Kuschelmetal

Well well well, where to start?
Oh right, I just remembered I already updated on the past few days. Well, yesterday.

Anyway, at around 6.30pm today I left my place, and first drove to the nearest gas station to refill the car. Then I drove straight into a traffic jam. Thank God I'd decided to take some CDs along. I wasn't quite certain whether I should at first, because the satnav system needs its data CD to run, and this car doesn't seem to have a CD changer. Oh well, turns out, it commits the route and the area around it to memory, and once it's done doing that, you can listen to whatever CD you want. So I listened to one of my Blue Öyster Cult ones.
Well, the traffic jam was coming from two lanes merging into one because of the road actually ending there (of course, since that's pretty much around the corner from my place, I knew about that, I just wasn't aware that so many people were travelling today). So once I finally managed to get past there, the roads were still full but traffic was flowing, so that was okay.

Once I arrived in Hamburg I did get a little nervous. That always happens to me, because I hate Hamburg when it comes to traffic. I always feel like someone's just told an inside joke that I didn't get. I feel like everyone one other than me knows what everything is about, while I'm left out.
Not that it stopped me from getting to my destination.
I didn't bother searching for a cheap place to leave the car. Instead I left it in a parking garage right in front of the venue (Docks), that also had video surveillance. That was quite expensive (1€ per 27 minutes, who came up with that number anyway?), but at least it's a save place to leave the car. In front of the place is a huge, paved, pretty much unused, open area. totally useless, but it's private property and you may not park there. Yay.

After I'd left the car, I found a very long line full of people mostly dressed in black. I wasn't in the mood to wait in line, so instead I walked around the Reeperbahn for about half an hour. Naturally the first place I headed towards was the Pizza Hut located a little down the street. I wasn't really hungry, but I consider it kind of a ritual to visit a Pizza Hut whenever I'm in a town that actually has one. When I was done eating I crossed the street again and strolled back to the Docks. Some prostitutes tried chatting me up, but other than me telling them what I was there for, nothing ensued from that. Turns out they're quite aggressive about making contact with people. I'm considering getting a t-shirt printed for next time I'm there (that'll be in October), saying in large friendly letters "Don't touch me", and in slightly less large (and less friendly) lettering below it "No. Really. Don't".
Oh well, other than that, prostitutes are funny ^_^

Back at the Docks, the line was gone and I could get right inside. Very, very dark place. Not a lot of lights were on, except for the ones on the floor near the stairs.
Surprisingly, I didn't have to wait until 9pm for the concert to start. The support band (Absolut∑) started playing at around 8.30pm, and were really quite good. I'd have to say they were definitely one of the better support bands I've seen. Their musical style is a little similar to that of Linkin Park, but differs insofar that not each and every one of their songs sounded exactly the same.
While they were playing, I also noticed the surprisingly good acoustics in that place. That probably had something to do with where I was standing (in the back, below some sort of balcony). It even felt that it wasn't "too loud", and you could make out every instrument easily.

Same goes for Within Temptation, who started playing around ... 9.25ish I think.
They're really awesome live, and even though I didn't like The Silent Force too much, and even though I've never even heard any of the tracks from the latest album, I had a really good time. I missed a few of the older tracks though. If I remember correctly, there was not a single track from Enter or The Dance (my two favourites), and only the three most popular songs from Mother Earth (i.e. Mother Earh, Ice Queen, Deceiver of Fools). What I'm really missing though is the male singing (the guitar player, Robert I think, used to sing, but doesn't anymore). They used to have a very strong polarity between her, and his voice, and that got lost in the past few years.
*shurgs*
Anyway, to be honest, that's not going to keep me away from their next concert in the area, whenever that may be. It was just way too much fun today.

The concert was over shortly after 11pm. I went to the garage, paid, left, and drove around aimlessly until the satnav system found enough satellites to figure out where it was.
On the way back the autobahn was pretty empty, and everyone seemed wise enough to stay away from my lane (i.e. the leftmost one). I do have to say that even though the A3 does look a lot better, the BMW 120 felt nicer while driving. Less noisy, and more comfortable. And it had less trouble getting to 240km/h than the A3 does. I guess I shouldn't complain though, the A3 is one really cool car.

I was back in Lübeck around 11.50pm, and as usual, had trouble finding a parking spot near my place. The nearest legal one I managed to find is a 5 minute walk from my home, but at least I don't have to worry about getting a ticket ...

And now I'm home and stuff. I guess I'll eat something, then read some internets, then go to bed ...