Nord Coast

For all its isolation, continental Europe is still only a couple of hours away from Umeå. This weekend I decided to take advantage of precisely that as I flew down to Hamburg to see my Austrian friend Markus. Last time we met was in Copenhagen when Eddie had just turned one. Since then, Markus has had a son of his own so I am very happy we could get the logistics to work.

Strolling along the sun-drenched quays towards the Elbphilharmonie I came to think of Baltimore, of how aesthetically similar these spaces have become. Perhaps even more so last night in Sternschanze which really could have been anywhere from Williamsburg to Prenzlauer Berg. Nonetheless, Germany never fails to overwhelm me. Simply shifting languages takes me back ten, fifteen or even twenty years, to my first trips alone into the country that Horace Engdahl once called “a Sweden for grown-ups”.