Guten Morgen Freunde

~Leider ist es so lange gedauert zu schreiben!

We're here. It was a long trip, we left Chicago at 7pm on Tuesday March 16 and arrived in Frankfurt after a layover in London at 1:30 pm on Wednesday March 17. Then we drove 2-3hrs north of Frankfurt in our nice little diesel minivan, to Hannover. All of which was quite the experience. I had to stop once to sleep because I was so exhausted, otherwise the autobahn was quite nice traveling.
We've made our little apartment into a nice home (200 sqft or so). You'll see some pictures below. It's quite snug! The weather has been spectacular 10-12 C, which must be close to 50 F. The trees have buds, and the grass is starting to grow, I don't think there could be a better time to be here. This is the kitchen, about 5' x 5', the toaster and what you see is almost everything we have. There is a small sink attached to two electric irons, with a 2' fridge below it.
























Here's Alex's and Adele's bed, and you'll be surprised to note that our bed isn't any bigger, and there's only two of them. One for the kids and one for us:)























Thursday we took advantage of our last day with the rental car and drove out to Hameln. The city best known for "The Pied Piper of Hamelin". Only a few miles out of Hannover was the same beautiful farmland we'd seen on the way from Frankfurt to Hannover. The communities are all very tight and close together. No urban sprawl! They are beautiful, quaint little towns with small 3-5 story, narrow and tall homes. Hameln was great, we took some of the pictures below that show the old buildings.


























































There are so many great little bakeries, and oh the bread is tasty, so are the hotdogs or bratwurst / krakenkauer.

































Notice the left wall of the McDonald's building, it's certainly not straight, and the building is probably from the 1500's. You can see Allison in the bottom right hand corner of the picture.
















































































The kids found these formation in the street to be a perfect playground.

















Yesterday we met up with Scott and Elly Fryer at there place near downtown Hannover, it's a nice little apt. on the 4th floor of a typical older area of town. After ward we all went to the messe station and had dinner. For me it was a nice big Krakenkauer. It is incredibly busy at the main train station. The streets and subways are busy with 10's of thousands of people, all in pursuit of happiness:)

We love you all!

ben