6 weeks, 6 countries

we fail at sightseeing

we have been pretty lazy, now that we’re in germany. saturday Heike dropped us at the train station and we were off to Honnover. met Karina and came bak here to her appartment to hang out. the first night I slept on a single air matress while Sama and James had the bed… it was the worst sleep ever. Worse than Rome and the fold out bed of doom. so we woke late on sunday, and met Karina late to see the Hannover sights; the city hall, the city church… yep that’s it. had coffee. went to a chinese restraunt for dinner.

yesterday (monday) we got up early and took the train to Berlin for the day. we’d checked the weather forcast, but patches of snow and sun it was NOT. it snowed/rained all day. we waited for about an hour in line at the Bundestag (parliment building) to go in, and they where only letting people go on the roof and in the glass dome there, which kind of sucked because the inside it pretty cool. plus we were cold and would have liked staying inside longer.

after that we walked around looking for a mcdonalds, and getting colder and colder. finally got directed to Potzdammer Platz, but still had trouble finding it. it was getting late anyway, so we made our way to Checkpoint Charlie, and the the German Dome, the French Dome, and the Berlin Dome. Warmed up a bit and Dunkin Donuts near Brandenburger Tor, and then went back to catch the train home.

today we’re meeting Karina again and checking out a new mall. the sun is shining for once! we will try for Hannover zoo tomorrow, and then thurday we’re invited to Thomas and Renate’s (Christoph’s brother and sister-in-law) for the afternoon.

friday we’ll be taking the train to Paris, and have booked seats for the 11pm show at Moulin Rouge (you don’t want to know how expensive it is). saturday it’s back to London with the eurostar, and sunday back home.

Ich liebe Deutcheland!

(I love Germany). So, Venice ended with a very rainy day of wandering the allies trying to find James’ music store again, so that he could pick up the guitar he found. By the time we got back to the train station I was almost soaked through, and Sama and James weren’t much better. We went out for dinner though, to a place the strange hotel receptionist recommended. It was nice, but expensive. He was there too, and shouted us the rest of his bottle of wine, which was really nice of him. The next day we took the train early to Verona, and spent the day there, visiting their ampitheatre (3rd largest in the world), Juliet’s House, and the churches and their castle. Verona was nice; sunny and pretty. From there we took the train through Austria to Munich. There was snow and alpes and it was a nice trip, though every time we left a country, we had new conductors who wanted to check our tickets. Sama and James slept a lot of the way. When we arrived Munich we had a couple of hours where we hung out at Starbucks and had decent coffee again finally. Then the worst part of the trip: Munich to Hannover with the overnight train. Sama and James slept again, but the guy behind me was snoring really loud and irregular most of the way, and I couldn’t sleep. We got to Hannover at 5.30 am, tired, cold, hungry, and faily disorientated. Had some food there before the train for Celle, where Christoph (my old host dad from when I was here for AFS and as a nanny) picked us up. Sama crashed when we got to Heike and Christoph’s, but James and I had breakfast with the family. The kids (Robin, 6, Riona, 4) didn’t remember me, but then I didn’t expect them to. James and I went to watch Robin play soccer then,and Sama woke up for lunch. In the afternoon Sama and James stayed home to rest, while I went with the family to Hannover again, to visit Christoph’s mum, brother and sister-in-law for coffee and cake. Good fun. It feels like I’m “home” again here. We had a day of relaxing on Monday, and went into Celle to have a look around yesterday. The weather is unfortunately not the best; snow and then rain, so that everything is wet and mushy. It was nicer today though,and we went to Bergen-Belsen, the memorial to the old Jewish concentration camp just 10 mins from Sülze where Heike and Christoph live. There’s supposed to be snow tomorrow, which I do hope so. Right now James is wrapped up in a PC game of Heike’s, and Sama in the Twilight books. I’m going to watch a movie (Heike’s english collection is great).

a maze of canals

so here we are in Venice. well, that’s not quite right - we’re in Venicia, which is the mainland, staying very close to the Venicia Mestre train station, which takes us to Venice the island for 1 euro each way. Venice is… not beautiful… more like exactly like you imagine a drawing or painting to be; rustic brick houses with plaster coming off in patches, weathered wood and painted striped poles with gondalas and boats tied up, and little pizzarias everywhere with their tables and chairs and lights to try and draw in the tourists.

The city is suprisingly small though, and not very over-run with tourists. Shopping everywhere, which Sama is very pleased about. Lots of glasswear and masks. The Venician Festival is in late Feb, early March, and they’re getting ready now. The masks are over-the-top with sparkles and decorations, and there are whole shops everywhere for the different kinds. Sama’s trying to find one that’s affordable.

James found a guitar today finally, and we’ll be picking that up tomorrow, which is our last day. Sama and James have bought another small suitcase for their extra stuff!

Haven’t ridden any gondola, as they’re super expensive, but we might take the canal bus tomorrow.

I’m gonna try to get some more Spain and Tangier photos up now. Saturday we’re headed north to Germany, possibly through Austria (Sama wanted to stop in Milan and Zurick, Switzerland, but we are running out of money fast, so maybe not).

