Thursday, July 29, 2010

Reflection Photo!



Here is a picture from a party that was given to me
(by all of my amazing friends at the BAPL) before I left.


I am missing the Library!

Soccer





Soccer is huge here! During the FIFA World Cup 2010 it seemed as though everyone here was watching the games. Flags were on car mirrors, in windows, and draped around people. It is too bad that the Octopus picked Spain as a win because it sure would have been fun if Germany won. Plus, the German team was on fire! We had a trip to the Bier Garten planned (What a Bummer)!

Tuesday, July 27, 2010

Parks and Playgrounds!






Germany parks and playgrounds are brought to a whole new level. I have some pictures to share with you today. But I could have taken many more.















Here is the playground low-down; some have fountains and water, some have trampolines, some have pulleys that you can slide on, some have metal domes for soccor/scateboarding (I guess), some have big bubbles that you can jump on and some have hanging swings that are in a circle and can swirl you around. The list goes on, and the parks are scattered throughout Hannover. You can usually find one about every five or six blocks. Some nights we go on a bike tour of about 4 or 5 of them.

Monday, July 26, 2010

Serenading!


The other morning there was a man serenading on our street! If you guessed Chris, you were wrong! If you guessed it was for me, you were wrong again. He was doing it for money! It was very nice!
This man was playing an accordion. We are on the fourth floor. People from apartments nearby were throwing money out their windows. They say money doesn't grow on trees, but today would have been a good day to check the trees.

Thursday, July 22, 2010


I have heard of making wine in your basements, but now I know that you can make soda too. I think I prefer the wine, but I do think the idea of making soda is pretty cool and different. In the grocery stores they sell concentrated soda flavorings and carbonation mixes. Here is a picture!
Oh yeah, the grocery stores also sell every kind of alcohol and beer that you could imagine and it is cheap. Lovin' it!!!!
All I need now is some visitors to share this great stuff with.

Wednesday, July 21, 2010

The Promenade de Anglais!



Monday, I told you a little about the Promenade de Anglais. Here are some pictures of it during the day.

Difference for today!


Doesn't this look like yogurt! I knew "Milch" meant milk, but I still grabbed it thinking it was banana yogurt. What it really is, is banana flavored milk. I don't know how it is typically used, but I do know that it tastes great in a bowl with oat cereal.

Tuesday, July 20, 2010


Want to know what the kids do with every second of free time?
Here you see it!

A night out in Nice!




Nice is beautiful at Night. Promenade de Anglais is a street that is parallel with the water and is lined with palm trees. Eating Gelatis and walking down this street is a popular and fun thing to do. As we walked down it we saw many people roller blading. Some even had a little obstacle courses set up. To the far east of Nice, between old town and the Port of Nice is Castle Hill. They have lights that are light up throughout the hill at night. What a magnificent sight!!
For dinner, we eat right in Old Town. The French sure do know how to cook an amazing meal. The kids claim it was the best they have ever had. Hannah and I liked the roses. People walk around selling roses. Our sweet dad/husband got us each one.

Monday, July 19, 2010

Jugger










I have more pictures and stories about France, but today I wanted to tell you a little about Jugger. It is a sport that is played frequently in Europe. Tannere was asked by a friend to join his team in a game. He went, had a blast and told me all about it. It is apparently a little like rugby and a little like fencing. They use these big foam bats to block players from the other team. I have posted some pictures from the internet.

Friday, July 16, 2010

Where we stayed in Nice, France!





















The two top photos here were taken outside of our window in Nice. We were in Old Town Nice. For us, it was exactly where we wanted to be. Old Town Nice is what it's name states "Old". As you can see it is narrow cobble stone streets. I loved all of the shutters and the flowers. Within this area is Cours Saleya, which is a strip that sells many things. Specialties:fresh fruits, vegetables and flowers.




















At night time this strip turns in to a restaurant haven. The tents that were used for the market turn into setting areas for the restaurants. It is always hoppin in Old Town Nice.

Thursday, July 15, 2010

Our Trip to Nice France!







We did a lot of different things in Nice and I took a lot of photos. So, I will be breaking the Nice trip up into a couple of posts.
Snorkeling was my favorite thing to do in Nice. We had the whole front of the boat to ourselves. So, the boat ride to the snorkeling site was almost as much fun as snorkeling itself. I took several snapshots in my mind of the scenery because it was like I could have never imagined it could be. The water is a clean gray/blue color. We saw a lot of different kinds of fish that I have ever seen before. When we were done snorkeling we sunbathed, swam and had some drinks.
Doesn't it sound perfect! It was!

Wednesday, July 14, 2010

Outside Tannere's window!


This is a view of outside Tannere's bedroom window. It is beautiful. All tall complexes with lots of cobble stone streets. Volkswagen has a building not that far from us. At night a tower of theirs lights up. It can be seen from this window too.

