hannah

If either Jackie or I have borrowed your nice mittens and you need to know were they are you can contact Jackie's phone on this number: +49 1745799671. I at last got to revisit my German home in Brunswick where we were spoiled by Joachim and Marianne's care as we wer e well fed and shown around. We saw Hildesheim's Egyptian museum and some local prehistoric tombs. We saw Königslutter featuring an old Linden tree and and old church and Goslar and the nearby Rammelsberg historic mine. Berlin had stacks of Museums and Rügen showed us how the East Germans Holiday. On we went to Hamburg to witness the Christening of Nils Goroll and Kristina Goroll's (nee Palmowski) first born Jim who is three but light enough to be handily held aloft for the Christening. Jackie and I excelled in singing "Er hält die ganze Welt in seiner Hand" Today we went with Kristina and the kids (Jim and Theo) on a Hafen Rundfahrt to see the gigantic docks area and afterwards rode Nils' and Kristina's tandem bike to town via the very pretty "Alster": local wide river sections I think with lots of little salboats on them. Jackie was terrified and guess who was steering. We saw the big Hamburg Rathaus (Town Hall) and some pretty waterways and the old Speicherstadt warehouse area. As for the title of the post, if you are keen on say, fruit in Australia we might say you are a fruit lover or a fruit maniac or a fruit-oholic but in Germany you are its friend so you would be a Früchte Freund. And Quark is like smooth cottage cheese but milder. Do they ever have big dairy sections here.

Only every few metres.   boy oh boy Jackie and I are a fun wise cracking couple over here. We trade accusations about who is getting us the most lost.
Not without reason. I managed to get us stuck in place called Bierstadt when we went for a Walk in Wiesbaden. See if you can figure out where that is. On that walk, which is in the Frankfurt area, we ended up in an area where the apartments had US flags on them and signs welcoming soldiers home.  Some where near a US base. The people living there had brought their big cars from home.  My sense of direction had disappeared.
We went to Geisenheim where I lived when I was 2 though that was not familiar. We took the boat on the pretty section of the Rhein from Rüdesheim to Koblenz. Castles are visible at all times on theat trip among the vineyards. Cologne was worth the 2 days we sent there for the food and the Cathedral. Everywhere we have been in Germany there are school excursions. These are pretty wild as they wear no uniforms and therefore lack the embarressed and oppressed air of the Australian outing. These groups sound like wildebeest as they apprach. We saw a Robert Crumb exhibition among the modern art at the Ludwig Museum in Köln and there were kids there which surprised us.  On dads recommendation we ate and drank at Schloss Johannisberg which was really tasty and picturesque. Now we are in Braunschweig and Jackie is not treating my sense of direction with the awe I feel is appropriate still.
Jackie: Michael's German is AWesome and he gets compliments from strangers ( who peel themselves off the floor when we tell them we have come all the way from australia) but his sense of direction is AWful.

This will be the home of news of Jackie´s and my own trip through Germany. We flew into frankfurt Saturday 6am it is now sunday morning. This is truly the land of bakeries. We ripped into some apple wine and bratwurst within a couple of hours of arrival and then walked all over. Exhausted, we slpt for ages last night. The train system is awweome. that is not faint praise for a city it is a real highlight. Off to Wiesbaden or something today. email Jackie or myself please as we have left a bunch of addresses at home.