Blogs from Bremen, Bremen, Germany, Europe - page 2

On to Bremen today and after a slow start cleaning up the apartment it was mostly motorway driving across the Netherlands and into Germany. We made a stop in small town for lunch beside a lovely little duck pond but it was freezing so we hurried into a Maccas for toilets & icecream (yes I know I said it was cold…) The rest of the day was spent on the motorway. I thought no speed limit would be kind of cool but with only 2 lanes and an underpowered diesel car, it becomes quite a challenge. Trucks are still limited to 100km/h and most only manage about 90 so getting up enough speed to move out and go around them is pretty hard when you have some crazy Audi driver coming up behind at 150km/h or ... read more

Ja, es ist wahr, ich bin wieder in Deutschland. So ganz sicher, dass es nicht alles nur ein Traum ist bin ich mir trotzdem immer noch nicht.... Seit letzte Woche Mittwoch regnet es in João Pessoa ganz viel - die Regenzeit und damit der "Winter" haben offiziell begonnen. Insofern eigentlich nicht der schlechteste Zeitpunkt zu gehen. Aber wie vermutet war der Abschied von meiner Gastfamilie ganz furchtbar, den ganzen Freitag Vormittag hat Oma geweint und ich musste mich auch schon ganz schön zusammenreißen. Wie geplant hat Maria mich noch ein bisschen aufgemöbelt, ich habe noch ein nettes Geschenk bekommen und 2 Karten, eine von Maria, Batista und Oma, die andere von meinen Gastgeschwistern plus Anhang. Hab sie erstmal nur in mein Handgepäck gepackt, weil ich wusste, dass ich in Tränen ausbrechen würde, sobald ich sie lese. ... read more

When we started planning this trip, the focus was to explore the areas from which ELISEBETH THIES and JURGEN HEITMANN emigrated to America, in 1929 and 1930 respectively. That is, Northern Germany. Guy has been very involved in the discovery of the history of his family, following genealogy charts, ships manifests, and any other available information. As we entered Germany and headed toward Bremerhaven, it became clear that emigration from the port of Bremerhaven over the years has triggered the creation of the Deutsches Auswanderer Haus, known as the emigration museum. It is an unbelievable museum realistically replicating the process that émigrés endured to sail to the New World from 1830-1974. It further demonstrated the New Germany. The area for pursuing family history research had numerous computers with internet access and staff available to assist in ... read more

Hey Guys! I am now back home for good, but I was so busy I didn't write about the last adventures I had in Germany, so I shall write them here. At the start of the week I had gone to do the last tedious tasks necessary, which meant waiting for 2 hours to tell the Germans I was leaving their country (only Germans seem to wait for hours and hours to tell their government every little bit of information about their lifes) - however as I was not going straight home it got very confusing as the lady wanted to know if I was registering in Brussels when I got there...to which I responded "No". On the Friday evening we had our Erasmus farewell party. The exchange students were all treated to some speeches and ... read more

Today was our first train ride of the trip. Our train didn't leave until later in the afternoon so we had the morning to stroll along Kurfürstendamm Strasse and make a few purchases. After retreving our bags from the hostel we went to the main train station and had a bite to eat for lunch. We got a little confused as to what train we were on because there were two trains listed on Platform 13 at 14:49. One was our train (ICE 556) and the other was an IC train. When the train arrived I asked the controller and she point to the end we were standing by and told us to get on there. Apparently the train splits later on. I don't pretend to understand but we got on where she pointed and it ... read more