Bremen

A week ago Friday, the day after we arrived in Hannover, Caleb, Grandma, Grandpa and I made our way to Bremen where my godmother Juliane lives with her family. I hadn't seen her in at least 7 years so it was a very special visit. My dad drove us and dropped us off and then headed up to Cuxhaven for a conference. Caleb was very tired from his jet-lagged middle of the night playtime (11 p.m. - 2 a.m. to be precise) and fell asleep in the car.

It was so special to get to introduce Juliane to Caleb and of course Caleb fully enjoyed getting to explore his new surroundings.

The absolute highlight was getting to see Tim and Ben, whom I used to babysit starting when they were Caleb's age. It was my first babysitting job. I think I started when I was 9 and Ben would get dropped off at our house while Juliane took Tim to go to children's church. Of course, my mom was home and so I could call in the reinforcements in case of an emergency. I absolutely loved playing with them. We played all kinds of fun things like hospital (I was on a real Florence Nightingale kick for a while), Playmobil, school (although that wasn't Tim's favorite since he had to go to school all day anyway; I guess I can't blame him!)... We also baked brownies. Apparently, I wasn't too good at cleaning up, though, you can ask Juliane about the baking residue we left in the kitchen. Whoops!

Tim and Ben are both studying in the university now and when they saw me they said, "Have you shrunk?? You used to be so tall!" Yes, now I am definitely the shortest of the three of us.

Caleb got to go on his first train ride when we took the train back to Hannover. We were forewarned that when we got to Hannover there might be quite a ruckus because Hannover 96 was playing Braunschweig (in soccer) in Hannover. There is an incredible rivalry between the two teams. This was the first time in 20-something years that both teams were in the same league and so it was the first time that they were playing one another in over 20 years. When the train pulled into the station, police were everywhere. They had closed escalators and were waiting for the Braunschweig train to come in and then escort all of the fans to the train going to the stadium. Unfortunately, when we got out of the elevator, we arrived on the same platform as the train going to the stadium. The police immediately came towards us and told us that for our own safety we should go to the other platform. Unfortunately, we were stuck in an alcove and all of a sudden hundreds of Braunschweig fans came walking down the platform, chanting "ble*p-Hannover" at the top of their lungs. Boy, were we thankful for all of the police pushing them into the train. I don't know when the last time my heart pounded that quickly.

We made it home safely, though, and Caleb fell into bed... only to wake up a few hours later for another midnight play session.

Bis Bald!