- Hannah

Photos

Forgot to say before, have updated my flickr with photos: flickr.com/stepps Theres Madrid, Paris, and Gibraltar. Out! - Hannah

…the morning after…

Hey y’all!! Just a quick update…after the awesome time with Dan and Bridgey..

we headed to Tarifa (via dans speady european driving) caught a ferry to Tanger, morrocco!! yippeee skippee!! whole other world over there! soon as we got off people hounding us “we take you on a tour around town…30 euros…no…20….no, ok 10….?”….ahhh…no. so we decided to be adventurous and find our own way…not if our moroccan/american (in the end) tour guide had his way. he was pretty awesome…in a weird moroccan/american way. I would reccomend him, only i cant remember his name!? haha! 

we walked through crazy streets full of people.hugging our bags to us like they were our own children. we saw food markets-with live chickens tied to each other-i had to turn away…awesome fish market-the smell! huge chunks of fish like tree stumps! an extremely uncharming snake charmer! james had a pic with the cobra (-deadly cobra, james saids.) Then i went to have my turn-hannah was like 20 feet away… and they decided to change the 1euro price to 10 euros!! faaaaccckkk off!! our tour guide went ape balls at them!! rah rah rahhhing at them for like 2.3mins!! so we gave up on that idea..i had to admit i was a teensy bit relieved! phew!

Had a 3 course meal at this little restaurant-we were the only ones there…for 12.50 euros! soup and bread, spicy/savoury samosa with icing sugar on it- go figure!?! yum though, and lastly a yummy chicken Tangeen!! (Thanks Dan!) we bought a couple of trinkets-hannah bright long strand of beads (on closer inspection it was well everything! old butterflys off earings, stones, bits of chain, etc…) we bought a cool leather stool cover-only to discover that it hadnt quite been finished properly-bits of camel hair still on it!! UUUGGGHHH!!! (i shudder!) we also went to a herbal/spice doctor guy! who explained everthing in his shop and got us to smell it. i got some red jelly stuff for me hands, and we got some spices. we headed home to Algerciras for the night via Ferry.

BARCELONA!!! We hate you!!! No seriously. tired as. subwaying to Hotel Barbara…I got pickpocketed by 2 guys pretending to help me! we got tipped off it was them by and awesome barceloneanite..so we pretty much assaulted them looking for my wallet. Phew! got it back. we found our hotel down Prostitute street, as per usual! its like a prerequisite for us to stay at each place. after much walking we found a restaurant, Ideal Restaurant..seemed like it at the start…until our retarded waiter couldnt get hannahs order right…boy did she start seeing red!! and no, it wasn’t the sangria! Angry Hannah is not someone to mess with! (for future reference) he said we could keep the pizza on the house, and wait for paella…when we pondered where it was after forever, he said we took the pizza as a substitute…AND we had to pay for the pizza!!…lets just say we saw the manager…..and that didnt help…. So my tips for Barcelona…Dont let strangers help you ever! and Dont go to Ideal restaurant if it looks like retards work there!!

We got Tattoos….enough said…

No really, we lined up to wait for Sun tattoo parlour to open…sorry dan…and our most awesome tattooist, Leo, the Cuban(he reminds me of a way better looking marc anthony…noone else agrees.) James got a spanish bull…very cool. me and hanz got bull constellation in stars-hannahs on her right forearm, mine on right shoulder/back…7hours later we were done!!! (we started at 5pm, left at 12am!!!)

We lasted in Barcelona a day! then said farewell!! saw some Gaudi buildings…thats about it. Only reccommendation is go see Leo!!

We had the longest train ride in the world to get to here, Rome!! but that will be another story…one thing…DONT sleep in a train station in Ventimigila, Italy….. 

Love you lots!!! Not looking forward to coming home….stink ow bay!!

Sama Banana, James Doornob and Hannah montanna!!! mwaaahhh!!! Peace out homies!!! 

all right darlin’?

So, we’re in Gib (Gibraltar). And it’s raining, which i a bit disppointing because we were going to go up the rock and see the old British fortifications, the caves, some apes, and the view. But not to be. We’re hanging out at Dan and Bridgit’s instead,watching Robin in Tights and getting some washing done. Madrid was awesome, we loved it. The trip down to Algeciras was pretty slow, then we bussed over to La Linea, and walked to the boarder and into Gib. Met up with Dan and Bridge and went to our hotel, the Cannon Hotel. Then we went out for drinks. That was abot 4pm. We continued drinking at a bunch of places… until 5am when we were finally ready to go home and sleep. Unfortunately James had over indulged. And then about 7am-ish the fire alarm (false) went off and woke us all up. And out of the blue I was sick (in my bed, damn it). This was not a result of the booze, but probably something I ate the day before. Anyway, that was not a good start to our first full day here. James and I came back to the hotel early to sleep, and Sama wasn’t far behind. Went out to some tapas bars with Dan last night, which was great (tapas is Spanish finger food; pieces of bread with pate or meat or cheese or whatever on top, and you each a whole range of them). Got some much needed sleep last night and this morning. Wandered around Gib a bit, but like I say, raining. Gib’s kind of small and British and filled with Spanish. Pretty cool town, for what it is. We’re staying another night at last, and then might be off back to Algeciras, and hopefully Morocco for a day before we head up to Barcelona (Tuesday or Wednesday). - Hannah (Sama and James say hi, they really do. I will get them to update this thing themselves at least once before we get home, I will).