Thanks to the Curry's I'm able to blog again!

I was in the middle of a blog post Friday night when our internet cut out and we've been without it since! After a few days without internet, it's easy to see how much we depend on it! Since all of our english TV-watching capabilities depend on the internet, we've been pretty lost and only accessing BBC World News(Gale and I were pretty stir-crazy after about 15 minutes of that). Anyway, bear with this post seeing as half of it was written Friday and the other half tonight (and thank goodness for Shannon and John not only feeding us tacos tonight but letting us steal their internet too!).

 We had an absolutey fantastic American Thanksgiving here. I am pretty lucky because out of everyone celebrating I was the only American. We had 3 Canadians and 4 Germans. Gale and I spent the whole morning cooking a feast of Turkey, mashed potatoes, broccoli and cauliflower, brown sugared carrots, stuffing, deviled eggs, pumpkin pie, and chocolate chip cookie pie. The Scherenbergs came over and had their first Thanksgiving meal! Bea made an "apfelkuchen" for the occasion, an apple cake. We drank wine, feasted, and even got to see the Packers go 11-0. I think that the Scherenbergs had a great time (Hans enjoyed watching a slide show of Kevin's hockey pictures from Bowling Green) and I really appreciated everyone making my Thanksgiving feel like a celebration like home!

everyone  and our great meal!

all of our desserts, can you tell which is which?

Today (Friday), Horst and |Gale rented a car and went down to Augsburg to watch Kev's game. The team won which moved them into 1st place in the league! They are all staying in the same hotel in Munich which means I was free to eat all the leftover Thanksgiving food with no one here to stop me. Horst and Gale said that the Augsburg fans were crazy throwing lighters and cups onto the ice when they disagreed with the calls (not to mention the police with guns patrolling the freezing open walled rink) What an adventure for them!

Wednesday, we went to Hamburg's Modeleisenbahn Miniatur Wunderland. Kevin and I have been looking forward to going to this for quite some time! The Miniatur Wunderland is the world's largest model railway. It covers 1,150 square meters which took over a half million hours of labor. Most of the constructions were made from scratch. They say that most of their scenes are imaginary, but based on actual locations and they tried to replicate those the best they could. The exhibit has over 800 model trains, 300,000 lights, and 200,000 tiny human figurines. This place was spectacular and they did an amazing job replicatng the areas. We started by walking into Hamburg's area where we first saw Imtech Arena, home of the Hamburg HSV soccer team. The pictures we have don't do the place justice, but hopefully you will all be able to get an idea of how much detailing went into the model railway!

Soccer stadium and its parking lot

quite the spot on replica!

We then moved on to see Hamburg's landing pier for the ports, the Hauptbahnhof (Hamburg's main train station), and Hafencity complete with canals (which is where the Wunderland is located).

an amazing replica of the boat we took when we went to the Lion King Musical

Landing Ports

Hauptbahnhof

Hafencity

A Schmidt Truck!

After seeing Hamburg we went across the room to see America! In the America section, we saw Key West, Miami, Las Vegas, Mount Rushmore, the Grand Canyon, and part of Yosemite National Park. Every 10 or so minutes, they entire exhibit would turn from day until night and seeing the Las Vegas strip at night was pretty neat.

Las Vegas

Vegas strip at night

They even had drive-in movies!!

We moved into the next room to see Scandanavia where we saw the Northeast Sea where model boats would actually come in and dock and the it even had a 4 centimeter tidal range for high and low tide. We saw Harz which had a festival going on complete with a Large Ferris Wheel with approximately 30,000 lights. We moved from there to Knuffingen where we saw a train bridge connecting to Austria. In Austria, we were able to see an amazing ski hill with lifts which looked so real when they turned off the lights for night time.

Harz festival

Skiing in Austria!

We then moved onto the final room of the exhibit which had Switzerland and the Hamburg Airport. Switzerland is the most elaborate of all the areas and reached from the 3rd to fourth floor of the building. The Hamburg airport is the most recent and Horst and Kevin's favorite part of the exhibit. It was, in our eyes, identical to the actual airport and they even had planes taking off and landing!

Switzerland

Airport parking garage

literally identical to Hamburgs airport entrance!

Also within the exhibit, is the control system for the employees to make sure there are no kinks with all of the different movement of boats, trains, airplanes, lights, etc. The control room itself was insane with seats for up to 7 different people. The Minitur Wunderland even has plans for up until 2020 for 4 more layout sections: France, Italy, Africa, and India.

Wunderland control area

Sorry for having such a long post about the Miniatur Wunderland, but we wanted you to see how cool it was! After we went to the Wunderland we all went to the Christmas Market to have a hot chocolate with Baileys before dinner.

