We Are Strangers in a Strange Land

We've been in Germany for two weeks and I finally have the Internet. Yeah, Yeah! The 1st two weeks have been a whirl-wind of moving in, furnishing the apartment (not finished, yet), and getting wired for cable, phone, and Internet. Dave did a really good job of hooking up the Internet since the instructions were in German as is everything around here. I think I am going to try to start writing in this blog almost everyday in case something special happens. The 1st two weeks are going to a be largely a loss for writing because so much happened and I can't remember it all.

While Dave is at work during the day, Gabriella and I venture out into the city of Hannover. It is a nice sized city. It's a lot bigger than we are used to. We live right down town. It reminds me of what I think it would be like to live in New York City. We don't need a car. We take the U Bahn (the train) or bus everywhere we want to go. The U Bahn is awesome as a means of transportation, but you have to be aggressive. I'm finding out that no one cares that I'm a "lady with a baby". People do not get out of the way for the "kinder wagon". I am so happy about not needing a car, though. Also, biking is a way of life here. There are as many walking/biking lanes as there are roads in Germany. People even bike in their work clothes. Even the 90 year olds are out there biking!

Since we've been here this past two weeks, I've tried about every food the Germans have to offer except beer. I think that might be a sin so don't report me to the "Politzei". We have Doners, Gelato, meatballs, cheese, cheese and meat spreads, bread, bread, and bread. There is a bakery on every corner in every neighborhood! I don't think the Adkin's diet would do very well here. It's a good thing we have to walk up six flights of stairs to get to our apartment and that we have to walk everywhere, because I am eating A LOT. Gabriella loves the hot dogs! She carried around a whole one and ate the whole thing while we were at IKEA again today. She would not let me take it out of her hand to make it smaller. I wish I had a picture because it was pretty funny. Here are some pics of our apartment. It's not quite furnished yet. I'll post these before pics now and the after pics after it's finished. As you can see, the toys have arrived!