Hannover was pretty fun! I didn't see many of the cities cultural offerings, but I would say I explored a pretty decent chunk. I didn't take any maps with me on my wanderings, so I let myself get lost a few times. On my first attempt at finding the race expo, I actually found my hotel again.
On Saturday, I woke up, went for a 2 mile loosen-up jog, came back, and took a shower. The hotel had some interesting soap dispensers, and I couldn't resist a picture. You will notice that each language places "hair," "hand," and "body" in a different order. I'm not sure what this says about the different cultures, but it probably says something. (The German, Spanish, Russian, and Arabic versions are in very small letters at the bottom, hence the giant picture.)
 |
| Hair: important to anglophones, unimportant to hispanophones, francophones are ambivalent. |
Then I put on my new, magical Cornhusker shoelaces. They barely fit through the holes, but I think this was actually a good thing. Once I tightened them down just right, they weren't going anywhere!
With those, I went on my short walk turned long walk to pick up my race packet. It was a nice trip. I saw lots of side streets, ate a crepe, and got some ice cream.
When I got back to my room, I dropped everything off and then headed down the street to buy a Hannover Starbucks mug. I just started collecting them this year (which is unfortunate, because I don't have them now from a lot of places I've been), and I really want to have them from places I've run in. I don't have a picture of the actual mug, but I do have a picture of the statue of King Ernst August. His statue is right outside the Hauptbahnhof at Ernst-August-Platz, which is not a great location to get a good picture of anything. I took it just to prove that I actually went to the place to get the mug instead of trading for it.
The actual race was pretty nice. The forecast had predicted heavy rains, but they didn't come until much later in the evening. I'm not sure yet about my feelings on the weather. I wore a baseball style running cap to keep the rain off of my eyes so that I could see while I was running. I ended up wearing it despite the dry weather to keep the sun out of my eyes instead. I could tell by the end of the race though, that it was starting to get hot under my hat. In general, I would have preferred if it were 10 degrees cooler with less wind and humidity, but I was there to have fun, not break world records.
After I ran the race, I had a couple hours to kill before my train was ready to take me home. My intention was to go visit a museum, but I noticed that I really just wanted to do a lot of sitting. I did some sitting on a bench with some ice cream. I did some other sitting on concrete blocks without any ice cream. Then I took a very roundabout way back to the train station and saw this building. I can't quite put my finger on it, but there is something very German to me about a Bäckeramtshaus.
When I was finally on the train back home, I learned a very important lesson. Deutsche Bahn coffee is both overpriced and terrible. The quality is comparable to American gas station coffee. (The average German gas station coffee is actually very good.) It costs 2,80. So about $4.
 |
| The offending cup |
You'll also see there part of a chart from my double knit Space Invaders scarf. I got four aliens finished on my various train rides, which doubled the work I had accomplished over the two previous months.
Overall: Success! Four German half marathons down, twelve to go!
No comments:
Post a Comment