The boys won their game yesterday to stay in 1st place in the league. Horst and Gale left today and we miss them already! We hope they had as great of a time during their trip as we did with them!!! Our internet guy is supposed to be here soon to take care of our problem, so these blogs will be back running regularly again soon! Have a beautiful week, tschüss!

Cheers Lagen!

Kevin and I are so spoiled here because we once again had visitors in town last week. Kevin's brother, Mike (or Slick, whichever you prefer!), and 2 buddies, Brad and Dan came to spend a week in Germany. And boy, did they have a whirlwind of a trip! They literally did a German tour in the span of 8 days! Let me tell you a bit about this trip!

night one on the Reeperbahn

Day 1. Arrival: The boys get into Hamburg on Friday, take a nap, and start drinking to pre-game for Kevin's hockey game that night. We go to the game (Freezers won) and have a few more beers there. Kevin drops them off at the Reeperbahn for a night out and I hear them fumbling with the key to get back into our place at about 6:45.  A.M.!! What?????? I have never been more impressed!

Day 2. Saturday: Kevin leaves in the morning to go down to Dusseldorf with the team for Sunday's game. The boys don't get up until late afternoon just in time to go to the Hamburger HSV soccer game. They were hurting pretty bad after Friday so they were home and on the couch before I was home from a dinner out with the girls.



Brad, Dan, and Mike downtown



Day 3-6: The boys take Germany's high speed train (travels 260 kilometers/hr) to Dusseldorf to watch Kevin's game. They proceed from there to Munich and Berlin before coming back to Hamburg. Somehow they also find the energy to stay out into the early morning hours in all of these cities as well! They get back to Hamburg Wednesday afternoon and treated Kevin and I to a steak dinner downtown.

Day 7: Thursday: Kevin had to leave once again to head down to Iserlohn with the team for Friday's game. The boys met me downtown after my class to shop around and go to a Currywurst restaurant. Shannon and I take them out for the night and trick them into a "boy band" karaoke sesh of "It's Raining Men" at one of the bars on the Reeperbahn. It's considered an early night for them and we are all home by 4 a.m.






"It's Raining Men, Hallelujah!"



"Wannabe" Spice Girls











Friday night is much more relaxed for these guys and Saturday morning, it was off to the airport we went! Needless to say, these boys enjoyed their trip, being able to run around Germany consuming countless numbers of beers and making up their own German slang, "Cheers Lagen!" What does that even mean???? Kev and I were really happy to have them here with us and wish their stay could have been longer!

Mike in front of the Schmidt Theater, a comedy theater on the Reeperbahn

As for a hockey update, the boys won their game yesterday and are currently in 2nd place in the league. They only have a game on Sunday of this week and then have a break for a week with no games. After last nights game, the team captain organized an amazing dinner at an Italian restaurant downtown for the entire team and their wives/girlfriends.

It's back to normal around this apartment and back to a regular work week for me! Hans and his father ended up just joining me for the game yesterday and really enjoyed the atmosphere. It was Hans's first hockey game and the entire game he kept asking me where is Kevin, is Kevin playing now? He's taken a real liking to Kev and even saved him a seat in the VIP room after for dinner.

That's all from here for today, Tschüss!

Your first Hamburg History lesson!

Europe, Germany, and Hamburg itself is full of history! Yesterday Kev and I took a little "lift" ride to the steeple of the Mahnmal St. Nikolai (St. Nicholas Memorial). Although there are a few different historical churches/chapels in Hamburg, St. Nikolai is the tallest. When it was built back in 1874, it was considered the world's highest sacral building. The point of the steeple is 483 feet high. This church burnt down in the "Great Fire of 1842," and the citizens rebuilt between 1845 and 1874.


St. Nikolai



View of town hall from St. Nikolai steeple



St. Nikolai served as a landmark for the bomber pilots during World War II air raids in 1943. Hamburg was one of the most destructed cities during the war. Over the course of three days and nights, Allied airplanes attacked Hamburg in what was called "Operation Gomorrha." This operation is the most extreme in the history of international air war. Bombs put the city up in flames and caused a "fire storm." Over 35,000 people died during this while temperatures were pushed over 2000 degrees (C). Over 250,000 homes are destroyed along with St. Nikolai.



View of the ports from St. Nikolai steeple



The only remains of St. Nikolai after the air raids of the war were the steeple and parts of the walls. After this destruction, it was decided that St. Nikoai would not be rebuilt and it the ruins were declared a historic monument in 1960. Between 1973 and now, the St. Nikolai has been reconstructed into a memorial. Even while Kevin and I visited St. Nikolai, they were completing further construction on maintaining the church. We were amazed at the detailed architecture of this church, it is by far the most beautiful church I have ever seen.

