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince - music in ear: Debbie Gibson - expected TV program: die Sturmflut; RTL, heute und morgen, 20:15

A continuation of this post.

Reisen Hamburg is a big exhibition. By big I mean BIG. Huge. Humongous. Tiring. Exhausting. You know to visit all the things to see in there. There are like 12 halls to visit, you know. And 1 hall has like 121 things to see.

Structurally, the organizers categorize the stands based on geographical locations that the travel bureaus offer. For example, those who offer travel to Asia, were grouped in hall 12. To norhtern Europe in hall 7. And so on.

My favorite is actually hall 8. This is a more like "leave your kids here with us and go book your summer holiday in hall 12 with your hubby" hall. The hall was divided into two big sections, with one section for on earth activities like face paintings, and on the other section there is this seriously built-in jungle gymmy slash outdoorsy activities event.

You know, I wished I had aged twenty something years younger, and can get it to the jumping castle. Those thing hadn't been found as I was a kid, you know.

Me and my companion's favorite place is actually where they showed caravans and mobile homes. Those things are actually one of the coolest thing on earth! It is so funny, because people who usually visited these halls are the older people who is ready to spend their retirement hours travelling around. Remember About Schmidt?

But we were like, "This one is cool.." or "That one is so bulky.." or "Great product. Functional and goes with you." Just like looking for a pair of jeans. The best thing about it was that the salespeople knew that we were there simply for looking around. Nobody offered us their products, and we didn't have to stutter to reject them politely in german. "Tut mir leid. Aber... ummm.. aber.. ummm. Nein, danke. Umm.."

There were also some things that I personally like to see. Like a stand which sold jacuzzi with two very lazy salesperson that what they did all day was lingering on the lounge chair. But to be fair, who wouldn't, when there were two lounge chairs around unused?

And when one got bored and tired of bummeln (this is a german word that I can translate to indonesian, but not to english. it's ngeceng), you could always sit down in front of the stage and pretend that you were in Woodstock. Well, that may be quite a big fat stretch.

Two of the most memorable performances are the flamenco group, because it's just so beautiful and strong, and the swimsuit fashion show because it was shown four times a day for four days. The songs for the show, kept ringing in my ears for 2 days after. We all wondered how they kept the suits wearable after they did all those movement for four days. By wearable, I mean worn without nose plug. Hmm..?

Flamenco is such a very difficult dance. First the guitar playing is tremendously difficult. And then all the hits and kicks are like, "Whoa!". And then I don't know why, but they never lost their rhythm eventhough it was done not-so rhythmically. Whoa! Hello, who invited difficult to dance along?

The fashion show was hysterical. Instead of models coming out on and off the runway, they needed to fill the 30 minutes they were alotted to, so that they did a choreography for a whole song while the models are wearing the same line. There are five songs for four lines. The funny thing is that the choreography wasn't created based on things people would do in swimming suits.

You know, they should have choreographed it with lots of breast strokes, butterfly strokes, freestyle, opening mouth and closing it quickly to catch breath, diving from 3-meter board, opening and closing only legs in the air while busy moving hands underwater to keep yourself floating, instead of dancing around! You know the things people do in swimsuits.

Other worthy to remember moment is when a friend of mine dared herself to go on stage to win some prize from one of the sponsors: Oldie 95. It's a radio station which surprisingly has young casters. My friend (who listens to it everyday in his bathroom and in his patrol car) pointed this as a big surprise. "That young?" he said as I showed the pics. She won two tickets to Hamburg Dungeon by the way.

All and all, this kinda experience that kept me working with my group eventhough they sometimes bummed me here and there. It's like:

lunch: 5 EUR
buying new stuff to amuse self after being bummed: 20 EUR
experience gathered: Priceless

Ah well, you can't win 'em all, can yeh?

To close the end of the week post, here's for a giggle, so that our new week will be full of them. Hihihihihihihihihihihihi...