Our Final Adventure!

Hello all,

Today is our last day in Hannover. Tonight, Scott and I will take a train to Frankfurt tonight to then catch our flights in the morning. If all goes as plan, we should be home by Wednesday evening! Please pray for safe travels for Scott and I, and for no screaming babies sitting behind me on my flight this time!

I've had a wonderful trip, and I so blessed. But I'm anxious to get home as I know I have so much to do when I return. My family will be helping me move to Sacramento this Saturday as I begin my dietetic internship very soon. So when I get home, it will be a quick unpacking of my suitcase so I can then begin packing my life into boxes to move to my new place in Sacramento.

Things I miss:

1. Family, Friends, and Reggie (yes...I know even Reggie. Jara has a black cat here that makes me appreciate Reggie so much!)

2. Cooking/baking, vegetables, Mexican food

3. Understanding conversations at the dinner table

4. My pillow

5. Talking on the phone

A Castle and Sushi Boats

We are coming up on our final days in Germany. Last night we had a great time at Svenja's 18th birthday party, and Scott and I were able to hangout with many of Jara's friends for probably the last time.

This afternoon, Jara's mom drove us out 40 minutes outside of Hannover to the Marienburg Castle. The Castle was built in the late 1800s and was a birthday present from the Hanoverian King George V to his wife, Queen Mary. The castle is considered one of the most important neo-Gothic historical buildings in Germany.

Scott took advantage of Jara's Nintendo DS on our drive to the castle

The castle resides on a hill that overlooks valley of the River Leine. The drive up the hill is full of winding curves and lush, green forests. I understand why everything is so green here. It rains so often! It even rained on us at the castle.

Marienburg Castle

Me, Jara, and Scott at the entrance of the castle

Jara, Scott, and I took a guided tour of the castle, which lasted about an hour. The tour was in German but Scott and I got our own English audio guide to help us out.

Scott figuring out his audio guide

On the tour, we were unable to take pictures, so unfortunately, I don't have many pictures of the inside. But I was able to steal these two shots of the entrance hall BEFORE I was told (in English) no photography was allowed. :)

The ceiling of the Entrance Hall

Entrance of the Castle

While in the castle, we were able to see the dining room, library, kitchen, chapel, princesses' bedroom, queen's salon, and weapons room.

The old stables have been converted into a restaurant that looked really cute.

Castle's Courtyard

Tonight, Jara, Jara's friend, Alex, Scott, and I went out for sushi at Mr. Phung's Kabuki Sushi Bar. Sushi and other Japanese foods float on around the sushi bar on small boats on different colored plates which correspond to their pricing. We went for Happy Hour so the plates were half off! Plus, there is an additional menu.

The boats with plates of sushi floating on the river

We didn't sit at the sushi bar, because it was full when we arrived. Good thing we didn't because I would have devoured every plate floating around bar. Even if you don't sit at the sushi bar, you can go up to the river of sushi boats and just pick up a plate. So before I even ordered my roll of sushi, I went fishing for sushi. The down side...I didn't know what was inside what I was choosing (but it was good!). The up side...they're smaller portions, which allows you to try a lot of different things. Plus they're half off!

This is what I fished out of the river

Jara and I both ordered this roll...Sake Avocado Maki (salmon and avocado roll)

Three Things I Learned Today:

1. Hannover was annexed by Prussia. (Prussia Pride!)

2. I can't be left alone with sushi floating on boats or bad things happen.

3. I'm moving to Sacramento at the end of this week!!! It hit me this morning.

A Fair To Remember

It has been raining every day here for the past week. This may sound odd, but I am starting to miss Bakersfield's weather. So during the day we have mostly kept indoors except for some errands here and there. Today, we helped Svenja clean/set-up for her birthday party, which will be Saturday in a large party hall.

Thankfully, last night the rain ceased, because we went to Hannover's bi-yearly fair or festival on the city's large lake. The festival is called Maschseefest. It is nothing like the Kern County Fair. There are no farm animals, rides, or fried oreos. It basically consists of food and alcohol booths and dance clubs that line the river.

Jara's Mom's photo-op

Maschseefest

At the festival with the lake in the background

I was told the night before from one of Jara's friends that I NEEDED to try a Kinder crepe at this festival. Kinder is a popular chocolate bar here. So my mission for the night...demolish a Kinder crepe. I succeeded!

