Hannover for the Day

Mariel came to visit me this weekend, so on Saturday, we took the train to Hannover together. This was supposed to be simple. We only had to switch trains once, and the whole trip was only supposed to take about an hour and a half. However, after only 10 minutes on the first train, we ran into a problem. The train completely stopped at a random station; the lights turned off and the engine stopped running. A few minutes later, a man on the loudspeaker told us we needed to get off of the train because it was going to turn around and go the opposite direction. He said some other things too, but we couldn’t really understand him. So we got off the train and sat at the station. Mariel and I were worriedly talking to each other about what could have happened when a nice woman interrupted us. She asked us (in perfect English) if we understood what was wrong with the train. When we told her we had no idea, she kindly explained that there was a fire on the train tracks a few miles ahead of us, so the train couldn’t go any further.

We kept talking with the woman and after about 15 minutes, we all quickly realized we were going to miss our second train to Hannover. Luckily, a few moments later another voice came over the loudspeaker and informed us that there was a bus coming that could take us to the next train station where we could then catch a train to Hannover.

We were all convinced that we would miss the train and have to wait an hour for the next one to Hannover. Fortunately, we were very, very lucky. When the bus pulled up to the train station, we had a little less than a minute until the train left. We sprinted down the stairs and ran to the platform just in time to get on the train. The rest of our trip to Hannover went smoothly after that.

We finally arrived in Hannover at about 11:00, so we were kind of hungry. As soon as we walked out of the train station, we found ourselves in the middle of a square with many restaurants and shops. We ate some soup to warm up at a cute little café.

After lunch, we did some shopping and walked to the Neues Rathaus. That Rathaus was really ornate and pretty. We also walked to the Sprengel Museum. The Sprengel Museum houses one of the largest collections of modern art in Germany, so it was super interesting and really big.

We walked back from the art museum to the city center and decided to look for dinner. We ended up at a burger restaurant, and I can honestly say, it was one of the best hamburgers I have ever had.

Later we took the train back to Höxter (this time with no problems). Everyone told me before I visited Hannover that it was ugly and not really worth seeing. I have to say that I kindly disagree with those opinions. Hannover has a lot of interesting history, cool buildings, and plenty of things to do.