So Far in Hamburg Travel
It's been a day or two since I last wrote a post, which is a long time when I'm trying to cover everything that I'm experiencing (what with my memory). Right now it's 9AM and I'm getting ready to head out to my second day of work. Protonet is based out of a cooperative space, which means that lots of people work there and we work at one desk. The space opens at 9 and closes at 7, and we work from 10 to 6 and then play Urban Terror for an hour.
But I'm getting ahead of myself. My last post was from Brussels Airport, and that was a while ago already. The hour-long flight from Brussels to Hamburg was interesting mainly because, as a local Europe-to-Europe flight, less people spoke in English. Once I got to Hamburg I got my luggage without issue and continued to meet-up point. The first Protonet member that I saw was Chris, and then Ali appeared a couple minutes later. Their first comment to me was that they expected me to be a bit shorter, but I don't really see how you can infer height from the headshots that I tend to post online. So after talking for a little bit we headed out to the car.
Right outside the airport there was a parking lot and an elevator. I didn't quite grasp that it was a parking garage until we got in the car and drove down a few levels, which threw me off mainly because I'm used to obvious/ugly parking garages. We drove through Hamburg on the way to my flat, though it was nighttime at this point so I couldn't really see a lot of the sights.
My living accommodations are pretty nice. Instead of getting a flat to myself (which was the initial plan), I am living with two other people in a shared flat. They both speak English (yay) and we each have our own rooms. I'm working on a separate post about what my conversations with them because they're mostly about stereotypes and such and way too off-topic to go in this post.
My main experience with public transit is from NJTransit's AC rail line, which is a joke to begin with, so the Hamburg Bahn's train system here seems awesome. It's kinda like a subway except it's above-ground (elevated, even) and there's rail on both sides of the station. There's multiple numbered lines but multiple overhead LCDs tell you what train is coming when. Apparently the vending machines are a pain to use so Tiff has been buying my tickets online and printing them out. I'd be using a monthly pass already except they need an official-looking photo and it has to be mailed out, so it's a bit of effort.
My next few posts will be about the language barrier, food, my job, Hamburg, etc. and I'll try to get some more out when I get back tonight.