Weird Weekend Without Happy End: Eggebek, Flensburg, Denmark, and Bremen
Jens Meiert, February 18, 2007 / March 25, 2008.
This entry is filed under Uncategorized.
To add some transparency for my valued readers: That was my “sub-optimal” weekend so far, and in short.
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Having taken a day off on Friday, I spontaneously decided to take my car and visit a region where I lived about 16, 17 years ago: Schleswig-Holstein, Northern Germany. First station was supposed to be Eggebek, a village with about five residents. At least this was my impression when I arrived there after driving about four hours and simply traveled through that very village. (Right, it’s so small that I actually passed the second place-name sign after ten seconds or so, and I needed to turn around.)
It already became dark when I arrived, and that probably added up to the strange atmosphere. I took a walk to indulge in reminiscences anyway, noticed how nothing appeared to have changed since I was a little boy (except that the village seemed to be even smaller now), and felt happy not to live there anymore. It was quite “psycho”. Okay, next.
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Only a few kilometers to the north or north-east of Eggebek is Flensburg, a really beautiful city with about 80,000-90,000 citizens. There I checked in into a hotel and took another walk in order to relax and to reflect. Flensburg’s midtown is really nice, but it was weird there as well - there were very few people on the move being 20 years old or older (from 9 PM on or so). This is weird, isn’t it, or are these just impressions of a guy not becoming younger anyway? But in comparison, I feel confirmed: It’s my experience from Hamburg, Munich, and of course Berlin that also (or especially) “more mature” people enjoy the nightlife of their respective cities.
However, I was tired and went to bed quite early.
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I went up early on Saturday, had a terrible breakfast in the hotel, and checked out accordingly. New mission: Refresh Denmark impressions, and buy some Danish stuff. Well, Denmark is always cool, I enjoy that country.
So it was just nice to drive around, but it became difficult anyway to find a supermarket close to the border. At first, I tried to find one in Krusa, the one where we always bought things still a few years ago. I didn’t find it, I asked for help, but Krusa seemed not to have a supermarket anymore. I found the former store nonetheless, though by accident.
Figure: Run-down Rita supermarket in Krusa.
To accomplish my task, I continued driving through Denmark and finally ended up in Padborg. There I could buy all the stuff I urgently needed: Danish hot dog sausages, Danish butter, and Danish licorice. Must-have. – Readers from Denmark, please ignore my tourist behavior
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Finally, derby time! Werder Bremen vs. Hamburger SV. In case you didn’t know: That’s always the match for both Bremen and Hamburg, and this season, it’s especially attractive – while Bremen aims for the German championship, Hamburg needs to avoid the relegation. Fine, so I just drove from Padborg to Bremen, that’s about 250-300 kilometers, managed to buy a ticket (the match’s usually sold out quite early, and the ticket wasn’t cheap anyway), met some people I knew and entered the arena.
Unfortunately, the misadventure started now. The match began promisingly, not only due to the fans and their great choreography, but rather due to Bremen’s offensive that brought some good scoring chances. Alas, Hamburg scored the first goal by Rafael van der Vaart (penalty resulting from a foul). Since wins against Hamburg are twice as nice, losses are twice as sick so I won’t continue to describe the match … Right, Bremen did not win. Uh, I’m starting to feel angry again. I tend to find almost every club more likeable than this mismanaged club from Hamburg.
Figure: “Let’s start with the last derby.”
So, that was the first time I left any stadium before the final whistle, and made my way back to my car that I managed to park quite closely at the Weserstadion. Surprise. I opened the driver’s door and wondered about the CD etui on my seat. Where was that from? Next I noticed the empty centre console – MP3 CD radio gone. Moving around the car, I faced the broken lock on the passenger door. WTH, who is that bold and steals a radio worth 100 Euros, almost in front of 500 cops!?
That was it. Definitely having had better days, I dropped my plans to visit my adoptive home, Friesland, in the evening, and deciced to return to Berlin immediately. On my way back, I stopped at a police station at the motorway (since a policeman in Bremen told me that I could make a complaint at any police station), had an interesting dialog for one to two hours (including a breath test, “just to make sure” – I felt even better then), and paved the road for the talk with my insurer. Great.
At 11 PM, I returned home.
The best is, now is Sunday, so the weekend’s not over yet – probably my car gets even stolen now, since the lock’s already broken. (Nope, I’m no pessimist, so that won’t happen.)
One final note to you drivers out there: Use the right trail! Whenever I drive around Germany, people are so dumb and use the left or middle trail though the right one’s free. (Remember you’re required to drive at the right side?) Not only is this dumb and arrogant since these people block two trails, it is really dangerous. And these people are also the ones that complain about “racers” – incredible. Do us all a favor and use the right trail whenever possible. Please. Otherwise, I’ll pull you out of your car when possible. I don’t want to die just because you are too dumb to drive on a motorway. That must have been said, thank you.
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