Svenja and I with our crepes

Scott, on the other hand, had another mission. He wanted to demolish some German meat. Meat definitely was not hard to find at this festival. With every five steps you were able to come across some type of booth selling meat mainly bratwurst and currywurst. Scott found a type of meat/sausage that he hasn't had yet...schinkengriller.

Meat Galaore!

The Schinkengriller and Scott

Also, we found out that Hannover is famous for their pretzels, so Jara and Svenja treated us to HUGE pretzel. They were delicious! This festival is also famous for this beer that has a lot of fruit in it. They assured me that I would like this beer, but all I did was fish out the fruit on the bottom. The beer wasn't my cup of tea.

Beer with fruit at the bottom

While we were in the biergarten aka beer garden, we met up with some of Jara's friends. Later while trying to chat with Jara's friends in English (it takes a little longer to have a conversation while they think of English words), two guys approached our table because they heard us speaking English. These two guys, one studied aboard in Texas and the other in New Zealand, were excited to hear English and wanted to talk with us. Come to find out, one of the guys was a National Junior Olympic Swimmer for Germany. Scott and I were excited that we could carry out an English conversation!

After the biergarden, we went to one of the dance clubs at the festival. It was full of people. I could barely get my groove on!

This one is for you mom...Tina Turner made her appearance at the festival

This One's For You Dad

Yesterday was pretty relaxing at least for Scott and I. Jara's best friend's, Svenja, birthday is today. However, in Germany, when someone turns eighteen, friends and family gather to celebrate at the stroke of midnight. Jara was busy yesterday preparing Svenja's presents. Jara made a very extravagant birthday cake (two layers of chocolate cake, homemade butter cream frosting, and topped with hazelnuts and chocolate shavings). It says London on the top, because Svenja's parents gave her a shopping trip to London!

Jara also gave her many other gifts, and we traveled to the city center aka downtown to help Jara shop for them. While downtown, I went in the largest bookstore in Hannover in hopes that they would have a selection of English books, since I finally finished the book Kaitlin let me borrow for the trip. Sure enough, the bookstore did have an English section, though small (about 3 columns of shelves and a table) it still carried the book I was hoping to find!

As you know I'm a foodie so this should come as no surprise that I'm about to talk about grocery stores in Hannover. My dad has a few questions and is curious to see what they look like. So here is a culture lesson for some of you.

As I have mentioned before, Germans along with Europeans do things on a much smaller scale compared to Americans. For example, their cars, garages, ice cream scoops, and super-sized McDonald meals. Grocery stores are no exception. As I mentioned in a previous blog, Germans don't just have a one-stop shop for their grocery shopping. They go to the butcher, the grocery store, and the bakery. There are a few grocery stores that combined these services into one store. But these stores are not like your typical Vons or Winco where there are aisles on end of everything you can imagine. The grocery stores here in Hannover have about 7 aisles MAX.

The grocery stores still carry your typical items: produce, dairy, packaged meats, frozen foods, beverages, pet food, canned goods, etc. It is just that everything is on a much smaller scale. The produce sections is small. Not too many vegetables. :( For the first time in my life I saw baby carrots canned in a glass jar. Apparently, Grimmway Farms hasn't reached Hannover.

In Thailand last summer, I noticed there were so many new fruits that I had never seen before. But here, the only fruit that is out of the norm is lingonberries. Also, the asparagus here is white and the stalk is much thicker. Leeks are also very common here along with radishes.

Lingonberries

There are very few brands that I recognize. Some of the common kids' cereals and granola bars, Nutella, and candy/gum.

Anything look familiar?

Though the grocery store provides a grocery cart, no one except the elderly use them. When I went to the checkout counter, I was in shock at the amount of food people were purchasing! My thought was 'how long is that apple juice, sausage, and yogurt going to last you? Four hours? Then you come back to the store again?' In America, our carts are full of groceries as if we are hoarding for the next World War.

Also, you have to PAY for your grocery bags. There are 9 cents a bag, so you must pack wisely if you have a bag at all! My brother and I were naive to this fact. So when we saw a man stash his yogurts in his backpack while shopping, we thought he was shoplifting. Jara then clued us in that he was not in fact stealing but using his backpack as a bag. Very common here.

The yellow bags are to purchase

But then again, the size of their refrigerators are SMALL! I thought Jara's family just had a smaller one since only two people live here. But when I visit other homes with families of 4 or 5 people, the size of the refrigerator is the same! (And they don't have an extra freezer in the garage either!) Jara's refrigerator is located underneath the countertop!

The top section is the freezer! My first thought was 'How will ice cream ever fit in there?!'

