Hannover

Wednesday was the last day of school for the boys, and we decided to make the most of the time leading up to Christmas by taking a short break, and doing a driving tour to Köln (Cologne). We set off once we had the car packed (and Phil off his last T-con to the US for the year!). The roads were clear, and the weather fine, so it was a short, fast hop on the Autobahn to get to Hannover.

We planned to meet up with a friend of ours, Chris, who we have been in email contact with since he stayed with us for a while in Australia. Unfortunately, due to our late bookings, Chris had already flown South for Christmas. It was a shame not to catch up with him, but we enjoyed Hannover anyway!

The Youth hostel looks like something designed by a Star Trek fan.. but it was clean and comfortable and a great base for us. We found a local Italian restaurant for dinner, and enjoyed a nice walk in the evening.

The next day, we awoke to lovely clear weather and set off for a stroll around the centre of town. Sometimes it seems that Hannover gets a 'bad rap' as an industrial town (and, well, it is..), but we had the pleasure of walking along next to the Maschsee. Machsee is an artifical lake, one of the earliest Nazi-led projects. It is popular to swim in Summer, but not at the moment in 5 degree tempretures!

Then we followed the 'tourist route' (a red line drawn on the pavement that runs for 4.2 km), before heading back to the youth hostel to collect the car.

I wonder how much beer this person consumed before driving the red line paint truck?

The Altstadt (old town) of Hannover was nice - we saw
The Rathaus, (townhall), complete in 1913.
The Aegidienkirche Memorial. The church was bombed in 1943.
This church holds the "Peace Bell". This bell was donated by Hiroshima. Every 6th August at 8.15am, Japansese and German officials meet here to ring the bell. This is the exact time and date that the atomic bomb detonated in Hiroshima.



In 1943 most of the city was destroyed by Allied bombing and has been rebuilt over time.

The Hannover Opera House, with lots of school groups heading off to watch Hansel and Gretel. This is a really popular opera for kids in Germany, and is often played around Christmas. We suggested to the kids that we could slip them into a school group, they could enjoy the show, and we could catch up with them after. Alexander and Cameron were not so impressed with this idea!

A Christmas market (the first of MANY on this trip!),

This great "whirlpool", where you cranked the handle around and caused a cyclone effect.

Lego Christmas Display in a department store! The Santa is made from Lego!

Some wandering Berlin Bears who seem to have lost their direction!

The Marktkirche Gothis Church, built from red bricks, and had these amazing sculptures above the doorframe. Complete in 1359.

The Nanas Sculptures, by French arist Niki de Saint Phalle. These sculptures were installed along the River Leine in 1974. Over 20,000 letters of complaint were filed in the local government at the time. Now they are the most well known landmarks of Hannover.

I hope I get this right in the correct names for the sculptures. If anyone reading this sees that I have them mixed up, please leave a commet!

This one is Caroline

Charlotte

Sophie

We had lunch at a roadhouse on the way, and set off for another couple of hours drive to Köln. There was lots of roadworks around Köln (a friend tells us they have been ongoing for nearly 15 years, as they have gone from 2 lanes to 3, then 3 lanes to 4.... ).

We found the youth hostel easily enough (BOB, out trusty sat nav, was in a favourable mood and decided we should get to where we wanted to go....), and checked in.

We had a great dinner with Andrea, Baden, Daniel and Ryan, our Aussie friends who head back to Victoria on the 3rd January. Hopefully we will catch up with them in the Summer!

Zauberwald Windows

I don't go to KaDeWe all that often (only to buy my coffee capsules), and the windows always fascinate me....

The Christmas Windows are quite lovely, "Magic Woods" is the theme.

Then inside the main hall is the decorations you can buy.....heavenly!

English Theatre Club

Alexander and a couple of his friends have been attending an English Theatre Club every Saturday morning this term. They do different theatre games, and wrote a short play and performed it for the parents today.

Today we got to see the performance. As their teacher said "Be opened minded and imagine yourself in a surreal world".

Alexander was a talking dog. There were Minotaurs, and they stole his tail.

The detectives came along and tired to help.
There was a fight between the Minotaurs and Angel Warriors, sadly it all ended bad for both sides.
You could tell they enjoyed themselves!

I love you, but....

Graffiti in Kreuzberg that made Phil and I smile!

Weihnachtszug

Arriving at the Charlottenburg S Bahn Station today, I was greeted with this sight! It wasn't my train that I normally go on, I had to wait until this one left for my normal train to arrive.

