Scouting Report: 7/26-8/4 (London-Heathrow, and Hamburg, Germany)

*This is a very long post. If you just want to know about the Reeperbahn and my experience in the red light district, go near the end.

Last week, I went to Germany for Wacken 2026. I’ll do a separate post regarding my Wacken experience and tips for anyone here that wants to attend Wacken. This was my first trip to Europe and outside North America. I spent a day before the festival and two days after the festival in Hamburg. Some of you may already know about what I’ll say. Here is my experience.

-Airports do not like combat boots. Some airports will allow you to wear shoes when going through the scanner. Not when it comes to boots. Those need to go through the machine.

-Before you board the plane, you will need your face scanned to verify your passport photo. At least in the states, the photo is removed after 12 hours. Sure it is.

-London-Heathrow loves the diversity. Middle easterns and indians are all working the service jobs.

-Also at London-Heathrow, while you wait in the lounge for your gate to be revealed, you can go to the “Multi Faith Prayer Room” to practice your faith.

-Why would your gate not be revealed right away? At London-Heathrow, your gate number for your departing flight is usually revealed an hour before your flight. That gives you plenty of time to sit in the lounge. Then when your gate number is revealed, you will need to take a 10-20 minute to your gate depending on when that is.

-This no A/C stuff, I didn’t feel any cool air flowing through the airport in London. More on the no A/C later.

-After I go through border patrol in Hamburg, I meet up with my group to take the shuttle to our hotel for the night. As I’m looking out the window, I saw a lot of graffiti. A LOT. The most common tags are “FCK NZS.” I did see one electric box tagged with “Free Gaza.” The tags were on numerous buildings in the city and just outside the downtown area.

-The old buildings in Hamburg looked nice (Rathaus, St. Nikolai Church, St. Michael Church, etc). These buildings have survived for over hundreds of years, and yet with today’s technology we struggle to build anything worth looking at.

-The Germans love their queers. While I was walking through Lake Binnenalster, I saw a bunch of trans-rainbow flags as Hamburg was about to celebrate the Hamburg Pride Parade the following week. Apparently this parade has gone on for over 4 decades. They even had a trans-rainbow flags as raised over the entrance of Rathaus (town hall).

-For all of those flags, I didn’t see one Germany flag raised during my entire time in Hamburg.

-At my hotel, you cannot turn on any lights until you place your hotel card in a slot near the door. Only then will you be able to use anything electric.

-For the hotel A/C, I either used it wrong or there is no A/C option. Since Europe measures temperature in degrees celsius, I set the thermostat to what I thought the celsius equivalent would be for fahrenheit. All I got was dry air and no cold.

-The Germans love their bicycles. Hell, I saw a mother ride a bicycle stroller and smoke a cigarette at the same time.

-The Germans also love their cigarettes. Some do the vape, and I didn’t see any pot. If someone in Germany is smoking, it’s a good old fashioned menthol.

-The Germans I interacted with were great. Hell, a couple of them offered me a beer as we were talking.

-The Germans zoomers are brainwashed about America. During the first full music day of Wacken, a young German woman in her mid-20s talked to me about why I was wearing my Texas neck gaiter over my face, and I told her that it was to reduce my chance of sunburn. My wit was good enough to where she wanted me to join her and her family for the afternoon. She is that cute-nerdy chick that the average man would consider going on a date with and maybe consider a relationship. Until she opened her mouth.

Even though she was drunk, because she told me, she could hold a conversation. She is the classic modern young woman. She doesn’t like Texas because they’re all conservative, and she won’t visit the U.S. because of Trump. As far as her career goes, she is training to become a psychotherapist. When it comes to religion, she can’t stand it. She is anti-religion and anti-catholic, yet her boyfriend (early 30s) goes to church. She went to church until she turned 18, but I don’t know why she was anti-religion. She was a sweet gal that likes the classic Star Wars, Iron Maiden, and probably more stuff that we would have a common bond. When it comes to personal beliefs, I don’t think a relationship would last.

-Speaking of anti-American zoomers, I was taking the train back to hotel after I visited the Reeperbahn. A group of young zoomers, and maybe gen alpha joined the train because they were at Hamburger Dom (city fair that runs from the last week of July through August). While I didn’t know exactly what this group of two young woman and no muscle guy were talking about, I could pick out Charlie Kirk. J.D. Vance, and estrogen.

-You know the Cappyism of adults shitting in thr streets? I can confirm that. Near the corner of Hammerbrook and SachsenstraBe I was about to go under a bridge and saw some fresh shit near the entrance, flies included. This wasn’t dog shit, this was human shit. I walk another 30 feet under the bridge and see a homeless guys sitting there. I’m presuming that shit was his.

-It doesn’t stop there, near Lake Binnenalster and Colonnaden, a different dude just openly takes a piss on a giant sidewalk tree during lunch.

-Do you want me to top that? At one of the ports there was a dude laying in the fetal
position. He wasn’t hurt, he was doing the prayer to Mecca in the middle of the sidewalk while others are walking around him. I didn’t know how many times he prayed prior to that.

-Maybe paid public bathrooms could help with not dealing with homeless people sleeping there. At Hauptbahnhof Sud (Hamburg’s Central Station), to use the bathroom you need to pay 1€ and go through a one way entry-exit iron bar turnstile. This practice continues at Hamburger Dom (city fair) where they charge 0.50€.

-The Reeperbahn is the site of Hamburg’s nightlife. This is also a somewhat seedy part of town when it gets dark. Some strip clubs, but a lot of graffiti and stickers.

-Around the corner of St. Pauli’s Theater maybe two blocks south is a notorious side alley called “HerbertstraBe.” This alley is the red light district. There is an entrance that is about 7 feet high on each end so that no one can peek over. The entrance also states that “No entrance for juveniles under 18 years of age or women.”

Not even 5 seconds after entering I hear a knock from the second booth window on the left. The woman said “Hallo” and tried to presuade me to talk to her Of course knowing very little German, I waived her off and told her that I was broke. I kept walking and more women knocked and wanted me to talk them. I kept waving at them. About halfway through there was a side alley which had more boothes.

There were probably about 50 boothes in HerbertstraBe. Maybe 15-20 were actually occupied, and none of the women were “working” at the time I walked in. All the women had big fake tits, nice legs, dressed in either white or black bra and panties, long hair, and some more tatted than others. I would say half of them didn’t have a tattoo. I would like to know if any of them have an actual day job, and if they live in their boothes full time. I only spent two minutes in the alley and was somewhat creeped out.

-I had trouble finding a good German restaurant that served traditional German food. However, there were plenty of kebab and halal shops in the area.

-I wasn’t wowed by the currywurst. My dad mentioned to me to try that as he has been to Germany numerous times for work. The actual wurst was fine; I don’t care for the curry sauce, or curry ketchup, or whatever sauce was used.

-The one place where you can get away from the noise is Stadtpark near Borgweg station. Near the lake there were a lot of German woman that were lookers just tanning and laying down. Hell, one of them was tanning and a reading a book topless. She had her perky Bs or Cs out and no one is freaking out.

If you had any similar observations or want to comment, please post them below.