Hanseatic Haul

Last week I was in Hamburg and more or less had my whole day planned out from 8:30 to 22:30 or so. Thankfully, both hotel and office are right in the city center so it is possible to squeeze in a leetel bit of power shopping after lunch or before dinner. On the first night, I left the office a bit earlier and went to my two must-visit-shops in Hamburg, Habitat and Massimo Dutti, none of which we have in Austria. At Massimo Dutti, I picked up two very nice sleeveless tops. The one on the right is actually much brighter in real life, the same green in fact as my beloved "dog jumper":

At Habitat, I bought a set of 4 patterned espresso cups and saucers as well as a desk lamp (not pictured). Without the carton, the lamp just fit into my suitcase, phew.  Well, I needed a lamp, I love Habitat, and it was inexpensive. Deal! I did definitely not need either of the things below, but I loved them too much to leave behind....

My little powershopping session finished, I took a shortcut through the chic department store Alsterhaus, entering through the rear doorsand exiting through the front entrance. Well, this is what I was telling myself anyway, fully aware of the fact that this shortcut would lead me past the leather goods. As in handbag. As in really NICE handbags. Raise your hand if you think that there was nothing to catch my eyes. Really? Go and stand in the corner and when you're back at your desk write down the name of this blog 100 times in your neatest handwriting. The inevitable happened and I spied a BREE bag in the craziest retina-piercing blue I had ever seen. I briefly fondled it, then snapped back into reality and told myself I would only purchase it if my Macbook Air fit into it since then I could rationalise it as a business travel accessory. You don't follow my train of thought? Well, then you are obviously not nearly as sad and addicted to bags as I am. Two days later, secretly afraid someone had snatched the beauty away from me, I returned in my lunch-break (boss in tow, who, it turned out, went to school with the CEO of BREE, Mr. Bree himself) with my Macbook (actually my colleague's one by accident, who panicked at the office while I was gone and she found her laptop missing, but that's another story...) and whipped out my credit card faster than I could spell "Toledo 3 in ocean" (the name, size and colour of the bag). The shop assistant would have given Rowan Atkinson in that famous scene in Love, Actually a run for his money as she painstakingly wiped the bag with a water-repellant foam, etc., twice telling me how EXCITED! she was that I had bought this bag in her favourite colour of all. Well, here it is, say "hi" to Toledo, sitting on my guest desk at the HAM office:

The picture doesn't do it justice, nor does the one on BREE's website - it is such a vivid blue with a high percentage of white in the mix.

Off to Dublin tomorrow, with a stopover in FRA where I bought another of those business travel bags last time. Wish me luck.