My adventures on the "Reeperbahn"

Supposedly, when one goes to Hamburg (in German, specifically "man(n)"), one should go to the Reeperbahn. So we are told.

At first, I was suspicious about this suggestion, being a woman and knowing of the infamous businesses on and off this street in St. Pauli. Indeed, last time we were there, Mischi and I did see some of the girls with those fanny packs. (Is that where they keep their money or what are they for??) But this time we stayed on the main street, and after a disasterous attempt to meet his friend and some walking and u-bahning back and forth, Mischi, Lars and I enjoyed the Argentinia - Ivory Coast game at the big screen venue called "official FIFA FanFest", looked around the different countries' food and music pavillions, and we enjoyed the walk down the Reeperbahn with the fans afterwards.

Not only did we gaze at people of whom we didn't know whether they were man or woman, but also (unfortunately) prostitutes dressed in black-red-gold (how patriotic), their customers, homeless punks, drunkards, tourists, and soccer fans from Argentinia, the Ivory Coast (these guys were fun!!), Brazil and - get this - Finland. This country didn't even make it to the world cup. And you should have seen these 2 guys: rather thin, somewhat pale, confused (drunk?), wearing blue and white outfits saying "Finland" und "Suomi" (Finland in Finnish), and topped with blue and white crocheted (sp?) hats!! (I have their picture in my album!)
They were very happy (in a very spacy kind of way, you'd think they came right out of the sauna having breathed in some very special herbal vapor!) and started shouting "Suomi" "Finland" with a Brazilian fan! - I just learned the Fins are quite adventurous people in general: they're now hunting the free-ranging bear that bothered Southern German farmers since a few months in Tirol, Italy. Really, what would we do without these happy Northerners? :)