Writing & Stories

We arrived in Hamburg at 6am, and were not quite awake when we stumbled out of the train. Although we had invested in a sleeper carriage for this section of our journey, I did not find it easy to get to sleep and spent most of my time writing instead. Marjorie, my wife, seemed to sleep fine, but something about speeding along at over 100km an hour made the simple act of relaxation very difficult for me. Neither of us had been to Hamburg before, and we were both really looking forward to it.

It was at Hamburg Hauptbahnhof station where we finally came to a halt, and as we left the train behind the coolness of the early morning city air filled our lungs with sleepy excitement. We had been travelling on a bit of a budget, but were looking forward to spoiling ourselves with a nice hotel for a few nights. I am an author and was looking forward to sitting back and continuing my new story from the comfort of a nice hotel desk, and a nice hotel bed. Finding a hotel Hamburg shouldn’t be too hard we thought, even at this time in the morning.

We didn’t normally book ahead, which did make life difficult for ourselves at times. We were not the most organised of travellers you see, I think we actually liked it that way. Something romantic about not knowing what was going to happen in your day to day schedule was an exciting break from the old routine that we left behind. Everyone we talked to said that it was rather easy to get around Hamburg, so we were not too worried about finding a place to rest our sleepy heads. The buzz of writing my new story was playing heavily on my mind, and this excitement mixed with my tiredness put me in a dreamy, almost surreal kind of state. The quicker I found a hotel and got a few hours of good stationary sleep behind me, the sooner I could plug in my computer and get back to my writing.

We quickly found a taxi and asked the driver if he could recommend a hotel, a method which admittedly had found limited success in the past. He recommended a hotel named zleep though, and the way that this name rolled of the tongue made perfect sense to our tired bones on this cold German morning. Oh glorious glorious sleep, zzz, it seemed to be a sigh from the gods. On this occasion the taxi driver was spot on with his recommendation, and we found the perfect hotel to sleep and a lovely environment in which to continue writing my story.

Marjorie and I both slept almost all day, a peaceful sleep surrounded by a new and exciting city. I even dreamt about my story and the many possibilities that the plot line could make. After waking I almost immediately got to work with my book, opening my computer and tapping away for hours. I only stopped a few times to check out some local Hamburg tourist websites and the zleep.de homepage, organising what we would do over the next few days. Right now however, my life seemed fairly simple. Some more writing, then some more sleeping, and tomorrow, well, we will have to wait and see.