In Germany most of the people who live in smaller villages claim the nearest city as their residence to save time explaining where exactly their village is. (There's ALOT of little villages. I basically gave up trying to keep tack of which one I was in at any given time.) Since the Muthmann's claim Hannover as their home town, it was pretty much mandatory to pay a visit and the first place we went was the Rathaus or city hall.
In the center of the building are four models of the city in different time periods. The first shows it as fortified with walls and a huge moat Iin an age of kings, castles, and giant poofy white wigs.
The second and third show the sobering contrast between the city before and after WWII. You never see sympathy for anything German in a conversation about WWII, at least not in America. But seeing a city full of normal people pursuing average things like trying to get an education or run the family business, who had nothing really to do with the war, so destroyed for no reason other than lowering moral brought out my inner pacifist pretty strongly. How can something like that ever be justified? Anyway end of sad depressing political rant.
The last model showed the city as it stands today (Except that it didn't actually turn blue and white suddenly) modern and restored. The only building that wasn't repaired or replaced was an old church not far from the Ratthaus that has been left as a reminder of the war.
After looking at the models we went up to the top of the dome to get a panoramic view of the city. It was pretty interesting because after looking at the models we could try to pick out the different buildings we had just been looking at downstairs. When I see a panoramic of my home town I am always thinking "Oh, that's my house and there is my school" and stuff like that but in other cities I usually just think, " wow that pretty," but there isn't any context. It was all outside which was nice because there wasn't any glare or reflections of some random person next to you but whoa was it cold up there. I didn't stay up there long as beautiful as it was.
One of the coolest parts of the Ratthaus was the elevator to the dome. Most elevators are just metal boxes that you step in and they take you up or down, right? This elevator is unique though because it actually travels on a curve and its made of glass so you can see the weird bends in the machinery which I completely don't understand despite it being super old. The box is also at an angle and shifts or appears to shift during the trip in a creepy/awesome way. Sorry all I got was a bad picture I should have gotten a video but it was a little crowded and I was distracted by how crazy it was.
There is a red line painted all through Hannover to take you to all the major attractions but for this trip, because time and energy was running low, we decided to go just to an art museum. Well my mom my sister and I went to an art museum. Most of the art wasn't really my style (maybe I am just not creative enough for modern art?) but it was kind of nice to see a museum with something other than wildlife, landscapes, and Indians like what is available in Kalispell. There was one painting that caught my attention though and it was especially interesting because when I said I liked it my mom told me that my great grandmother used to paint just like that which I did not know. Now I am on a mission to find some of her work which is allegedly being cared for by one of my aunts. *rambles on about my new interest in my family tree
After the museum we joined the others at a lake across the street. Kevin had made friends with a distinctive black duck and was giving bread to a gathering flock of them as well as the fish in the lake. Those fish were huge, like dont lose sight of your small children huge, I was a tiny bit scared.
Eventually we had to say goodbye to Jesi and Kevin who needed to head back to their village for work stuff. Then we headed back the the Muthmann's village for dinner, ice and some games on their Kinect. We were already plannIng on barbaquing a bunch on stuff so while we were at the store we picked up some marshmallows which were not just dyed rainbow colors but actually legitimately flavored like identifiable fruits. I love that in Germany flavored dosnt just mean injected with weird tasting chemicals. We had some diffuculies roasting them though, namely temporarily running out of propane. Oh well, they tasted delicious. It was interesting because while Carol and Arne were fimiliar with marshmallow roasting, Arne's parents I don't think were.