Going to Hamburg last week was truly a great experience. It is Germany's second largest city, but the first to charm my travels away. Much more than anything, Hamburg is a lot like myself. It is a city that is still growing. It won the European Green Capital in 2011 and even before then has been on the radar as an important trading port for goods from all over the world. Green oases permeate city life and make the urban experience wanting you to experience more. That's right, Hamburg a drug. The city is vibrant yet retains a level charming relatability. In some cases, building come at you screaming about the historic stories they can tell and how all of the beautiful crown molding and crenelated decoration of the town square relate to place and urban life. In other cases buildings come up to you out of nowhere, disguised with modernist ideals and put together to surprise you. I was immediately struck by these exciting contrasts. Post-modern glass and steel facades, the patrician mansions of past centuries, entire rows of lovely Jugendstil buildings, baroque churches and historic residential districts. In some parts of the city you walk to breathe in the opulent social interaction taking place in the marble lobbies of hotels, and in the looking out the windows from frivolous spaces. Other parts satisfy human needs with the busy interactions of beer poured on tap, sex clubs and bars buzzing with both the stigma and fascination of the crowd.
Despite the street life that can be explored in Hamburg, there was one very simple determining factor that made me like the city from first 5 seconds we had arrived: Smiley Faces. Pulling in to Central Station I couldn't help but notice the graffiti. While in Miami graffiti now takes the place of large commercialized mural works as is the case of Wynwood, and in Pittsburgh it is merely amateur student work. Here, in Hamburg (and European cities overall), graffiti has become an integral part of the urban landscape. These smiley faces were almost a foreshadowing device if this were a book. I saw them, and I couldn't help but smile back as if we were in a joyous dialog. They were everywhere: under bridges, in the back of traffic signs, in the front of traffic signs, inside telephone booths, in the alternating spaces between buttresses and columns. The smiley faces made me feel happy. They would pop-up around corners. They would meet me at the train stations and smile a me wherever I least expected them to be. Then, as I was leaving Hamburg, I looked back from the train window just to meet another happy face as if was saying "see you later, have a nice trip!"
Despite the street life that can be explored in Hamburg, there was one very simple determining factor that made me like the city from first 5 seconds we had arrived: Smiley Faces. Pulling in to Central Station I couldn't help but notice the graffiti. While in Miami graffiti now takes the place of large commercialized mural works as is the case of Wynwood, and in Pittsburgh it is merely amateur student work. Here, in Hamburg (and European cities overall), graffiti has become an integral part of the urban landscape. These smiley faces were almost a foreshadowing device if this were a book. I saw them, and I couldn't help but smile back as if we were in a joyous dialog. They were everywhere: under bridges, in the back of traffic signs, in the front of traffic signs, inside telephone booths, in the alternating spaces between buttresses and columns. The smiley faces made me feel happy. They would pop-up around corners. They would meet me at the train stations and smile a me wherever I least expected them to be. Then, as I was leaving Hamburg, I looked back from the train window just to meet another happy face as if was saying "see you later, have a nice trip!"