Hannover visit, the internation fireworks competition!

Just got back from a lovely day in Hannover, which is a 25 minute ICE ride north of here (or an 1.5 hour regional train ride back, at 1am... uuugh) Karen and i saw a random poster at a bus stop, like you do, for the international fireworks competition, and decided it was worth a visit. We shot off an email to all (both) of the fulbrighters we know in Hannover, and asked if they wanted to meet us/show us around/have a beer. We met up with Andrea, who is teaching there, and toured the city, which is amazing... it was almost completely destroyed during WWII, where it was bombed into oblivion, except for the statehouse, oddly enough, which is huge and looks like a castle (pictures are on the link to the right) There's an old church that was bombed, and now the walls stand as a memorial to all those who died, and its really quite stunning, as the pictures show... We wandered around Hannover, following a red trail through the city that vaguely reminded me of the trail of tears through boston, as poor karen probably heard abt 02e42352894 times yesterday. There are lots of old buildings and historical stuff, and a huge shopping center and fussgaengerzone (pedestrial zone). We also walked down to the lake in hannover, which is a big rectangular thing with boats and fun things, so took pictures of that too! After, we went for dinner at a little falafel house, where i had a lamb doener (mmmmmm) and then we made our way up to the huge english-style garden north of the city, where the fireworks were being held. Admission price to the gardens was 15 euros, and we were prepared to pay it, but when we got off the Ubahn stop, there were people sitting in the grass by the side of the road, so we figured, why not? we sat there for abt an hour, listening to music, before the show started. It was awesome, synchronised to music, and very colorful. I got some relatively good pictures, and a movie, which i'm not sure if i'm going to be able to post (not that mama at home will be able to see with dialup anyways...) We then hopped on the crowded Ubahn when it was over, and jetted back to the haubtbahnhof, in order to catch the last train back to goettingen. We missed the IC by literally a minute, and then had an hour to kill, till the regional train came in. Thankfully, we killed this hour mostly by figuring out how to break the 50 euro bill that karen had, because the ticket machine wouldn't take 50's. We made our way into a little store, and bought things we never knew we needed, like little bottles (and cans) of wine for the trip home, a hand towel, and pretzel sticks! Through further exploration of the train station, we found what appeared to be a headless "nessie" sculpture, which was vaguely depressing, so we decided to liven it up by riding it, see pictures.
Meanwhile, throughout the trainstation are people walking around in strange costumes, asking for stuff. Apparently there's a tradition in germany, where, the night before you get married, part of your bachelor/ette party involves going around and getting random things from people, while dressed as either the perfect hausfrau, or husband? strange, to say the least... In any case, our train eventually got there, and we hopped on, and popped open our respective alcohol selections! Got back to goettingen around 1ish, too late for me to hop the bus back up to weendenord, where i live, so i crashed on karen's couch.

outside of this, apartment searching seems to be sucking, we've only heard back "no"s, if we've even heard back at all, which really really sucks!! i really need to find my own place closer to the city, and karen really needs to find a place with internet.
craptop is now bugging me to restart, so i will give in to its wishes...

happy sunday, hope you all enjoy your weekend! to those of you in TX, i hope you're ok, shoot me an email!!!

-seany