wilkommen in Hamburg

So, for a little pre-birthday treat I decided to take my mum with me on my stopover in Hamburg.  Of course, she was seated in Club both ways the glamour puss she is!  On arrival the weather was rather grim, and unfortunately Germany don't go all out for Christmas til late November so no Christmas Market :( (probably because they still retain a sense of spirituality and reverence for the holiday, as opposed to the commercialised, advent-calendars-in-September thing we have going on in the UK - I blame the Americans!).

Nevertheless the walk into town around the Aussenalster lake was a beautiful, technicolour Autumn scene...

...and the beauty of German architecture made up for the grey clouds.  Of course as all ladies must do, we shopped, and we lunched!  She bought me a gorgeous navy duck-down coat...and liked it so much she had to have one too...

Lunch was at this darling little bistro, where we drank gluhwein with amaretto (amazingly delicious)

and had a sort of plastic version of Paul O'Grady as a waiter, perhaps his German twin.  He understood no English, but luckily 'doppelganger' is one of our borrowed words, so after Googling Paul O'Grady on his smartphone and guffawing a loud German guffaw he agreed to a photo with us.  The result was truly terrifying.

On reflection, zipping through the photos on the way home I realise it looks like we're at the coffee shop at Madame Tussauds.  But he was a lovely gentleman and made us promise we'd return!

The rest of the day was spent giggling at German words that sound naughty, like 'Kunterbunt' (coloured), 'Ausfahrt' (exit) and 'Striggings' which technically isn't a German word but seems to be what they call legwarmers.

'Let me get me striggin's on Pat!'

Plus their fashion offerings were somewhat dubious:

Thigh high welly boots. Germans definitely know the meaning of CHIC and SEXY.

So a day that was supposed to be a day of European culture descended into puerile humour but hey, we had FUN.  We did walk around the gorgeously lit harbour as night drew in, and appreciated the architecutre before returning to our hotel room for a evening of room service and girly films!