What I've observed of the German diet is that they eat a lot of sausage, pork, and salami. Chicken, fish, and turkey are hard to come by. One, two, or three potato dishes are served with a meal. They have a large selection of gravies, but the most common is hollandaise sauce (my brother's favorite). Even though chocolate is so common here, the desserts are without chocolate! Most of the dessert included cherries or some type of berry with yogurt and cookies baked into cake-like dish. I'm not complaining...they are delicious.

Today, I ventured byself to downtown, because it was already 3:00 in the afternoon and Scott or Jara were awake yet!! Yes, you read that right...3:00 PM. So I went back to the bookstore to browse some more books and cookbooks, window shopped, and had my first bratwurst sandwich.

Hannover's downtown

Bratwurst Sandwich

Don't worry Scott and Jara were awake when I returned. Tonight, we are off to Cafe & Bar Celona (get it...Barcelona) to have cocktails for Svenja's birthday.

Sorry this blog is so long!

Three Things I Learned Today:

1. I know how to get to the city's center all on my own.

2. I really miss vegetables.

3. People stare at you funny when you take pictures of the grocery store.

History Came Alive Today

When I last wrote/talked to you, we had some transportation issues. Well, those transportation issues fail to cease. On Friday, we had reservations with Enterprise Car Rental yes the same company as in America (Enterprise..."We'll pick you up!"). Sure enough, they picked us up to take us to the rental office. They ran out of compact cars, so they upgraded (for free) to the next class of cars. This would be a VW Passat instead of a VW Golf. In America, this would of been great, but in Germany, the roads are barely wide enough to handle two VW Golfs. Cars have to drive on the sidewalk to let other cars pass. So a larger car, only added to my concern at driving in Germany.

This is Jara's mom's garage for her car. It's TINY. Jara's mom can barely squeeze out of her car. Use Scott to get a perspective on the height.

But don't you worry...in the end we weren't able to rent a car. Little did we know, you had to have a 250 Euro deposit on top of the rental fee. We were unaware of this, and both Jara and I didn't have enough money in our accounts to afford this. So we left Enterprise empty handed. But we were able to make the most of it, and purchase a day pass on the subway/bus and toured other parts of Hannover. We took the subway out to EXPO Plaza, IKEA :), and the country side.

It's like we have never seen an IKEA before

Then on Saturday, Scott and I ventured by ourselves to Hannover's city center aka downtown. We did a little shopping, and found an amazing little kiosk that made my day. The name explains itself...

Scott took this picture for me. I was too embarrassed. Anyhow, they sell ice cream. They custom make Magnums (the ice cream bar), and any other ice cream you can imagine.

I was able to make it on the Autobahn today, though I wasn't the one driving. Jara's mom took us to Bergen-Belsen (the concentration camp). It is about an hour outside of Hannover. There was even a traffic jam on the Autobahn! Also, I didn't realize how much farmland there was in Germany. There was so much alongside the Autobahn.

The Autobahn

What I didn't realize or learn in school was that Bergen-Belsen was not only used as a concentration for Jews but as a POW camp for mostly Soviet soldiers.

The Bergen-Belsen Memorial consisted of an Exhibition, which was more like the history of the camp and the grounds that contained the camps. The Exhibition was full of first-hand video footage (very hard to watch), artifacts (buttons, uniforms, barbed wire, belt buckles, etc.), pictures, and information. I had goosebumps the whole time we were there. There was even a cafeteria there!! Who would eat after seeing this stuff?

The cold, bleak Exhibition

The grounds. There are no longer buildings just trees, flowers, memorials, tombstones, and mass graves.

A mass grave. (I didn't know until Jara's mom explained what it meant)

The British created these graves stones. If you can see...1,000 tote means 1,000 people are buried here. There were SO many of these here with different numbers. Over 52,000 Jews were killed here.

Scott and I looked in the books of names of those who resided at Bergen-Belsen. There were over 40 people with the last name of Franz. We watched some footage on a man named Christian Franz who was persecuted at Bergen-Belsen for being a gypsy.

Jara's mom and I bonded today. She hasn't spoke much English while we have been here, but she does know some. Today while walking on the grounds of Bergen-Belsen, she told me that her father's family had to flee to West Germany to escape the Nazis. Her mother's father was a Nazi soldier, and he refused to speak to about anything when he returned after the war.

Anne Frank and her family were moved from Auschwitz to Bergen-Belsen. Everyone in her family, except her father, Otto, was killed here.

