Wir sind in Hamburg

Today was a day of chunks of travel. Two hours from Attleborough to Stansted Airport, by bus, with the weather becoming increasingly overcast (and the toilet on the bus, which we’d chosen to sit beside, giving off incredibly unpleasant whiffs every so often). The obligatory two hours at Stansted waiting for the flight to take off (decreased somewhat by the fact that we were late getting there, and there were queues for everything (but for some reason we were given priority tickets so that helped to get us on board a bit faster). They took my laptop off in the security area, and gave it a looking-over. Poor Alphonse! - the laptop - he was appalled to be considered a security risk. But at least we didn’t have to take off our shoes. Not sure what they’re expecting to find in shoes.
An hour and a half on the plane (virtually) with the usual Ryanair minimalist approach to service - not enough coin change when you bought something, no sick bags, no string bags on the backs of the seats to put your magazine in, no room to spread out in any direction.
And then an hour and a quarter or so from Lubeck airport into Hamburg city, again by bus - a very quiet bus, it must be said, so quiet that you weren‘t really aware of the speed you were doing.
And into Hamburg BusPort. Which is only a little way from our hotel. We had to go to the Hotel Keiler Hof to pick up our key from a very grumpy receptionist. She was friendly really, just liked to do the grumpy thing. The reception desk was on the first floor - I have no idea what was on the ground floor, but it wasn’t part of the hotel. And then we had to take our three keys to the building next door, Luebecker Hof, use the large key to open the building door, go up to the first floor again, use the blue key to open the door to that floor, and then use the third key for our room. I thought our room number was 213 until I realised that the label actually read Zi3 - or zimmer 3. (Zimmer being ‘room’.)
The room is quite large, with a private shower. The shower isn’t exactly en suite, as it’s in the room itself, next to the wardrobe. The toilet is across the hall, and serves all the people staying in rooms 2-6. (Room 1 seems to have vanished). We’re going to have our breakfasts in the Keiler Hof. On the first floor. This idea of having hotels on the first floors and upwards seems to be a European thing. It was the same in both the hotels I stayed in, in Rome. The ground floor is usually occupied by some other business altogether.
After settling ourselves in we went out again to get something to eat - it now being around 9 pm. Found a kebap place around the corner (yup, kebap), and had a very nice meal in the open air. It's been a very warm day in general. The area we're in seems a bit less than salubrious - ladies of the night are very visible, as is the sex sho (not sure whether it's meant to be shop or show) just around the corner.