A familiar face

Simon arrived into Hamburg late Tuesday night and it was great to see him.  For those of you who don’t know who Simon is, we met last year while volunteering in Kenya.  We went through a lot of stuff and experienced a lot together.  When he left back to Austria and I left to the States, we promised we would see each other again.  So enough of the “bromance”…

My Austrian P.I.C.

Anyway, from reading my last post you would think we would have to check him into a hostel right away, but I had a plan.  I would let him meet “ze Nazi” and he would sweet talk her in German into letting him stay there and it worked!  Well, kinda…she ended up charging us when he left but it was half as cheap as a hostel so it worked out ok.

On Wednesday morning, I had to meet at a German ad agency here in Hamburg for a tour of the agency.  The agency is “Jung Von Matt” and if you’re German, this would be a big deal.  However, I was less than impressed.  There were over 400 employees at this agency but only 13 planners….so that kinda shows their commitment to good strategy.  However they do have one interesting thing where they took one of their offices and re-designed it to be the average German living room so that they stay in touch with consumers.  It’s a great idea but we found out later it wasn’t even their idea.  They stole it from an ad agency out of London called “Mother”.

When I got home, I wanted to show Simon “Stadtpark” (the giant park next to my house), but as soon as we got there it started POURING! Thanks Hamburg weather!  After the rain stopped we went down to Sternschanze for dinner and then met up with Justin and Decker and few other MAS kids.  We had a few drinks, had a few other things (cough), and went out to a local bar and played some darts.  It was a great time but I had early class so had to get home.

After class on Thursday, I met Simon by the harbor to go on a boat tour, but guess what! It was raining…again!  So we went home, watched a movie, and headed back downtown to eat dinner and meet up with Matt.  We ventured out of our comfort zone to a new neighborhood called “Dammtor” and found a really cool bar located in an old silo.  After meeting up with Justin for drinks in St. Pauli, Simon and I had to run to the train so we could make it before it ended for the night.

Friday’s class was awesome!  We had class with Gerrit Kleinfield (that super-talented award-winner I spoke about previously) and got a new client, DMAX TV, which is like Discovery Channel but more manly.  So we came up with new concepts and I came up with one that really sparked everyone’s creativity – “Escape to Manland”.  I was pretty proud of it.  Now we have to come up with executions for it.

When I got back home, guess what! It was raining…AGAIN!  Simon and I said “fuck it!” and went downtown to do a bus tour.  It was pretty cool except it was hard to see stuff because it was raining.  But now at least I know where to go when it’s not raining to take pictures and such.  After to tour we met up with Justin and Joe for dinner, then headed to Jon’s to meet up with more MAS kids.  I finally remembered my camera this time, but the batteries died after an hour…But anyway, we all headed to the “Hamburger DOM” which has 3 festivals a year.  Right now is summer fest and it’s the biggest festival in Northern Germany!  We rode a couple crazy rides and then headed to a popular MAS hangout, Zoe’s.  Everyone started heading home, but Simon and I decided to hang out and have some more drinks.

Joe and Justin

Cool graffiti of the DOM

Long story short, he had to go home Saturday morning to get home for his girlfriend’s birthday so we just decided to stay up all night til his train left around 7.  After planning my trip to Vienna after the program, we said goodbye and I went home and slept all day which was ok because guess what!  It rained all day anyway…