Lost in La Manga

Last night I went to the Noble House Ice Bar in Hamburg. (The photos above are not mine but I do have some shots on my cel phone) Basically it’s a bar made out of ice inside of a large meat locker freezer. They give you a jacket and cap to endure the minus ten degree temperature. Shots of vodka are given to you in shooter glasses made out of ice. I wanted a flaming sambuca but the place is sponsored by Absolute so alas I had champagne and a couple of flavoured vodka shots instead. Some of the ice sculptures are a bit racy, but it is Hamburg after all. One is of a stripper swinging around a pole with rather phallic looking objects surrounding her. I think I recall having my photo taken while touching the sculpture inappropriately. A few unlucky souls were wearing flip-flops. A couple of girls dragged me into their cab and we went to an outdoor patio bar in the Reeperbahn. The hot one was take but it was fun to hang out with some people even though they were from Minnesota. I had a four hour sleep before my two flights to the Hyatt La Manga in Cartagena, Spain. There was a guy at the airport with dark shades wearing at dress shirt that was orange with pink and green stripes holding a white piece of paper that read, “Dan Hannas.” I tried my best “hola” and that was the extent of our conversation as he spoke no English. While wizzing away in the smooth Mercedes I thought it was great to see palm trees again and the landscape was rustic with more brown than green.

I am fatigued and things are turning into a bit of a blur. I have three nights here and then I’m off to Birmingham and London for three more nights and then off to Kiev, Ukraine for a week. My first impression is that Spain is a little rough around the edges, the people are a bit louder than most, and being situated in a gated resort it’s hard to tell at the moment if it is Jamaica or Spain.

I feel like I’m in some kind of strange experiment that is testing the limits of my endurance but I’m enjoying it in a perverse way. My work schedule is a bit lighter here so the top thing on my to do list when I'm finished shooting is to head to the ocean. I’ve never swam in the Mediterranean before so I am stoked for that. I’m also glad to be in a hotel that has a pool again. After unpacking I caught the last rays of the warm summer sun there and afterwards sat down for a fine steak meal at the pool patio with the setting sun in my eyes. I read my book, an autobiography on Iggy Pop, the “Godfather” of punk rock with a glass of Rioas and wondered what to write about in my blog.