Hamburg, 30-31.5.2025: Birthday Parties and Alster Bells

I’m writing this on 1 June in W. and K.’s flat, as rain pelts down outside. It began suddenly a few moments ago shortly before noon, and is very welcome, since it will cool things down and also because Hamburg, like so much of Europe, had a very dry spring. 

Friday, the 30th, was a fairly uneventful day. The highlight of the day was lunch at a restaurant near W. and K.’s flat, Lupo, which is their go-to Italian restaurant. K. told me that during the Covid period when Hamburg had a lockdown, they made a concerted effort to help its business by going there several days a week to pick up food and bring it home. 

W. and K.’s daughter A. met us for lunch, and it was nice to see her after many years — at least twenty-five years. She has both of her parents’ easy way of smiling, with W.’s vivacity. Her hair was cut short in a fetching boyish style with the sides well-trimmed and curls on top. We talked about this and that as we ate, including a time when we went with W. and K. and their two daughters and their friends R. and C., also with two children, to Steve’s parents’ farm in northern Minnesota.

That must have been, we decided, in the middle 1990s. A. was a young teen at the time and says her memories of that time on Steve’s family farm are a bit hazy, but she remembers meeting and talking to some young teens around her age who were, she says — her word — “weird.”

They lived in a very strange cut-off world in which they seemed not to have learned much about any other world. As she talked about this, Steve realized she was speaking of his nephews and nieces, the children of his sister M., who home-schooled her eight children, did not allow them access to computers, and apparently did not succeed, if A.’s report is correct (and we think it is), in imparting to them the sense that the world is larger than their rural northwest Minnesota bubble.

A. said that these “weird” teens asked if her family had a radio, and wondered if Hitler was still in power in Germany. She found it so exasperating to answer their clueless questions about her family’s life in Germany that she finally told them, “We don’t live behind the moon,” a saying she repeated to Steve’s mother later — in German — that made Steve’s mother burst out in laughter. W. says Steve’s mother kept repeating this — Wir wohnen nicht hinter dem Mond — and laughing for days after that. 

So that was lunch and the highlight of Friday, and the rest of the day, we spent lounging about and gathering strength for the big birthday party the following day. 

The party (I’m now chronicling the 31st) was wonderful, relaxed, slow, with lots of talk and laughter and with a short speech by W. followed by a skit presented by T. and A. Then several people got up and spoke, J., who teaches theology at a faculty in Hamburg, who recited a 19th-century (I think) poem about the Alster, where our gathering was taking place; V., who is a Lutheran pastor and psychotherapist, whose German was slow and clear enough that we could understand almost every word, etc.

People made a point of coming up and talking to us. K.’s friend from her Frauengruppe, M., and her husband U. spent much time talking with us and were very interesting and nice folks. M. is Swedish, from a family that has hunted for generations, so she thinks it’s perfectly normal that her son has now moved to Wyoming where he hunts and provides hunting tours there and in other parts of the world for others who want to hunt. 

Another couple, J. and D., also sat and talked with us for quite some time. J. is the theology professor who gave the brief speech in which he recited a poem about the Alster. It was interesting hearing his perspective on Israel and Gaza and the role of Germany and the US in what’s taking place there. He is by no means a supporter of Israel insofar as it exercises heinous violence against the Palestinian people, and thinks any ultimate solution that will be effective has to involve the US and Germany stopping arms shipments to Israel. 

I liked D., who has a broad, open, smiling face and is a sociologist. It wasn’t clear to me if she teaches in that field or merely has a degree in it. As with everyone else who sat and talked to us, she’s intently concerned about what’s happening now in the US with Trump, and understands our feeling of dismay and helplessness.

Another couple who sat and talked with us, H. and M., had spent time in New Orleans, where M. did a degree at Tulane before returning to Germany to finish her graduate studies in American literature, and both really love New Orleans and would like to return there, if not to live, to spend more time there. 

V., the Lutheran pastor and psychotherapist, also sought us out and talked at length about the dangers she foresees for LGBTQ people under Trump. She warned us that things can turn very bad very quickly, and asked if we had considered leaving the US. We’d always have a welcome and support in Hamburg, she said. We told her that the idea of leaving is very attractive, but also difficult to consider because of our age. She was persistent, though, in encouraging us to consider it and in assuring us we’d have a welcome and support in Hamburg.

As I mentioned earlier, the party was on the Alster. It was at a restaurant called Bobby Reich right on the water. The party was arranged so that there were tables both inside and outside, and people, we included, moved from table to table, sitting sometimes inside and sometimes outside.

A buffet was set out inside, and we all sat to eat there with name cards telling us where to sit. K. had arranged things so that we sat at W. and K.’s family table, with T. and A. across from us and W.’s sister H. next to me. Next to T. was F., W.’s goddaughter. After cups of very tasty curried lentil soup were served, W. gave his speech and T. and A. presented their skit, and then the buffet was laid out: roast beef with horseradish sauce, shrimp in a very tasty garlic sauce, smoked salmon, some white fish like cod sautéed in butter, potatoes, a couscous dish, mixed vegetables, fritters of chopped vegetables, loaves of French or Italian bread with butter, arugula and tomato salad with scrolls of Parmesan cheese, etc. Lots of sauces of various kinds in dishes alongside these offerings….

There was a large platter of various kinds of cheese for those who wanted cheese to finish the meal, and next to the cheese platter, a large dish of delicious Rote Grütze with a pitcher of custard beside it. The fruit in the Rote Grütze was, as far as I could tell, raspberry and red currant. It was nicely tart.

Then as we sat enjoying the cheese and Rote Grütze, waiters brought around dishes of a really wonderful lemon ice cream in raspberry sauce. Wine flowed freely all the while, including a glass of champagne as W. finished his birthday speech, champagne (Sekt, really) so that we could toast him. 

A good time was had by all, and we sat eating and talking from noon to 6 P.M., then walked back to W. and K.’s apartment along the Alster as bells rang and rang from a nearby church.