Church, and Adventures in Celle

Day 2 - Sunday

We were so tired last night. The people and the food were both excellent, but we were both so happy to go to bed. Thankfully church didn't start until 10:30am. I slept for a solid 12 hours and am still exhausted. I can't even remember the last time that happened. We were lucky enough to have our first church service be an English service, where everything is in both English and German. The church here is very small, 20 people is a good day. But today there were closer to 40 with guests. That was really nice. I really enjoyed getting to sing in German too, my diction lessons really paid off today. After church we met and talked to a couple people before being whisked away on our first adventure to a very nearby town called Celle. It took us about 30 minutes to get to the house of the people that were hosting us that day.

A river runs through it.

You have to cross here to reach the town :) 

I wish I had moved quickly enough to get the massive swans in this picture. 

We were given two options for getting to the actual town from the house, walk or drive. I chose to walk with one of our host families and the other team, Matt and Michael, they will be leaving Monday and I wanted to get to know them a little before that happens, and see if they have any advice for me. It was about a 15 minute walk into the town and it was completely flat the whole way there. I have noticed that this whole area is flat. It's nice because it makes it ideal for walking and biking. I found that it was very easy to talk to Matt and Michael and they said the only real difficulty they had on the trip was the language barrier. I think I'm going to miss them when they go. It's too bad we only have a couple days of crossover.

This gives you an idea of German streets and buildings.
The red brick indicates bike lanes and crossing areas.

Open fields are really common in this part of Germany.

Most shops and some restaurants are closed on Sunday's in Germany, so we just got a walking tour of the town. It was really cute and looked like there were a lot of things to do. I was surprised by how much English and Italian stuff I saw. It really is very culturally diverse here. 

German on the left, Italian on the right.

We saw the oldest building in Celle...

I think it's an apartment on top, and a shop on bottom.

We also saw horses,

a really cool water feature,

and some other things you just don't really see in the states...

This is Matt on one of the toys we found in the middle of town.

and another one...

There is a huge gnome back there.

Don't ask me why.

We also saw a palace

Inside there is an outdoor theater and a museum. 

At the palace we discussed the difference between a palace and a castle. We decided that Palaces are where royalty live, and castles are fortified for battle and more for the knights. This palace has apparently housed several dukes throughout it's time. 

I don't know what this building is, I just really liked the steeple.

This was probably my favorite find though... 

Me, Matt, and David

The story behind this is they used to put that ring around the necks of men who were caught cheating on their spouses so that they could be publicly shamed. Sounds like a good system to me! 

On the way back I noticed they have a bridge with locks all over it, like the one that just came down in France, but smaller. 

So many locks!

We thought this one was cool because it's really big and looks really old. 

There's a lock in there, if you look hard. 

Love lost?

There are beautiful gardens and areas all over too. 

                Tunnel of trees                                                                           A lovely garden.

All in all it was a beautiful, wonderful day. After we got back we had a meeting with David, Matt, and Michael - the first for us and the last for Matt and Michael. Then we all went to dinner at a local Chinese restaurant. Since none of us speak German very well it was quite an experience. The food was good though, as was the company. 

After dinner David went home and Matt and Michael walked us back to the church. They hung out for a little while and we talked before saying goodnight and goodbye. 

I am sad to see them go, I think it would be awesome if we had more overlap. But there isn't really enough work here for four people right now. They had an amazing time and I'm sure that we will too. I hope we meet again one day, until then there is always facebook! :) 

Until next time...