The morning of the first day of the Hive Buzz Party Meetup in Hamburg arrived and I hastily made my way to the first meetup point at the station, Landungsbrücke near the harbour. It was just a few stations away from the main station.
Upon arrival, I saw there were a few Hivers there whom I already knew from their blogs and online pictures and it was good to see familar faces. The first Hiver that I spoke to in real life was @tibfox and said hello and introduced myself as @mypathtofire. He was super friendly and helpful and you could feel he is a a genuine person with a very warm heart. His passion for Hive beams through and meeting him in person was really great.
As people were arriving and settling into the group, people had coffee and breakfast and said hellos and introduced themselves.
The atmosphere was really relaxed and everyone was super friendly. I remember the cool Hive hats worn by @alessandrawhite and @bitterirony who it was so lovely to meet them there and later on the Sunday we would enjoy time together at the Portugese restaurant we visited and a hidden away bar called Willi's Bierstube as part of the hardcore gang. They both have quickly become my favorite Americans and I hope will both be granted membership to Satoshi's Island.
At the coffeeshop, I also met for the first time my good friend @ph1102, which was great after being friends online for so long to meet in person. @ph1102 was one of the reasons to motivate myself to go to the meetup so that we could meetup.
Once we were all gathered together, we headed to our first stop, the Elbphilharmonie which is an impressive building on the Elbe river where concerts take place. However, it is an imposing building in a modernistic style with some great views out of Hamburg. Here you can see the building in the background.
As we walked there, we had some impressive views of the restored harbour buildings. It is really impressive how big these building are and the amount of trade that must of passed through the town. I know the modern harbour does equally impressive trade and is apparently the biggest employer in the town according to the tour guide.
As we approached the entrance, Hivers were mingling with each other and getting to know each other. Usually I am not so keen to go around and introduce myself to people, but with Hivers, it was really easy to talk to everyone and we had a really cool group which made everything so easy, even if you are abit shy like me.
Once we got our tickets, which didn't cost anything as it was free entry as I understood, we could go up the long escalators with the impressive white patterned wall which seems to be unique to this building. Everyone really liked it. Here I was stood with @Detlev whom I met for the first time and he was full of energy and in good spirits. Later on, he gave us some great info on some different beers from the area and I mentioned that I liked Radlers, which is the german version of a shandy.
The building is definetly worth visiting and once you get to the top of the elevator, you can walk around for panoramic views of the city. Here, we all split up and walked around taking photos and chatting and getting to know each other better.
Here I met and discussed opsec with @archange and it was really great to meet him and find out more about the work he does onchain. When talking with him, it is like chatting with a friend you have known for a long time. You can see in the photos he is a friendly guy and has a very positive outlook which is really contagious.
The views were really fantastic, the weather was a little cloudy but dry and reasonably warm. I was really in awe of the harbor history and size of everything.
As the morning went on, the weather was improving and getting sunnier making things even more pleasant. As I was busy chatting to people, I sort of lost track of the schedule and was pleasantly surprised that we had a boat trip organised after the Elbphilharmonie.
We made our way to the boat which was fun weaving through buildings and crossing pedestrian walkways over the water and before long had jumped aboard the boat that was not far away from the Elbphilharmoieand everyone took their seats. The tourguide was a chilean guy born in Hamburg who was very knowledgeable about Hamburg and gave us some really interesting titbits about the city and harbor.
He had a great humor and it was a really fun trip with a very knowledgeable guy. I still remember many of the things that he told us about. A recommend to take a boat trip when you visit Hamburg.
I sat inside a little and listened eagerly for a while before going outside the boat to take in some of the views over the water. The river was a little rougher than my last boat trip on the Rhein, which I was told was because the river is so close to the north sea. I had really expected some cold wind from the north sea but it was really pretty warm and mild and didn't experience any cold wind the whole weekend. Having lived in Dublin before, there was literally no wind to notice here in comparison.
On the outside part of the boat, people were enjoying the views, chatting and drinking. Here I was getting some photo ideas from @bechibenner who is a Hive OG in the German community. Benny was full of good spirits and we enjoyed many good laughs together.
On the boat I also met the lovely @anna-newkey and we had a nice chat and I was surprised we did not cross paths before now. The boat trip went by really quickly, chatting to people outside, I hardly realised it when the boat trip came to an end.
It was a really cool boat trip and I was really glad that we did it. It would not be the last time we were on the water this weekend and there is so much more to explore in Hamburg too around harbor and coast that I will share with you. Next up, we headed towards the conference center and the Hive presentations, but more about that in my next post.
Thanks for reading!
Credits:
All photos are my own.
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