a sister in any other country is still a sister

This weekend I got a very special treat. Several years ago, my family hosted a foreign exchange student from Berlin named Maria. Over the course of a year, my family grew very close to Maria. Two years later, Maria came to visit for a summer and then her sister followed to live with us for a year. I consider Maria and her sister Louisa to be family so I was very excited to visit 'meine Schwester' in her home town. Here is a picture of Maria (with her beautiful red hair) at the door to her flat.

Maria lives in a Gottingen, a university town one and a half hours north of Marburg. Most people know Gottingen for the home of the first Max Planck institute and indeed Gottingen reminds you constantly that its a science town. The information booth in the train station looked like an astronomical chart. The city layout also included a 1:2 millionth model of the solar system (I forgot to take pictures).



On friday night, I arrived at the train station, and found Maria immediately. We embraced and then started talking like no time had passed at all. Maria quickly led me through town and then helped me bike the 4 km uphill to her flat in the suburbs of Gottingen. We then stayed up and talked until well past midnight and only stopped talking after we realized we still had two days to talk. :-) Maria made a traditional German breakfast of fresh bread, cheese, cucumber, tomatoes, and tea....but she brought out some jam and honey for me. For some reason the "traditional' german breakfast feels normal when you eat it with a friend. On Saturday, Maria showed me around Gottingen, making sure to point out the school she attends (800 people applied to a school that only accepted 12) and the science buildings. She forgot to take me to the statue of Bunsen (its in Gottingen, not Marburg) but she promised to take a picture and send it to me. :-)

Since neither of us really cared for traditional German lunch (she's vegetarian) but we do care for chocolate, we ate 'lunch' at a chocolate cafe where I dined on a special layer cake and shared a delicious mocca. My cake consisted of several thin layers of dried pineapple, dark chocolate, a creamy torte, and sugar cake. Yum yum yum. Maria told me that these cakes can sometimes grow as tall as 1 meter high! We then walked off our lunch in a botanical garden that was first started over 400 years ago. (Pictures to be posted tomorrow Jenny).

We then visited an African restuarant where I tasted my first green german beir. Yum yum yum.. We then bicycled over to an American style bar to meet up with some of her friends (ooops forgot to take pictures again)...where we won (and then lost dramatically) on a few games of pool. Then...late on Saturday night, we headed uphill again to maria's flat. (we only had to walk for 300 meters this time).

On Sunday, after snapping a lot of photos of Maria and her apartment (don't worry, they will be posted soon too), we headed to the train station to catch a train to Goslar, a UNESCO world heritage site one hour north of Gottingen. However, the train we boarded went east, not north. When the conductor looked at our tickets, he laughed and told us that we boarded the wrong train. hehehe....ooopps.... Maria turned the same shade as her hair, especially when an elderly German couple treated her like an American tourist by slowly explaining how trains work in Germany. After laughing for about 10 minutes, we got off the train in Heilingenstadt, a small German village that was part of the former GDR (communist block) where we discovered that the next train to Gottingen wouldn't leave for an hour. So we took the time to explore the lovely city of Heilingenstadt, home to four lovely churches. We think they are used for pilgramages, but we never really confirmed this fact. Instead, we got to see a lovely restored city.
After returning to Gottingen and boarding the correct train for Goslar, we finally arrived at this lovely medieval city. Goslar is famous for its 800 year old ore mine (didn't have time to explore) and its large and well preserved medieval city. Goslar also served as the summer palace home of early Germanic Emporers and you can still see the original Kaiser throne. Besides visiting the salt mines, the only thing to do in Goslar is walk the old city, which we did for several hours, while talking and catching up on life the entire time. We talked about American politics, German politics, world politics, life, love, relationships, family, struggles, and dreams...all the typical sisterly stuff...while enveloped in a town 600 years old. We finished our day by enjoying ice cream and watching the Glockenspiel, then chatting the entire train ride back to Gottingen. We took the time to enjoy one last meal together at a local indian restaurant, and then I was able to meet Maria's boyfriend Jens, whose train arrived 5 minutes before mine departed. But before I left...I was able to catch one last shot of Maria and her boyfriend and get one last hug. Hopefully we can meet up again sometime....