I Will Gladly Pay You Tuesday For a Hamburg Today

Evening in Hamburg

Good-bye Czech Republic. Hello Germany.

Long train ride from Karlovy Vary to Hamburg, Germany, my final destination this trip. The trip involved a change of trains (from slooooooooow speed to higher speed) in the Czech city of Usti nad Labem, on the banks of the mighty Elbe. Soon enough I am in Hamburg.

This is the Dammtor train station. It's not even the main train station in which I arrived, the Hamburg Hauptbahnhof. It's just an S-bahn station, or suburban light rail.

The hotel is near a large city park near Stephanplatz.

That hunk of concrete looks vaguely militaristic, but what do I know?

Lots of greenery. They must get more rain here.

The Beatles once walked on this path when they played Hamburg before hitting it big.

Actually, I have no clue about anything Beatles and Hamburg. It's just that Hamburg is not filled with many tourist sights so Beatles-themed tours are a "thing" here.

Oh, and I had a mint sundae for dessert.

It looked better than it tasted. Surprisingly mediocre ice cream. Now, it's back to the hotel.

To watch the Eurovision final! Because I'm in Europe and this seems like a pan-European thing to do.

As an aside, there actually was one really good performance that I saw in the finals. And, no, it was not the over-the-hill, worn-out spent force that was once Madonna. It wasn't even one of the songs that I liked reviewing the entries before the tournament. But this singer's performance in the finals was amazing: powerhouse vocals, charismatically and confidently delivered: Chingiz, performing the song "Truth". From Azerbaijan. Finished only seventh. My favorite among the studio recordings? "Say Na Na Na," from Serhat.  Disco music courtesy of San Marino.