Volleyball...and by Volleyball I mean Handball

So Christian and I were talking last week about sports and when I told him I enjoy playing volleyball he said he knew a few people at work who play. So the next day he calls me to let me know that not only does he play but this coworker plays right here in Ahlem (my part of the city of Hannover) on Monday and Tuesday nights. Well, cool I thought. So tonight, after dinner, Christian says to me, "well Amy, aren't you going to see if they are playing tonight?" "Oh goodness" I reply, very nervously. And Christian says, "Yeah, I think they play around 8 pm at the elementary school where Elea goes." "Ok," I say and think to myself, "Oh no, what have I gotten myself into...but I have to put myself out there to meet people, so here goes..."

So I head up to the elementary school around 7:40 (everyone gets there early) with my sport stuff in tow. I get to the school and ask a man who is standing outside if he plays volleyball, well he didn't so I asked if he knew if people played volleyball here tonight and he said he thought they played at the Sporthall (just down the road - ca. 2 min by bike). Well, I knew where that was so I head up there. Outside the hall are two girls about my age, one of whom I know, she is Elea's handball coach. Well, I think, this looks like it is probably handball, but I will ask anyway.

I was right, it was handball, and the girls (by this time there were about 5 or 6) had no idea where volleyball was being played but invited me to stay and play handball. I laughed a bit and said not only had I never played handball but I have never even seen a game played. They said it didn't matter and that I could stay and watch/play or ride home in the rain. So I stayed.

So tonight was a huge letdown when it came to playing volleyball but a huge success when it comes to meeting people. I have been invited to keep practicing with them, every Monday and Wednesday and we talked about going out together on weekends!

ps Handball is great fun. It is kind of like basketball except the ball is like a small soccer ball, one can take three steps while holding the ball, and is a heck of a lot more physical oh yeah and you shoot the ball into a small soccer goal of sorts and not a basket. I wasn't too bad...

Firework Competition

When I arrived in Germany, my family gave me a gift, a ticket to a firework competition for the night of September 27th. So last night we went. We walked around the garden and saw all the fountains lit up and a few bands playing and then at 9 pm the Canadian firework team perform fireworks to music. It was really neat. My camera has a firework setting so I had fun trying to work that out...but all the fireworks look like they are on drugs. Here are two of my favorites:

End of September...

I cannot believe it is the end of September already. Well, in Germany (usually just in the south) the end of September brings a very famous, or should I say infamous, festival: Oktoberfest. Well due to lack of funds and last minute planning some of my friends and I stayed here and celebrated Hannover's Oktoberfest. It began last night and goes until the 10th of October. We had a great time dancing, prosting, and walking around seeing all the crazy games and rides (that may or may not have had many safety inspections..haha).

Plus if I needed a reminder...which I don't really...I work for a very nice and thoughtful family. They all went to the library today (I opted to swim, more on that later..) and Petra came home with three books for me. Recently, well this past week, I have read two books by Cecelia Ahern, P.S. I Love You and Where Rainbows End and I really enjoyed them. She had brought me two of Ms. Ahern's books in German and one in English. She said it wouldn't be very difficult German and she thinks I can do it. I felt very, taken care of. It was really sweet.

Lastly I went swimming today at the Stadionbad (a swimming pool next to the stadium). It was an amazing 50m pool with all the bells and whistles. The only bad part...it is a 35 minute bike ride from my house. Needless to say, it was a long, slow ride home.

Ich war eine Schwarzfahrerin

So yesterday, Sunday, I went to visit Emily in Edewecht, a small, very small, city outside of Oldenburg. It is a 2.5 hour train ride that takes me from Hannover through Bremen and through Oldenburg and then to Bad Zwischenahn, where Emily picked me up.

We enjoyed a the beautiful day with a nice lunch with the family she works for and then biked 30 minutes to Bad Zwischenahn where we walked around, got some ice cream and talked on the nice lake they have. I had only a wallet with me so I asked Emily to hold it in her purse. And on our bike ride home I thought to myself, "I have to make sure not to forget my wallet," but then I thought, "I would never do that, it has everything that is important in it."