Today is Sunday, which means tonight was family dinner. Jara's grandma and sister came over for a lovely meal of stuffed bell peppers. Then I started this blog, until I got distracted when Jara's friend, Jannis, came over. We played quite a few games of cards on the balcony. Their balcony is SO beautiful. It overlooks the park, and everything is so green and lush here. Plus, the temperature is ideal. It is just like San Diego's, but it rains a lot more here.

Three Things I Learned Today:

1. Germans, while driving on the Autobahn, put on their emergency flashers when braking for a traffic jam. (Probably because they drive so stinkin' fast!)

2. Anne Frank and her sister, Margaret, died at Bergen-Belsen.

3. Prostitutes in Germany stay in trailers off the side of the road. We witnessed a few today.

Confusion Followed By Comfort Foods

We finally made it to Hannover! Actually, we arrived a day earlier than we thought but by a different mode of transportation! We learned a valuable lesson on Monday night while at the Barcelona train station. ALWAYS check your train tickets even if they are in German. Scott and my train ticket (given to us as one ticket) said that there would be two women riding on the night train plus Jara (who had her own ticket). When we were about to board the train, the ticket collector gave us a funny look and then said Scott couldn't board the train, because this was the women's cabin. The train was full for that evening, so they wouldn't allow us on board! We even offered to sleep in the dining car! We were desperate since there wasn't another train leaving for Paris/Hannover in over 24 hours!

So we travelled 45 minutes by bus to the airport. We got to the airport about 15 minutes before the ticket counters closed for the night. We found a flight to Hamburg (about 1.5 hours outside of Hannover) for noon the next day (Tuesday), but by the time we contacted our parents (for emergency funds) the ticket booth had closed. We spent the night in the airport, and met some very interesting individuals. We couldn't sleep, so we stayed awake playing card games and crossword puzzles until noon the next day to catch our flight (which was delayed another hour). Purchasing a crossword puzzle book the day before may have been the best decision of my life! Thank you Grandma Rose for getting me addicted to them!

We arrived in Hamburg to then catch a train to Hannover. Needless to say, we are alive and well in Hannover! We were exhausted and smelly upon arrival, but Jara's mom made us a delicious welcome home dinner, which filled our bellies for a good night's rest as we each slept about 14 hours!

Jara's Mom made us this Swedish dessert to welcome us home. The combination of ingredients are so unique: Applesauce, Vanilla Ice Cream, and Egg Liquor. It was delicious!!

Yesterday was our first full day home, and what we thought would be a relaxing day turned into a crazy day! Jara and I went for a run after waking up around noon. While on our run through the park, Jara tripped and fell on the gravel rocks. She cut open the palm of her hand. We didn't think too much of it, but when her mom got home she wanted to take Jara to the hospital. So Scott and I got a tour of a German hospital yesterday. Jara is doing well, the doctor just had to clean the wound better so there wouldn't be an infection. The German hospital wasn't white and cold like America's, but concrete and warm inside. A similarity between the two countries hospitals...the wait time isn't any shorter!

Today was also a very relaxing day as we just hung around the house, did some laundry, and watched about the whole season nine of Friends. Oh also, we were on the phone with the train people for about an hour begging and pleading for a refund on our stupid train tickets...a refund is still to be determined.

We decided that we missed certain foods from the countries that we had visited, so night was devoted to cooking our favorite things. Scott wanted the hamburger with a fried egg and ham that he had tried in Barcelona. Jara and I both wanted Nutella crepes like we had in Paris. But we decided that we had to have a real dinner first, so we fixed ourselves the most magnificent sandwiches similar to those we tried in the Paris cafes.

My Sandwich

Scott was SO proud of his replication of the Barcelona Egg Burger

Scott's reaction after tasting his burger...

My Nutella Crepe with Caramel Ice Cream...my reaction after the first bite was similar to Scott's hamburger reaction :)

Tomorrow, we are renting a car to drive to Bergen-Belsen, a former concentration camp. Pray for me and the other drivers on the road, as I take on the Autobahn in a VW Golf!!!! Yes Amy...a VW Golf :)

Three Things I Learned in the Past Two Days:

1. In Hannover, you recycle your bottles/cans at the grocery store.

2. People flying from the Barcelona airport have a real fetish for saran-wrapping their entire suitcase. I don't see the point. I tried to get a picture of this without being too stalkerish, but it never worked out.

3. Germans don't cook their oatmeal, but eat it cold with milk!! Eww! I taught Jara how to microwave her oatmeal and add a touch of brown sugar...her eyes have been opened!