...and now, the misadventures!

So, I’ve blogged about food plenty so far, and now its time for the misadventures to start. Yesterday, Karen and I went up to Hannover to visit the Weihnachtsmarkt, and our friend Andrea. We also needed to make an IKEA run, due to the fact that Karen’s new apartment does not contain any furniture. So, after wandering through Hannover’s Olympic training center, we made our way down to ikea, which is a 10 minute train ride, and then a 40 minute walk. We knew the general direction we were going, and some key street names to look for, which was a great start, especially for us. As we wandered through the really cold rain, we eventually spotted the ikea, and turned down the road towards it. Sounds logical, right? Apparently Germans don’t like logic much. We made our way down this road, which then turned into an autobahn (with no sidewalks, I might add). We saw a little trail cutting through the woods, and figured that this must be the continuation of the sidewalk. It wasn’t. We ended up trekking through the woods for a bit, (ikea sign still visible, of course) and then ended up walking along the autobahn. We had noticed a footbridge a little further down, and made our way towards it. When we got to said footbridge, we then realized there was no easy way for us to get UP to the footbridge. We ended up climbing up the embankment under the bridge, which was muddy and covered in dead brush. Karen aptly described this as “bushwhacking,” and I agree completely. I jumped up onto the bridge, and helped Karen up as well. We could finally make a muddy track towards ikea! Ikea was lovely as usual, and much bigger than the one in Kassel, which is a waste of time, and Karen actually enjoyed it this time, I think… We also THEN found out that there’s a bus that goes from the train station to ikea in abt 10 mins. Convenient. (btw, the ikea trip was karen’s baby… I didn’t really NEED anything from there) So, after paying and getting everything ready, I was starving, so got in line for a hotdog, and Karen decided to check out the bus schedule. She came darting back and mentioned that the only bus for the next hour was leaving in one minute. So much for my hot dog. We sprinted towards what we hoped was the bus station, and got just into view as the bus pulled away. Lovely. Instead of waiting for an hour for the next bus, we decided just to hoof it, and so, made our way back to the train station (on the correct road this time.) As we got to the train station 10 mins before our train was supposed to leave, we noticed on the board that the train was leaving NOW, and so we sprinted down the stationary escalator, once again, just in time to see the train pulling away. Perfect. The next train was in an hour. Is this sounding familiar to anyone else?? We then went to the S-bahn half of the train station, hoping that we could make our way back that way, only to find that the Sbahn station had been closed. We then wandered around the station, looking for a street train, and, just as we found one, saw the train we needed, pulling into it. The only problem was, the station was about 2 blocks away. So, we YET AGAIN watched the transportation we needed pull away from us without us in it. Thankfully this time, we saw that the next train arrived in like 10 minutes. I can deal with that. We met up with Andrea at the Weihnachtsmarkt, and enjoyed some glühwein and other foods. We then headed back to the train station, and eventually got home (after missing our train by about 2 minutes, and having to wait another hour.)
I got some fun pics of the Hannover Weihnachtsmarkt tho, so those will be posted shortly. I’m heading up to Hamburg today, and then going to Goslar with my roomy and a couple friends on Sunday. There will be plenty of pics of those adventures too, and hopefully lots of food, and further misadventures.
Have a great weekend!

-seany