Whenever it gets truly cold in Hamburg for a few days, the whole city collectively dreams of the Alster freezing over. Even newcomers report then, longing for their romantic visions of this event—a neighbor from the neighborhood recently even claimed she had moved to the far north just for the winter magic on the water. After all, it is the north, and one would expect that ice and snow would arrive promptly at the start of December. North means cold. Every child knows that. She had, as it turned out during the course of the conversation, seriously believed that the water would freeze every year. But alas, she has now lived on St. Pauli for five years, and what is there? Nothing.
Even I, as a disillusioned native of the city in this respect, have come to think that it is high time again for mulled wine and roasted chestnuts on ice-cold ground. The last ice-faring pleasure already took place in February 2012, I quickly googled it. I believe it was wonderful. I can’t remember it exactly, though… Did I even set a foot on the creaking ice back then? Honestly: no idea. Age. A question to my daughter:
Can you remember 2012? Alster? Mulled wine? Thick hat?
Yes, because of Dad’s fall when he tried to film himself while skating. Total drama, though. Ankle cracked.
Oh, right. True.
Two centimeters thick is the ice at the moment, according to the internet. That’s not enough. Even birds that paddle around would still fall through. We should all give up hope, I tell the neighbor the next day, as we sip mulled wine in front of a café. She is now seriously considering moving back to her hometown of Emsdetten, she reports.
This city would at least not make false promises.
