Hamburg-Germany 3

July 12, 2023,

Hi Everyone,

I spent my first night in my 2* Ibis Hotel which is adequate and centrally located. Apparently there are 150 Canadians here but many have not arrived yet. I went to bed at 11:00 last night and slept until 10:00 this morning a feat that has not been duplicated by me since my university days. I guess that I must have been tired from the voyage. I am not as young as I used to be. I left the hotel in shorts and a t-shirt, prepared for a sunny day…

My first stop was at a German bakery for a chocolate croissant and a cappuccino just like at home. I spent the day strolling along various streets in Hamburg in no particular direction and with no particular place to go. I love travelling like that. It reminds me of a scene in Easy Rider when a fellow asks Peter Fonda ‘what time is it’ and he responds that it is the ‘time that we throw away our watches’ and he tosses his.

Hamburg is an incredible city. It was bombed and completely flattened during the war. It was then rebuilt with the same 19th century architecture. All the buildings are 6 to 8 stories high and I didn’t see any of those 30 story glass buildings that seem to grow up everywhere in our downtowns. There are pedestrian walk ways everywhere. The sidewalks are wide and there does not seem to be any traffic jams. I didn’t see any cones surrounding a hole in the street with a bunch of guys standing around with cigarettes trying to fill the hole up by flicking their ashes into it. This is obviously a Montreal phenomenon. The city is particularly clean with many beautiful parks. There are bicycle paths everywhere which are meant for bikes only. The bikes go fast so you must not walk on the path unless you want to be a ‘past tense’.

It started pouring late in the afternoon, so I got soaked. Everyone speaks English here except the salesman in the umbrella shop that I entered. However he quickly understood from my sign language what I wanted to purchase. At 4:00 I went to the main plaza where tents have been put up to accommodate the athletes and give us our pre race instructions and athletic bags with our numbers. There are 5000 athletes here competing in various categories.

I get the impression in Western Europe that they are much more concerned than us about protecting the environment, preserving heritage buildings, and conserving energy. People everywhere are very polite. It seems to be a pleasure for them to speak in English, showing you that they can converse in at least 2 languages. Is it possible that Canada is a young country with old ideas, and Western European countries are old countries with young ideas? Canadians either don’t travel enough or if they do, they don’t learn from their travels.

Well it’s time for my evening cocktail (beer).

Love, Brian

Hamburg-Germany 2,

July 11. 2023,

Hi Everyone,

Dominique drove me to the airport. There are 2 separate lanes to get you here and the line up is round the block. We have the most brilliant city planners in the world. Once into the airport things went quite quickly and I was through customs in 30 min. I had enough wine to drink courtesy of my bank and was the last person to board the plane. After 2 Ativans and a repeat dinner I fell asleep for 6 hours. A good combination of wine and sleeping pills always does the trick for me on a long plane trip. I arrived in London and had 45 minutes to cross the airport to catch my plane to Hamburg. They were just about ready to close the doors when I boarded the plane. It was a short flight, peanuts and a glass of wine for lunch. I switched my SIM card for a local brand at the airport allowing me internet but no calling out of the country unless I use the 20 number phone number.

I took a taxi to my 2* Ibis where all the Canadians are staying. There are 150 of us in total so it should be fun. Some of them brought their own bikes but I rented one here and will pick it up on Thursday. The hotel itself is quite nice for a 2*, clean and very modern. I have a pretty good impression of Hamburg at first glance. It is modern but the buildings have a nice old style compared to the glass towers that seem to appear out of nowhere in Montreal and Toronto. I walked along the waterfront and had a beer on a terrace facing the water. There were a lot of small sailboats sailing around. The change of time started to effect me so I walked back to the hotel and crashed for 4 hours.

I am now sitting in a restaurant across from the train station. I ate pub food that was plentiful but not particularly tasty. The German beer is great. At one point a ‘street women’ walked up on the terrace asking for money, All of a sudden, without warning, she grabbed a lady’s beer off the table and drank the whole glass. The lady got up and started yelling at her. Her husband thought that it was rather funny and laughed it off. The waiter came along and told the women that it was ‘nit gutt’ and made her go away after she had downed the beer. He then brought the lady another beer.

