Days 12, 13, & 14

Location: Hannover, Niedersachen, Deutschland

Wow, this marks the 14th day in Germany. It feels much shorter.

To begin today's blog, we must travel back to last Friday. We hopped on a tram to the Berlin Hauptbahnhof to hop onto a train heading for Gottengin so we could then hop on a bus for Dudderstat and the Otto Bock manufacturing plant and headquarters. Lot's of hopping, but totally worth it. I was curious about how prostetics where made in the modern world and this tour answered so many questions. Oddly enough, the coolest part of the tour had nothing to do with the prostetics, but with the shipping and logistics. The Otto Bock company has installed a HUGE fully automated and computerized organization system to handle shippments.

For my free weekend, I once again ventured away from the main groups (one group went North to Copenhagen and a second went South to Munich) and travelled to Hamburg. Last week in Wittenberg, I spent my time thinking, meditating, and learning about my faith. This weekend, I vowed to have fun. I have a friend from years ago who lives near, so I decided to take the time to visit her while in Germany. Tanita was very helpful and served as a tour-guide for Hamburg. We were able to see the Stathaus, two cathedrals, the Hofbrauhaus Munichen von Hamburg, the Reeperbahn (very briefly) , and the harbor. I was also shuffled around between other friends of Tanita's and her family. I was amazed how many people wanted to meet the "auslander" and how friendly they were. They were all interested in Texas, what the people were like, what my political views were, my good pronunciation of the little German that I know (they said it was great. As they are Germans, I'll believe them), and a slew of other topics. So much fun was to be had.

On Sunday, I went to Hannover for the next leg of our trip. I was stuck without a seat again, but I was with a German Naval Officer and a German soldier, so I atleast felt safe. I was the first student to check in to the hotel and spent part of the evening at an Italian resturante at the corner of the street where our hotel is. I was amazed at how good the Sicilian pizza was, but even more blown away by the tirimisu. Then, Dr. Wasser and Nils showed up, so I finished my time at the resturant with them.