Monday, July 12, 2010

Totally Irrelevant to this blog!


Just wondering if anyone has ever seen such beautiful toes and such a cool toe ring?

The beautiful Maschsee Lake





We took a boat ride around this lake. It is right in Hannover. There is paddle boating and sail boating available. The kids were begging for a paddle boat ride, but I lug the kids around all the time. The last thing I was up for was paddling them across a lake in this heat (it is always fun, when mom does all the rowing). There is also a beach area. We will have to give that a try one day.

Thursday, July 8, 2010

Difference for today!


Water or Wasser
There is nothing I love more than a cold glass of water. Especially in the the heat of summer. (Which by the way I heard it is unusually hot in Pa at the moment-SORRY). Here water is more typically served as carbonated water. If you ask for water at a restaurant, you are most likely going to get it carbonated. If you indicate that you would like it still, then they will most likely provide you with still water but it will be out of a bottle. No freebies with the huge glasses of tap water. Also, they don't use nearly as much ice as we use. Sometimes you get none. Judy, you were right, Cokes just are not the same!

Wednesday, July 7, 2010

Local Swimming Pool



There is a pool that is a very short bus drive away from us. After our bikes arrive (via sea shipment) we will be riding our bikes to the pool. The diving boards are the best. Thank goodness the two top ones were closed off for the day, I know Hannah would have went off in a heart beat and my heart would have skipped a few beats. The pool grounds were gorgeous. There were three pools in a line with each other. Each for a different type of leisure activity. One for the diving, one for swimming laps and one for recreational swimming. Then there was a big grassy area with a playground.

Tuesday, July 6, 2010

Difference for today!


When ordering french fries (a common staple in the States), you are given a choice "would you like them with ketchup and mayonnaise?". Well I love ketchup on my fries so when I was asked I said yes to both. What the heck, I was willing to give the mayonnaise on my fries a try. What we received was very different that what I expected. The ketchup for fries is a sauce that appears to be a mixture of something like our ketchup and curry. The mayonnaise for fries is like our mayonnaise watered down. We ate it. We didn't love it, but we ate it. Maybe we will be ketchup and mayonnaise lovers by the time we leave Germany, but for now I learned how to say "pommes frites ohne ketchup and mayonnaise", which means french fries without ketchup and mayonnaise. As we have been exploring the area we have learned that a lot of places here serve french fries and they all have these special sauces.



Our First Day Trip
We have decided to get to know the city that we live in by taking a trip to the Town Hall in Hannover Germany. It was Gorgeous. The kids and I loved the lilly pads. They had a huge pond filled with them right in front of the building. We also noticed birds near the pond that we had never seen before.




















Linda, if you are reading this then realize that I will be looking to you to try to determine their identity. We took the UBahn to the town hall. Since the children are going to be attending school in Lower Saxony in the fall, they are entitled to cheaper UBahn/Bus passes. This will be very helpful to us. I believe that it even goes as far North as Bremen, which is by the Baltic Sea.

Sunday, July 4, 2010



Our adventure began several months before we left, with all of our packing and goodbyes. Although, I am going to start by posting our airport experiences.
We were only allowed to have one bag (under 50lbs) per person and a carry on. I opted to spend $50. extra per person for an extra bag. Believe me, it was necessary. We spend several hours the night before weighing and measuring our suitcases. The only problem was that European cars are typically a little smaller and Chris (my husband) was going to be picking us up at the Frankfurt airport. He is temporarily using a company car. It is a compact BMW. Being a BMW it obviously drives very smoothly, but it is not big. We managed to fit it all in the car, and somehow managed to seatbelt the kids. They had a little trouble seeing Germany through the cramped up car, but we had arrived and they knew it! Our adventure was about to begin!

Greetings!

Hello friends, family and followers. I finally have internet and am ready to start blogging.

We have meet a very patient nice German gentleman named Nelson. Nelson works for for a phone and internet provider here in Germany. He has kindly explained to us how the internet and phone systems work in Germany. After reviewing and singing a Germany written phone and internet contract and having Nelson assured us that we had not signed our kids over to the Germany government, we patiently awaited our internet devices. The good news is that internet is significantly cheaper in Germany. When we told him how surprised we were, he said "This is Germany". To have wireless service, a land-line phone connection and three Sim cards for cell phones it will only cost us 45 Eros for the month. That is approx. $65.

Ok, so this is the goal of my blog. I hope to share with everyone my experiences of moving to Germany with my family. I hope to teach everyone about the cultural differences and share my families plan on how we will attempt to bridge these differences to live comfortably and fully enjoy our experience here. Along our way we expect to hit some roadblocks, but in the end we hope to be able to become more diverse and develop a better understanding of what is outside of the only world that we knew of.

I will post frequently. I have a lot of catching up to do, so I will start by posting our first two weeks here a little at a time.