This is the Christmas train that goes around the ring bahn every Christmas collecting children and parents for a trip with Santa. Santa actually got out of the train to pose for me while I took this photo! Pity the kids were not with me!

Bye Martin

Our Kiwi friends are heading back to New Zealand, and we will miss them greatly!
Alexander and Martin have been in the same class since we arrived in Berlin.

A very emotional afternoon as the kids said goodbye to each other, there is a real bond with this little group of friends!

On the plus side, when we are back in Oz, we won't be very far away, and we will be visiting on our first lot of holidays, and they hope to come and visit us as well!

So, even though it is sad they are leaving, it's great they will be in the same hemisphere as us in the not too distant future!

Winter Wonderland Concert

The Key Stage 2 Concert for Xmas this year was loads of fun.

Cameron's class performed the 12 days of Christmas song, complete with actions...it was hilarious to see them all up on stage singing the entire song! When they had finished the whole row of them too one big collective deep breath that screamed "thank god it's finished"...they were so great!!

Alexander sang in the school choir.
and played the guitar, which kind of got drowned out by all those recorders! ;)
His class recieted 2 poems the kids had written and a song as well.

It was great to see all the kids perform, and they really enjoy it (especially the cake stall afterwards!)

Once again, a special thanks to Olga for these great photos! I must check out her camera and add it to my wish list for Xmas or next birthday....all my photos had a fathers bald head in the foreground! Opps!

Christmas Carols at St George's Church

Every year, St Georges Church holds a christmas fair, and invites the BBS to send their choir to sing some Christmas carols. This year, the school also bought along the string enemble, which also performed a few songs.

Earlier in the day, Alexander was a theatre club. He then went to his friend Isaiah's house, where I think there was a lot of Lego play, and a little snack for lunch. Alexander had a cold, and by the time he arrived at the church (just in time to get changed into his school uniform), it was time to go on stage.

I always like listening to Alexander sing in the choir, and I'm sure I can hear him above the others (Proud dad syndrome, maybe??). I was sat back a few rows, so I gave Cameron the camera, and he snuck to the front and took heaps of photos (I had to call him back as the continual flash of the camera was starting to get a bit distracting!). All the photos here were from Cameron.

Alexander made it all the way to the last two songs, when his cold got the better of him. He was upset that he couldn't finish his set (and he missed his solo), but he had to stop for a drink of water and a rest. After a drink and some chocolate, he was back to his normal self.

The left half of the choir

The Right half (anyone for a standard school shoe policy??)

Alexander and Martin, who heads back to NZ next week

The fair is a good time to catch up with a few of the other ex-pat parents, share a glass of Gluhwein (mulled, hot red wine) and chat about upcoming Christmas plans. This was also a chance to say a last goodbye to Jocelyn (Martin's mum), who is heading back to NZ next week.

The boys had a couple of Euros each to spend, and enjoyed running around with their mates.

A quick trip to England

With Phil being grounded from flying for business trip! :), I thought I would head off to England for 4 days and catch up with some friends!

Somehow, my camera hardly made it out of the bag...damn I should have got a photo of Michelle, Maureen and I together..it was a great lunch of English Fish & Chips, and Mushy Peas (my first taste of mushy peas, and they were not as bad as I would have expected!)

I stayed with my penpal Charlotte, and we had a great time catching up. Hopefully I can convince her to come and visit us in Berlin!

St Nikolaus day

On the 6th of December,the tradition in Germany is for kids to polish their shoes and leave them outside the door, and St Nikolaus will drop by and fill the shoes with treats. Traditionally, this included fruits and nuts, but in modern times this revolves heavily around chocolates! IF you have been bad, then your shoes are filled with sticks and coal.

On Friday night the boys polished their shoes and put them out on the landing. The next morning, they were full of chocolates, as well as other goodies (kidly left by our downstairs neighbor).

The boys wanted to put sticks in mum's shoes like last year, but with Nicole away, she had no shoes on the landing. Probably just as well...

Here are all the treats that ended up in Alexander, Cameron and Phil's shoes.

At least you know once a year the kids will WANT to clean their shoes....

Christmas Tree 08

Our Christmas Tree was delivered today, and it smells fabulous!

After dinner we got all the decorations out and started to decorate the tree.

Every now and again when the kids got a bit sick of adding more decorations (yes, there are quite alot), they would get their guitars and play us Jingle Bells.

Here is all of us wishing you a Safe and Merry Christmas!