A Night in Celle...

Celle is an old town one hour from Resse (where we are living). When we found out they were having a little festival we decided to visit and see what that was like. These are some of the photos and videos from our adventures after spending the day in Hannover. You are going to laugh when you see the video of the old folks playing very German music in the town square around lots of beer stands. Very much your stereotypical idea of Germans. I laughed while filming it, telling Daniel you would all get a kick out of the video, and feeling funny while the townspeople around me watched as I acted very much like a tourist!

This is from our drive there. In between every city & village are beautiful farms, fields and woods. These were a few wind turbines we passed along the way.


The woods. Daniel said it looked like Florida forests.



In the city center was a very long oval shaped park. It was beautifully manicured and had plenty of flowers and small streams. A nice backdrop to the cobblestone streets and old buildings.



A building I thought you might like.



This is in the very middle of the city. There are no trees here. Just old old Fachwerkhaeuser.




Trying to find our way...


Looking very intellectual in front of the Bibliothek.


Finding our way...and laughing at what we find.



This building was built in 1534. Check the next photo.





Pretty flowers.



Beautiful lampposts.



A flower shop.



I thought this basketweavers stand was super cool. Look at his demo/display of how he makes his baskets!



A band on a bicycle.



A young boy watching one of the street bands.



Daniel said he used to love the "tall man at the circus," so I took a picture for him.

I am going to post this, but please come back to see the video that i took. I will update this blog in about 45 min.

Nutella

For breakfast I had Nutella, for mid-morning snack I had Nutella with Gummi's, for lunch I had an Expresso with Nutella mixed in and a side of toast (with Nutella spread on it THICK)...then I downed a few Gummies. Then I snuck a few more Gummies. Then for dinner I had more toast with Nutella, and had a few Gummies for dessert....then ran over to our cottage and had another spoonful of Nutella while Marlayna was cleaning. Then I went for a bike ride and when I got back I had to scrape the Nutella jar because Marlayna finished off the rest )c:

I like Nutella!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! mmmmm-mmmmm good!

-Daniel

Downtown Hannover

Saturday Daniel and I went to Hannover. It was our second time taking the car to venture onto the autobahn and try to arrive at a special destination. The first time was to go grocery shopping at a store called REAL ("Ray-all") which is just like a giant walmart. It's in a city 25 minutes from here called Altwarmbuchen and it definitely took us about an hour+ to make it there! Frust-rat-ing!!!! Anyway, we made it to Hannover fine, but we had trouble with the parking garage. You pull in and get a plastic coin from the machine, and when you walk up the stairs there is another machine where you are supposed to put your coin when you leave to pay. Well, we didnt understand at the time, because we werent sure if we were supposed to cash in our coin to get a ticket with an arrival time written on it before we went shopping or...something else. Well, we made that exact mistake and paid 1€ for 7 minutes of standing around conversing about what we should do with said coin. Then we took the ticket upstairs to a kind gentleman who didnt speak any english and was working the desk and tried to explain to him our confusion...in broken english/german. He must have pittied us because he was very patient and tried to explain to me what I should have done (but I couldnt understand) and eventually he gave up, ran in the back room, grabbed a red coin, gave it to me, smiled and waved me away. WE WERE STILL CONFUSED. Frustrated, we walked away and decided we didnt care anymore and we were going shopping. We had a great time, saw some funny people, and I bought some new leggings and a small magnifying mirror for putting on makeup. When we came back to the garage we were so excited to find that our red coin let us park for FREE. :) Sometimes being a confused foreigner has its bonuses...although its extremely exhausting before you get them.

On our way there...

Daniel looking like a tourist. :) He says he's going to attack me for saying that.

Shopping!

Lots of great shopping along the two sides of this street and also underground.

Pretty apartments.

Hil-ar-e-ous! A beer bike! A swarm of men jumped up on these seats as soon as this bike pulled up in front of the train station/shopping center.

Bicycle taxi & the "hauptbahnhof" = Main train station.

The Evolution of Spaces

So I was bold enough to ask Bea if I could rearrange her livingroom for her, and she said, "sure!" I was so excited! Before I got to it the furniture was pushed up against the walls and those big beautiful windows were cut off partway by the chunky black sofas. There were also two sides to the seating area that were not functional because of the way everything was laid out. Since there arent any dividing walls in this huge kitchen/dining/livingroom/playarea we tried to create distinct spaces for each function. We moved the sofas so that they created a "nook" (as Kendra would say) where people could sit. Not only that but the focus can be any direction: to the kitchen/dining area when entertaining or watching kids, or outside to relax and look at nature. Bea thought to exchange the rug with the one in the kids play area which ended up warming the space and pulling the color off the curtains and onto the floor. We also moved the bonsai tree so that it was more noticeable. Before it was totally lost in between those dark curtains. Check it out!

THE AFTER PICS:

Daniel calls this the King Arthur chair. Now at least it sits under the sparkly chandelier.






I am currently uploading the video of the "before" shots. Check back in a while for this one. My computer is pokey :)

love,
M

Sunshine

Here we have 5 hour nights. The sun is completely set sometime after 11:00 pm and rises at 4:30am. Amazing. And their winters are still similar to ours 9-5 sunlight...hmmm.

Country Roads

This is part of our drive between the village we are living in and the next one closer to Hannover.

Around the Pond - Video 6 of 6

To the pond - Video 5 of 6

Video 4 of 6

My mistake! I actually took 6 videos to complete the tour of our cottage, the Bansemer's house, the yard and the pond behind us! Here is the next, enjoy! :)

The Geese & The Spa: Video & 3 of 4

Those are the 3 month old geese that walk around the yard all day long talking to you. The front door to the house is often left open (as in video 2) and sometimes they even try to let themselves inside. :) I love them. They are so sweet. They still have a lot of down feathers but they are growing more adult feathers now. Cord says they are "gangly teenagers". We haven't used the spa yet. But it looks really romantic, right? There are candles everywhere and pines hovering overhead.