After three years, I made it back to Germany! Stepping off the plane, I felt at home. It was a great week of new experiences and revisiting old friends. I started off in Hamburg on a very cold, wet, blustery weekend. I had never been that far north, but I really liked being on the water and exploring what the city had to offer.
Then I did one of my favorite things: I hopped on a train :) I spent the next couple of days in Berlin with Rachel, where we enjoyed some really great Turkish food, snow crazy snow, a night out with others from the American Academy, and the start of the local transport system going on strike!
After another train ride, I made it to Bamberg. Ahhhhh. Why did I ever leave? I spent the first night with Carmen -- one of my co-teachers who has the cutest new German baby :) Then I went to one of my high schools and visited a few classes with Gabi, another of my old teaching friends. Emmeli got there that night, and we stayed in a really cute (although bizarre) holiday apartment.
We had time to explore the town, see the cathedral, sit in the rose garden, and get coffee and cake at my favorite old lady cafe. I had Baumkuchen, which is this crazy cake of superfine layers. Google it. It's pretty ridiculous.
Because it isn't a trip to Bamberg without it, we spent one evening up with Birgit and Rainer's for dinner and catching up. Emmeli was a bit unsure about how it would play out, but they are such a fantastic couple. I wish I could just stay longer!
For our last day, Emmeli and I took the train over to Frankfurt and checked in to Pension Aller. The landlady is the most fantastic old German Oma! We walked around the city, found our last gemutlich dinner, and watched some German TV before tucking in. We woke up early and zipped over to the airport for our flights back home...great view of Greenland:
