I would like to buy a hamburger.

Hamburg is okay. It's not great, and it's not awful, either. It's kind of beige. It felt like a place that you go through on the way to somewhere better. I stayed with a lovely Spanish family, who lived in a two room apartment on the third storey of a nondescript building in Harburg, about 15 minutes from Hamburg central. As I had taken the only other room, their whole family was in the other one. This consisted of  Rubén, the husband, Diana, the wife, Lisette, the 6 month old daughter, and Rocket the dog. And on the first night, Diana's sister.
I felt kind of bad, but Ruben reassured me it was okay. They take guests a few nights a week, and it pays the bills. He said living in this tiny apartment was better than scraping by in Spain, so he moved his whole family here. The second night they insisted I join them for dinner, which was a simple yet delicious meal of potato omelette, tomato in a simple dressing, and bread. Diana asked me in broken English if I had kids of my own. I told her my fur baby was waiting for me and showed her a photo of Sorrow.
"Any real baby?" she asked. I told her that it was something that didn't work out in the past and she made a sad face at me. If all Spanish women look like her, I could maybe be convinced to give it another shot.
I made a trip to the Reeperbahn, the entertainment/red light district of Hamburg, and wandered aimlessly for a few hours. Maybe it's the fact that we're desensitised to this kind of thing, or, more likely, I'm just a miserable sod, but there was nothing enticing about it. Not 'dangerous' in a seductive way, not sensuously mysterious. Just dirty, tacky and miserable. Homeless people begged for change every 20 feet, and every third store sold awful 'souvenirs'. Titty bars were everywhere, blasting music at painful levels and flashing bright lights in an effort to outdo the almost identical business across the street. The bordellos didn't seem to be much better. I went inside the 'Pink Paradise' so that you won't have to, and discovered that for €39 you can <censored> <censored> <censored> with a brunette, who will <censored> your <censored> <censored> and <censored> <censored> colander <censored> <censored> <censored> <censored> a tennis racket. The high point was actually the marijuana paraphernalia store and the wolfhound inside it. I made sure to give him lots of hugs. He seemed happy.

Berlin is far better.
A ten minute walk after getting off the train at the Hauptbanhof saw me standing at the Reichstag, a mightily impressive building made even more so with its history. I was surprised at its proximity to the Brandenburg Gate, situated about a kilometre away. Suitably imposing, it was crawling with tourists, and I didn't hang around long. All morning I could feel a head cold creeping up on me, and around lunch time it hit me with full force.
I haven't been that knocked around for a while, and spent the next 48 hours in bed sneezing green stuff into tissues that had the texture of 30 grit sandpaper. I actually had to change lodgings in the middle of this, and it's not something I ever wish to repeat.
I blame the fucking Wacken Festival.