Birthday, Gehrden, SS castle, church, fireworks, back to school, Bergfest
After Christmas we started to get busy, and not just sit around on the couch during the break, although there's nothing wrong with sitting on a couch. I've got plenty to talk about in this post, so let's get to the first topic.
On the 27th it was my birthday! I'm now 17, and wasn't really expecting much on my birthday. Little to my knowledge this day was full of activity and excitement. We started off with having guests over for breakfest. After opening my gifts they stayed quite a while longer. We just hung out, did whatever really. A few hours after they were gone Uli told me and the kids to get ready to leave. None of us knew anything about where we were going, but we eventually drove away. After a little bit of time I found out we were having a little party! Family friends starting trickling in, and by the end we had a good amount of people. We ate, played games, and just had a really fun time. Thanks for the suprise party!
Only a few days later we were off to a town named Gehrden, close to Hannover. There I was able to see where both Dirk and Uli grew up. Both of their parents still live there, and Uli's sister lives there too. We stayed with Uli's sister, her husband, and her two little kids, ages 8 and 2. In addition to one adorable 2 year old, they had a little kitten! At first she was really scared of me, and I gave that little cat so much attention. Going back on topic, it was really cool to be able to see a different part of Germany. North isn't a ton different, but there are still some things. It was very fun for me to be able to see the typical German house (white with the dark wood crossing things), because the typical north german house is a basic white house with thatch roof. One very interesting aspect of this town is that it was VERY catholic. The church would ring at least 3 times an hour and there were stones everywhere depicting bible stories. One of the days we went on a hike up a big hill, and on one side it had likely 20 stones depicting the story of Jesus and the Cross, and on the very top was an old church and a statue. On another day we went into the church so I could see the difference from a more protestant church (Ostenfeld), and a big old Catholic church. The church we visited was built in 1184, meaning it's crazy old compared to anywhere else I've been. Once the big heavy door was opened you were engulfed in gold, color, and just a mass of objects from every direction. In the very huge golden statue. I have no idea what it's called, but just look at pictures. On each side were even more fancy golden displays, and a number of relics. Everything was fancy, and very cool to look at, even the pews. After exiting the church we decided to stroll over to Dirk and Uli's elementary school. In the playground of the school there is a "tree". This tree is actually made of 12 trees that were planted together, and after time grew together. It was planted by nuns or munks, and is one of the oldest standing trees in all of Germany. This thing was massive, and they used to have an entire dance floor built in the tree because it was so big.
On a different day Dirk, the history buff, and I decided to go to a castle a little bit away. This Castle was originally built in 1603, and thoughout history was owned by many groups of people. In 1934 Heinrich Himmler, leader of the SS, took ownership of this castle. This castle was planned to be in centeral SS site, and after 1941 planned to be the "Center of the New World". Himmler had planned to expand this castle into an town used only for the security of the SS high up members. The renovations made, and the ones planned were to be made by slaves taken from a nearby concentration camp. After the war started to demand everything possible, the plans were not put into action, and therefore it is how it is today. One interesing fact is that this castle is 3 towered castle, so instead of being a square it is actually a triangle. Today this castle is used as a museum and one of the largest youth hostiles in Germany.
Now back to a completly happier topic! New Years! New years was very different from how I do it annualy. To help the kids stay up we watched movies from 8 until 10 minutes before midnight. Slightly before midnight we all put on our jackects, grabbed all of the fireworks, and headed outside. At that time we set up the fireworks that we could, and when the church started ringing it's bells, the air around us bursted into colors. Every single house was doing something for fireworks, and it was all at the same time. It was a really cool feeling to be lighting your own fireworks, and everyone around it doing to same. My favorite thing about New years was that thoughout this entire chaos of fireworks, the chruch just kept ringing and ringing. After the fireworks started to calm down, we all went inside, and by 1 in the morning it was bedtime!
Sorry for the extremely badly written blog post, and I know it's very jumpy, but I thought it was just better to put it all into one post. Make sure to check out my pictures, I fianlly have it up to date and pretty soon I'll be able to get a few videos up too. Happy new year!