Love, Brian

Continue reading “23-07 Hamburg-Germany 2” →

23-07 Hamburg Germany 1,

July 10, 2023,

Hi Everyone,

I am sitting in the Banque National lounge at Trudeau Airport waiting for my flight to London and then to Hamburg. I can eat and drink here for free due to my Elite Master Card status. The food is actually good and there is an open bar for wine which is to my taste. I am already on my …..glass. Unfortunately there is no scotch.

2 songs seem to come across my mind. My taste in music is mired in the 17th century with Bach and Beethoven and then skips rapidly to the Sinatra big band era followed by music from the 60s and 70s. I don’t think that I could even name a band or singer from the 80s onwards. “ All my bags are packed and I’m ready to go, I’m standing here outside your door, I am so lonely that I could cry. I’m leaving on a jet plane….” (John Denver). “I’m sitting in a railroad station, with a ticket for my destination, ooh ooh” (Simon and Garfunkel). Enough of that memorabilia.

How did I get here? Well that is a long story. I was playing 80 games of hockey a year and 50 games of squash. I was skiing and racing a sailboat. How could I have a cardiac problem? Like every good doctor, I had a blood test regularly every 30 years. Unknown to me, my cholesterol was ski high and in spite of my over active personality, my thyroid had virtually stopped functioning. I had 2 heart attacks playing hockey and 1 walking on the street. I stayed home, hoping to discuss this problem with my friend, the cardiologist, but a kidney stone intervened and brought me to the hospital. 3 days later I had a quadruple bypass at the old Royal Vic.

Following the bypass I entered into an intensive cardiac rehab program at the YMHA. My surgeon had promised me that I could play hockey 3 months after the bypass. Actually I started skating 3 months later, raced my sailboat at about the same time, reffed hockey over the summer and started playing 5 months later. The rest is history.

About that time my friend Glen told me that I should try to do a triathlon. A triathlon? I couldn’t even spell the word. I thought it was spelled with a Y. Anyway, the following summer I did my first sprint triathlon (swim 750m, bike 20k and run 5k). I won a gold medal in my age group. Since then, I have participated in 11 triathlons including the Olympic, (swim 1.5k, bike 40k and run 10k) and half Ironman relay where I did did the swim (1.9k). I have won several gold, silver and bronze medals in my age group, 65-69 and 70-74. There are not too many people over 70 who can do all 3 disciplines. If you out live the competition you can do really well in triathlons.

Last year I did the Sprint at the Esprit Triathlon in Montreal in the Old Port. Several months later I received an email from Team Canada inviting me to be a member of the Canadian National Triathlon Team, Sprint, Age Group 70-74. I accepted of course, not really realizing that it was self financing, (Canada really does not support its budding athletes) . So I am on my way to Hamburg to do the World Triathlon Championship, Sprint, Age Related. We will be 150 persons on the Canadian Team and probably 4000 athletes in all categories. I have a t-shirt that says Canada, a team jacket, shorts, a hat and a tight, tight tight bathing suit that shows a little too much.

I have been training like crazy for the last 3 months. 1 play 2 games of hockey a week or 1 game and do a sail boat race. On the days that I don’t play I do a sprint triathlon, split up during the day. For example, I would run in the morning for 40 min (5k) swim 20 laps in the afternoon (750m) and bike of 50 min in the evening (20). I lost 13 lbs. I cut back my wine drinking to 2 glasses a day without getting the DTs and cut out my Friday night scotch entirely.

2 days ago I did the Gatineau Triathlon. I came 185th out of 201 participants, finished the race in 1:57 and won a silver medal in my age group. I finished in the 4th quarter and the fellow that beat me in my age group did it in 1:20 and finished in the 1st quarter. My finishing should probably be good enough to be invited to the Worlds in Malaga, Spain, next year.

Love, Brian