alphamale

vivelamorte, a site like that was my first introduction to N. Germany.

Had just arrived in Hamburg, the very cold port city wayyyyyyyy up north and the best place to buy tea that I've ever seen outside of Shanghai. It was a Sunday evening 6pm-ish and I'd been traveling ~ 26 hours.

Stayed here:

http://hamburg.park.hyatt.com/hamph/photo_01.html

Walked several streets up from where you see in that pic to the local Nordsee, a seafood chain much less expensive then hotel food and I absolutely HAD to walk after traveling that long.

Saw homeless people sleeping in the steps of the stores you see in the pic. Walked more to the right between hotel and Nordsee. Realized it was odd that on a Sunday evening at 6:30, that street was deserted except for a couple people, me, and the homeless people sleeping in the cold.

In the Nordsee I seated facing the door with the table in front of me and my tray on the table. I had my left arm through the shoulder strap on my purse. I was scratching some notes into my Palm Pilot with my fingernail. A ~22 year old female walks directly to me, sits across from me and starts saying something to me in German. I toss my Palm onto the bench next to me, I notice: hair needs washing + clothes are dirty + emotional = street person.

My first impulse was to stand up and get away, but my second thought, which I did, was to grab onto the (moveable) table palms down with both hands, so that if she made any move towards me, I would toss over the table onto her.

What happened? She kept speaking agitated German, and after about 5 seconds I said, “Nein, speak English!”
She grabbed a sourdough roll on my tray and ran away out of the restaurant.

If I had known she just wanted food I would have given her food.

I waited till I saw a guy walking back towards my hotel and followed him back. By that time (7pm-ish) it was only me, the guy I was following most of the way, and the homeless people looking for food on that beautiful no-car shopping street in Hamburg.

FrontSight