After Christmas we started to get busy, and not just sit around on the couch during the break, although there's nothing wrong with sitting on a couch. I've got plenty to talk about in this post, so let's get to the first topic.
On the 27th it was my birthday! I'm now 17, and wasn't really expecting much on my birthday. Little to my knowledge this day was full of activity and excitement. We started off with having guests over for breakfest. After opening my gifts they stayed quite a while longer. We just hung out, did whatever really. A few hours after they were gone Uli told me and the kids to get ready to leave. None of us knew anything about where we were going, but we eventually drove away. After a little bit of time I found out we were having a little party! Family friends starting trickling in, and by the end we had a good amount of people. We ate, played games, and just had a really fun time. Thanks for the suprise party!
Only a few days later we were off to a town named Gehrden, close to Hannover. There I was able to see where both Dirk and Uli grew up. Both of their parents still live there, and Uli's sister lives there too. We stayed with Uli's sister, her husband, and her two little kids, ages 8 and 2. In addition to one adorable 2 year old, they had a little kitten! At first she was really scared of me, and I gave that little cat so much attention. Going back on topic, it was really cool to be able to see a different part of Germany. North isn't a ton different, but there are still some things. It was very fun for me to be able to see the typical German house (white with the dark wood crossing things), because the typical north german house is a basic white house with thatch roof. One very interesting aspect of this town is that it was VERY catholic. The church would ring at least 3 times an hour and there were stones everywhere depicting bible stories. One of the days we went on a hike up a big hill, and on one side it had likely 20 stones depicting the story of Jesus and the Cross, and on the very top was an old church and a statue. On another day we went into the church so I could see the difference from a more protestant church (Ostenfeld), and a big old Catholic church. The church we visited was built in 1184, meaning it's crazy old compared to anywhere else I've been. Once the big heavy door was opened you were engulfed in gold, color, and just a mass of objects from every direction. In the very huge golden statue. I have no idea what it's called, but just look at pictures. On each side were even more fancy golden displays, and a number of relics. Everything was fancy, and very cool to look at, even the pews. After exiting the church we decided to stroll over to Dirk and Uli's elementary school. In the playground of the school there is a "tree". This tree is actually made of 12 trees that were planted together, and after time grew together. It was planted by nuns or munks, and is one of the oldest standing trees in all of Germany. This thing was massive, and they used to have an entire dance floor built in the tree because it was so big.
On a different day Dirk, the history buff, and I decided to go to a castle a little bit away. This Castle was originally built in 1603, and thoughout history was owned by many groups of people. In 1934 Heinrich Himmler, leader of the SS, took ownership of this castle. This castle was planned to be in centeral SS site, and after 1941 planned to be the "Center of the New World". Himmler had planned to expand this castle into an town used only for the security of the SS high up members. The renovations made, and the ones planned were to be made by slaves taken from a nearby concentration camp. After the war started to demand everything possible, the plans were not put into action, and therefore it is how it is today. One interesing fact is that this castle is 3 towered castle, so instead of being a square it is actually a triangle. Today this castle is used as a museum and one of the largest youth hostiles in Germany.
Now back to a completly happier topic! New Years! New years was very different from how I do it annualy. To help the kids stay up we watched movies from 8 until 10 minutes before midnight. Slightly before midnight we all put on our jackects, grabbed all of the fireworks, and headed outside. At that time we set up the fireworks that we could, and when the church started ringing it's bells, the air around us bursted into colors. Every single house was doing something for fireworks, and it was all at the same time. It was a really cool feeling to be lighting your own fireworks, and everyone around it doing to same. My favorite thing about New years was that thoughout this entire chaos of fireworks, the chruch just kept ringing and ringing. After the fireworks started to calm down, we all went inside, and by 1 in the morning it was bedtime!
Sorry for the extremely badly written blog post, and I know it's very jumpy, but I thought it was just better to put it all into one post. Make sure to check out my pictures, I fianlly have it up to date and pretty soon I'll be able to get a few videos up too. Happy new year!