Well, I was dropped off at the train station in Bad Zwischenahn and road the train 45 min to Bremen. While waiting at the train station, I looked through my bag to realize that I had forgotten my wallet in Emily's purse (of course). My wallet has everything in it: my ticket, my money, my photo id...alles! So I didn't know what else to do but get off the train in Bremen, because I would be in big trouble if the controller came by, and then I called Petra and Christian crying. They were so nice and said, ok we will figure out what is going to happen and we will call you back. They called me back with a plan. I was picked up by Petra's parents, who live in Bremen, about 15 minutes away from the bahnhof, and stayed the night with them. They were planning on coming to visit Hannover anyway today (Monday) and would take me with them. (It was nice to see them again anyway.)

Emily's family is going to send my wallet to me. Thankfully everything worked out, but when Christian explained The Plan to me, I said to him (as I was walking through the bahnhof) "Thank you so much, I am goign to cry again, but this time it is because I am happy and thankful"...I think he thinks I am a little crazy...oh well.

I am lucky to have people here who care about me...

My New Love

No...it's not what you are thinking....I have not fallen in love with anyone here, but rather I have re-fallen in love with Harry Potter! For those of you who don't know, and it's probably very few, I am obsessed with Harry Potter and now, I think, my obsession has reached new levels. The Kirchberg Family has the Harry Potter books on tape...in German! Not only is it a great learning tool, but I can also shut myself up in my room for hours listening to this story.

And don't worry mom, I don't listen when I am supposed to be working....

A Differences List

I feel like I have two Heimats...one in Dayton, Ohio and one here in my beloved Deutschland. I love them both for their uniqueness but there are many differences. Here are some that I have noticed after about 6 weeks.

Differences between Germany and the United States
Germany
bikes...everywhere
young people don't have cars
everyone has glasses and they are all fashionable
the city center is for pedestrians
people don't need to attend university
smaller refridgeraters
less leftovers (often the food is thrown out)
less plastic bags
more public transportation
alcohol is sold everywhere
bars are open until the last person leaves
lunch is the big meal of the day
traveling between countries is more common

United States
the school system is way less complicated
eat less bread
more 'exercise for the sake of exercising' focused
children have more homework
children are more independent - in some ways they are more independent in Germany, but I would say
children are independent in more ways in the States
more welcoming
more friendly on the streets
more vegetables

Weekend With Emily!

So Emily came to visit this weekend from Edewecht (a small city outside of Oldenburg). She arrived on Friday evening and I introduced her to Hannover by first introducing her to Giovanni's a world award winning ice cream here in Hannover (man, was it tasty). We came home, dropped off her things and headed back into the city to hang out with some other au pairs for the eveing.




Saturday was a full day! We woke up, rode our bikes into the city and meet Jenna and Chelsey (two Hannover au pairs) for our trip to Hameln, the city where the Pied Piper, well, piped. The city was full of tourists and it was a lot of fun. We followed these rats around town to see all the cool and interesting sites in the city. After biking home, we got ready to hang out in the city for the second night in a row (I know, party animals, right...haha) We visited a few bars, almost karaoked (thank goodness we didn't), and had a lot of fun.

Sunday was another great day. We visited the Royal Gardens in Hannover, one of the best in the country, according to the Fodor's Germany 2006 book (but really it was amazing!). The beautiful gardens were built around a castle, but the castle was destroyed during the war and never rebuilt but the gardens still remain. Then we gathered upvisited the city one last time before sending her back to Edewecht. I can't wait to
visit her!

Note: I am going to post all my pictures on flickr soon and I will post the website when that happens!













I hope everyone is doing well and I hope to hear from you!

