Europe Part 2 - Hannover, Hameln, Berlin & Potsdam, Germany

After spending three and a half days in Paris, we arrived in Hannover, Germany where Bridget's husband Karl was waiting for us. We explored Hannover a bit before heading to their home in Hameln. In Hannover we experienced our first sausage dog from a walking cart and our first German beer!

We then went to Hameln (about an hour or so drive from Hannover) where we got settled into their super cute apartment for the night. The next day we visited Karl at his work, explored downtown Hameln, and had a very authentic German lunch. We loved downtown Hameln; it's such a neat city and is exactly what we pictured Germany to be.

Hameln is where the story of the Pied Piper originated, so throughout the day the large church in downtown rings it's bells and the story of the Pied Piper is told through animation so we were able to see that while we were there.

Later that day we loaded up the car and headed to Berlin for the next two nights. Upon arriving in Berlin, we checked into our hotel and then headed to the Hackescher Market in the Mitte area in East Berlin. We stumbled upon an awesome Spanish restaurant where we had dinner and rang in my birthday. It was a fantastic meal with great company and it couldn't have been a better start to my birthday!

The next day (on my actual birthday) we explored more of East Berlin. It was freezing (we even had a few snow flurries), but somehow we managed to see the sites. We saw the The Berliner Fernsehturm (German for "Berlin Television Tower"), which is also known to the locals as the "toothpick". We also saw the Berliner Dom, the largest protestant church in Europe, which was beautiful!

We then made our way to the Brandenburg Gate (the former city gate), Checkpoint Charlie (the crossing point between East and West Berlin during the Cold War), and the Checkpoint Charlie Museum. The museum is in basically an older house and is kind of disorganized, but it has a lot of cool artifacts, photos, etc. in there. After, we found a cool bar (Schwarze Café) where we had some great German beer to celebrate my birthday!

The next day I think was even colder, but we still ventured out to see all we could. We explored West Berlin, which is completely different than East Berlin. West Berlin has a new, modern feel while East Berlin is a lot older and feels more industrial. This of course is because West Berlin got bombed badly during World World 2 and had to rebuild. 

In West Berlin we got to see the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church. It was cool because it has a ultra modern section that was added to the original church that was bombed during WWII, but still partially stands.   

On the way out of Berlin we stopped in Potsdam, a really cool , older city less than an hour from Berlin. It was neat to walk around to the different areas in Potsdam, one of which is known as the Dutch Quarter. We also got an awesome beer stein in Potsdam to serve as our memento from Germany.

After exploring Potsdam we headed back to Hameln where we had another nice dinner together, packed up and got ready to catch our flight the next morning. We had a fantastic trip. It was so great seeing Bridget and Karl in their new home and explore new cities with them. They were fantastic hosts and we really appreciated their hospitality. We can't wait to see them again soon!

You can view all of our Germany pictures here.

International travel B.B. (Before Brian) / B.K. (Before Krisita)

Before our first international trip together to Jamaica, Brian and I had been on several international trips separately. Brian had the unique opportunity to serve as best man in a wedding in Uganda, Africa. I'll see if I can drag him on here to tell about that trip one day, because from what he has said, it was an experience of a lifetime.

Soon after we met, Brian went on a European backpacking trip with his sister and friends. He visited Vienna, Austria, Munich & Berlin, Germany, Prague, Czech Republic and Rome, Florence & Cinque Terre, Italy. I'm looking forward to the day when he takes me to Cinque Terre; the pictures are beautiful and apparently the fresh seafood and local wine are amazing.

My senior year of college I was lucky enough to participate in Florida State University's Global Sport Management study abroad program. I spent a week in Paris, France and four weeks in London, England. I was able to take weekend trips to Amsterdam, Netherlands and Dublin, Ireland. This was my first international trip and I really hadn't traveled much domestically at that point either. While the study abroad experience sparked my love of travel and desire to see as much of the world as possible, it also came with quite a scare.

After our week-long stay in Paris, our group boarded a train and headed to London on July 7, 2005. During our commute, we learned there had been multiple bombings on London's public transport system. I was terrified and very apprehensive about continuing the trip to London; I couldn't quite understand why we were headed into what felt like a war zone when we could simply return to the perfectly safe city we just left. However, since I was with a group I didn't have much of a choice. We continued on to London, only to be stranded at the train station for several hours upon our arrival because all public transportation was shut down. A van eventually came for our bags and we had to walk to our flats. I remember it being a beautiful day and thinking how perfect the experience would be had this vicious attack not occurred earlier in the day.

I contemplated going home early several times, especially after another bombing occurred two weeks later (this time however it was thankfully a failed-attempt). I again resisted the urge to hop on the next plane to the states, but at that point I did ban public transportation -- I either walked where I wanted to go or took a cab. I still have a fear when I use subway systems, but am slowing trying to get over it.

At the end of the day I am very happy I stuck it out in Europe and can honestly say I developed my passion for travel during those five weeks. I'm now hooked and get restless if I go too long without visiting a new city. Now, I have the best travel companion a girl could ask for! Brian and I have so much fun exploring new places together. Some day we'd love to end up on the Amazing Race, but I'm bad at using a map and I can't drive a stick, so I'm not sure how good of a teammate I would be... (That's another post though!)

As I mentioned earlier, mine and Brian's first international trip together was our honeymoon to Negril, Jamaica where we had an amazing time. More to come on that in the next post!