Lessons from the Anti-Tourist

During Quasim’s short two-day visit, I learned that our high school had offered video editing and production and AP art history (what? Are you sure we went to the same high school?), that I can up my cool quotient by name dropping things like Pavement or Harput’s or simply associating myself with people who name drop, that electrical engineers make the world run, and something about tv towers, signals, magnets, and three forms of light that I’m still fuzzy on.

In return, I took him on the “un-touristy” tour of Hamburg (minus Speicherstadt, which he insisted we go to), tried to teach him some German vocab and pronunciation (it’s döner not doner), and only laughed a little when he referred to Poe’s “The Tell-Tale Heart” as “The Tick Tock Heart.” (To his credit, the impetus for his Poe reference was a loud ticking clock and he did correct himself almost immediately.)

Together we learned that St. Pauli’s beer is from Bremen; dined in Sternschanze, Hamburg’s version of DC’s Adams Morgan/14^th St.; discovered the hipster Karolinenviertel (this is where Quasim totally upped my cool quotient by name dropping the adidas store in San Francisco, Harput’s, to the owner of a retro adidas/sportswear clothing store that offered, among other things, a terry cloth one piece tank-top/shorts tennis jumper); walked along the Elbe (walking is a favorite pastime here); went out for coffee; and generally talked about life, music, architecture, cities, blogging (he insists his blogging days are over), traveling, etc. It was a good time.

Quasim, safe travels and best of luck in the States.