Sep 21, 2012 - Germany - Hannover

6th September 2012 (Bed 77) Hanover was only going to be a stopover to break up our long drive to Amsterdam, with maybe a few sights to see when we arrived. By the time we got to Hannover neither of us could be bothered touring around. We decided to laze around the hotel and were even able to wash some clothes, with a real washing machine & dryer. How I miss my washing machine! The rest of the afternoon was spent relaxing and watching a few “Crown of Thorns” episodes. It was a nice end to the day ready for another 3¾ hour drive to...

Jul 30, 2012 - Planes, Trains, and Automobiles

Sitting here in an urban apartment in Hannover, it's hard to believe the events of the past 48 hours and all the adventures in transportation that led to being HERE, now. Starting with the Amtrak ride to Seattle, then a Lufthansa flight (nonstop) to Frankfurt, and then the Audi A4 rental car on the Autobahn to Hannover...it's been an adventure. While the train ride to Seattle was fairly relaxing, squeezing the family into a small room at the Holiday Inn Sea-Tac was not something I'll be doing again soon. We've officially outgrown hotel...

Jul 30, 2012 - Grocery heaven

Yesterday's post hinted that I was on my way to the neighborhood grocery store to make a supply run...one of my vacation pleasures that was probably not necessary due to our already plentiful groceries in the apartment, but I wanted to see for myself what a German grocery store had to offer and of course we needed more chocolate, and yogurt. John wanted to buy a few German beers. So, the kids stayed home and we walked two blocks to the "convenience store" which was similar in size to a Ray's market in Oregon. John headed straight for the...

Jun 29, 2012 - Dag 2

Dag 2. Vi startet dagen med å vente på den fantastiske bobilen! Ca. Kl. 14.00 fikk vi bilen og startet og laste den. Det var en stooooor bil Så startet ferden sørover med Johnny som sjåfør. Vi hadde ennå ikke bunkret mat og drikke og heller ikke tatt ut noen Euro fordi vi skulle på en fantaskisk camplingplass i nærheten av Gosslar hvor de hadde både restaurant og butikk. Vi kjørte i ca. 5 timer, gjennom et forferdelig regnevær (det regnet stålveps, ref. Lars Løkkevik) og endte opp langt oppe i fjellet, en gudsforlatt plass. En plass hvor...

Jun 15, 2011 - School and Excalibur

Hello, This will be as swift as I can make it as I am very tired and must get up early tomorrow. :-) We began the day visiting a 5th grade English class. They were very cute and very good. We then met with the students in the Junior club. I spoke to each one individually and they are doing very well. I also gave them the schedule for the next several days. Tomorrow, we meet with the city council and then in the evening - we have the school party. So we practiced our program. I should be able to download a video tomorrow. Be prepared and do...

Jun 12, 2011 - Susan's Diary June 12th

Today I got back from Berlin and wow, it was amazing! The reason I was going to Berlin is because my host's family has a son, Christian, a physiologist, who lives in the city and wanted to meet me. We drove the two hour trip with his girlfriend Nina to their apartment in the city. So that Saturday we took so many bus trips all around and they pointed out the interesting sightas: the Berlin Wall, the university, the parliament building, the Galleries Lafayette, the house where the president of parliament lives, the Sony Center....I took...

Jun 11, 2011 - Der erste Samstag - the first Saturday

Hallo - eins mehr. Today was Saturday in Deutschland. We were on our own. Many of the students went to Hannover to shop and see the sites. Did you know that Germany has McDonald's? They did not. :-) Jutta Sphor - our host - kindly took us to Hannover today as well. We visited a 40 year old Flea market. It seems that some Germans from Hannover visited France over 40 years ago and went to a flea market. They loved the experience so much that they brought it back to Hannover. Of course, being German, they made it much more organized. It was...

Sep 24, 2010 - Bound for Deutschland

Today we got up, packed and went down for breakfast. It was extremely busy in there, but while lining up for a drink I got talking to a girl on our tour. She was there in a group of eight, family and partners mainly. Surprisingly they were from Montrose, Croydon North and Kilsyth! After breakfast we left Amsterdam and headed east, passing Enschede and Osnabruck. We had a quick toilet stop and I stayed on the bus to write a postcard for my workmates. Next stop was in a town, I forget its name, where we had to stop due to Fabio's driving...

Sep 24, 2009 - Hannover

We left Horst & Magdalena’s on Monday 21 Sept. My parents were flying back to Canada on the 22nd, from Frankfurt (about 2 1/2 hours away), and we thought it best if we got our goodbye’s said and done the day before. We left some stuff at Horst & Magdalena’s place; as we knew we would be back in a week or so. We left fairly late in the day, as we only had about 220kms to go to our next destination, Hannover. This is the town that Barbies’ Mother’s family is from. Most of the family immigrated to Canada shortly after Barbie’s Mom in the early...

Oct 6, 2008 - Hannover with Teresa

On Saturday Teresa and I decided we wanted to go on an adventure. To do something we hadn't done before. Being limited on money and time we decided to go to Hannover together, a city about an hour south of Bremen. We met up in the morning in Bremen Hauptbahnhof and took the train to Hannover. In Hannover it was rainy and crowded and we decided shopping was not on the to do list today. We were hungry so we set out on our search for food. Which ended up being an hour adventure on the kinda creepy subways there. Which are confusing. Originally...

Sep 14, 2005 - Nice welcome to Hannover

I caught a late morning train to Hannover, Germany this morning, which I almost missed. It wasn't too bad saying goodbye since Dave and I are meeting up in about 5 days in Munich for Oktoberfest. I can't wait for that! I chatted with a really nice guy from Mexico on the train. It's not everyday you meet someone travelling from there. I got into the station in Hannover and Sebastian met me there. Sebastian did an exchange program last year in Canada and lived with my aunt and uncle Michael and Evangeline for a year. I met him last June at...

Aug 13, 2005 - Michelle - Hannover, Germany

Yesterday we had an interesting introduction to Germany. We had just crossed the border on the train, and someone decided to siesta on the railway tracks and our train ran them over! Apart from the emergency brakes making the train smell really bad, (and another strange smell coming in through the air condtioning - but I'm not going to even think just what!) we had to stay where we were whilst the police did their investigation for over two hours. Not bad going, I'm sure it would have taken much longer in Aus! We then got going and the next...