We were also able to go into a small exhibit while we were here. The exhibit had old artifacts from the church's remains, but the most touching part of the exhibit were the pictures they had. There lines and lines of photos of areas of Hamburg after the air raids. We were able to visualize the destruction and get a tiny glimpse of what the people of Hamburg had gone through. They also had an area with pictures of parts of the city before the air raids, during the war, and present day photos. You can see one of those photos below.



St. Nikolai after the air raids



before/after photo

On a different note, we have visitors coming tomorrow! Kevin's brother Mike and two of his buddies arrive early tomorrow morning. It is going to be a riot around this household in the next few days! Have a great weekend everyone! Tschüss!

Horst's visit to Hamburg - part zwei

On Tuesday, the Freezers had their NHL Premier challenge against the L.A. Kings. The match was kept pretty friendly but both teams played hard and the Kings won but only by a goal, 5-4. The highlight for us was that Kevin scored his first goal as a Freezer in this game! The highlight video was put up on nhl.com and below is the video! Kev is #32 and got our teams second goal. The other neat thing about this video is you can hear a little of how intense and loud the fans are.



Terry left to go back to Dubai on Wednesday morning, so it was just the three of us for Horst's last day. Horst went with Kevin to practice in the morning and he was able to pick up a few Freezer's souveniers. We lied low the rest of the day and went over to the Elbe Einkaufzentrum, which is a huge indoor shopping center, and just hung out at the apartment at night. While we were at the mall, Kevin did a phone interview wih someone from the Hannover Indians (the team he played with last year). Little did he know, that interview was recorded live and put on their website as a podcast so you can all listen to that here!
Horst has since left for the airport so it is back to just the two of us around this apartment. It was great to have some visitors and to see some family for a few days! I better get going so I don't miss the train to get down to my German class! Tschüss!

Horst's visit to Hamburg - part eins




Horst, Kevin's dad for those of you that don't know him, got into Hamburg last Thursday morning. We took him to an Italian place downtown for dinner that night and got him out and about to see Hamburg downtown in the evening. Since I've been here, I haven't really seen much of downtown at night so it was great to be able to walk around. The city is beatiful at night and if I hadn't forgotten to put the battery in my camera, I'd have some pictures to show for it! Friday, Kevin had a home game so Horst and I went pretty early to check out the arena and watch warm-ups. Horst got to try his first currywurst before the game and enjoy a few Weissbiers throughout! After the game that the Freezers won, we headed into the VIP room for a great buffet and to wait for Kev after the game. Not to mention, the food and drinks are free here, so we thoroughly enjoyed that! Currently, Kev's team is 4-1 and tied for 1st place in the league.



Horst and Kev in front of Town Hall



Saturday, we went with a few of the other North American couples and did a bus tour downtown. The tour was done in a "hop on hop off" way so that we could get off at different areas of the city and do our own sightseeing before getting back on the bus to head to the next location. This was a great way to see the different sights of the city and to find some places that we want to explore more.

Sunday, one of Horst's good buddies Terry, flew into Hamburg to visit from Dubai. We decided to take them both over to Blankenese, one of the ritzier areas right along the water with beautiful views and homes to check out. 

 We stopped at an Italian Gelato Cafe to sit outside and enjoy the weather (it has been sunny all week and in the 60s/70s which is unheard of here for this time in Hamburg). Kevin tried the eis spaghetti which is vanilla gelato that looks like spaghettie noodles, strawberry sauce and white chocolate pieces that look like parmesan cheese.



Spaghetti Ice Cream!

Last night, we had dinner on the Reeperbahn (Hamburg's entertainment district, I'll devote an entire post eventually to explain this area of Hamburg) and left Horst and Terry to fend for themselves and have a boys night out together. They had a great time checking out the Las Vegas style strip and I'm sure they got pretty roudy at all the bars and pubs! They actually got pretty lucky because today is a holiday in Germany so the Reeperbahn was extremely busy for a Sunday night. Kev and I got to enjoy watching most of the Packer game on our slingbox last nght! Kev has an afternoon game today so I need to get going to head on over to that! Tomorrow the Freezers play the L.A. Kings in an NHL premier game so check back soon for an update! As for me, the Scherenbergs got home from vacation last night so tomorrow is back to class and work before the hockey game! Have a great week everyone, and I hope all my Wisconsin friends enjoyed the great sports weekend we had! Tschüss!