My Journey to Stadionbad

Okay, so today was a day of firsts and a journey (I know even after a month, yes one month, I still have a whole day of firsts... how cool!) After class and lunch, I took the girls, Indra and Elea to their gymnastics training by myself. It is about 30 minutes by car and while they were practicing I went grocery shopping by myself. When we finally got home around 6:30ish I decided I was going to go to the indoor pool by the Football Stadium. It is past the city center, so Petra explained how to get there saying it would take about 35 minutes. So I get on my bike and not five minutes into the ride my chain comes off. Well, I tried to put it back on, but that only got my hands really really dirty. So I walked the bike home and Christian, who was just finishing dinner, helped me put it back on saying that then I could still make it to the pool. (it closed at 10:30...or so I thought). So after a couple detours, I finally made it to the pool to find out that it was closed until Sept. 14th. So I biked home using only the hardest gears because well, after the chain incident we didn't quite realign the gears properly. When I finally got home around 8:45 I walked in the house and saw Christian. I said, "Yeah, the pool was closed" and he responded, "It says that on their website that I showed you yesterday". Then I thought "well that would have been nice to know at 6:30..." haha
Well at least I got a good bike ride in right...because now I am eating Haribo gummies.

Zum Zentrum

My fabulous bike:



The city center is about 6.1 kilometers away.


I take the bike path along the canal and the river to get there. It takes me about 30 minutes (I go a bit slower because then I won't be sweating when I arrive).


I follow these arrows to get there (for the most part):







I go over about four or five bridges.









This is me riding my bike!

My Class

So I started my German class last week...and I LOVE it! It is Monday through Thursday from 9:15-12:30. After getting the kids dressed, fed, and ready for school, I drop them off and then bike to my class. It takes me about 30 minutes to get there. It is a pretty intensive course, but that is the best way to learn I think. I am the only native English speaker in my class of 12 (how cool...right!)

The class is in a part of Hannover called Nordstadt and it is a pretty cool part of the city. There are parts of the university near by and I think it is a pretty young area (this could be totally wrong, but it is just what I notice when I bike each day).

I definately prefer to buy books here as my text and workbook cost me under 30€ total! I do have a bit of homework each night but nothing to hard. All in all I am really glad I decided on this course.

Happy Birthday Papa!

Herzlichen Glückwünsch zum Geburtstag Papa!
I love you!

Pictures from Hamburg

Here is a link to Emily's web album from our trip to Hamburg. As previously mentioned, I forgot my camera so Emily took 2x the photos....enjoy!!

Baking a Cake

Matti and I baked a pound cake today. The baked cake was almost as good as the dough!

Hamburg

This past weekend Emily, another au pair, and I headed to Hamburg to tour the city, relax a bit, and get to know each other. We had an absolute wonderful time. Hamburg is a beautiful city full of history, culture, and well, people!

Here is a map of where we were:
Our trip to Hamburg

We arrived on Friday evening at the Hauptbahnhof and my cousin Alex (she is 20 and working int he city until school starts in October) met us at the airport and, Gott sei dank, helped us find our hostel. She took us to the street festival were we grabbed dinner and a drink.

Saturday was a very full day (we were up for 24 hours!). We both woke up around 7:30 so decided to just get ready and head out to the city. We felt like we saw everything! We got back to the hostel changed and got coffee at the nearby cafe with our roommate Piere. As we got back up to our room to get ready for the night, Alex called and invited Emily and I to join them for dinner at a Portuguese place. The food was wonderful. I got swordfisch in a pepper sauce.

After dinner the five of us went to the top floor of a new hotel to see the beautiful view of the city. We walked a bit through the Reeperbahn (got some safety things...basically to stay on the main street so men don't think you are for sale) and then headed back to the hostel.

Well then Emily and I decided we weren't tired yet (it was about midnight) so we headed right back to the Reeperbahn where we stayed until 5 am. It was so crowded and really fun! Around 4:30 we met three guys from Dubai who were speaking English, they were very nice and were also headed to the Fischmarkt, so we went together. It is about 1 km from the Reeperbahn.

At 5 am every Sunday, the Fischmarkt opens with live music, fresh fruit, fish, beer, coffee, (that is what I opted for) and lots of people (many from the Reeperbahn).

At around 6:30, Emily and I headed back to our hostel to get a few hours of sleep before our 11am checkout. We then got ate some breakfast on the beautiful lakeshore and then headed back home.

Pictures to come...I forgot my camera so Emily took 2x as many pictures but I haven't got them yet.