Bremen!!

Hello everyone! Sorry for the lack of blogs as of late. A lot has happened, as you can all expect, since the last time we blogged.
We were in Bremen, for those of you who don't know where this is, it is in northern Germany, for 5 days and saw and did a lot. Mainly due to the great hospitality of Rudolf and Renate, who took us kindly into their home and showed us around the area, fed us amazing food (we gained back all the weight we lost in London) and shared their expertise of the area with us. The first day we arrived around 4 and after we got situated we went for a walk in kloops (?) park, which was very close to their charming home. This park was about as whimsical as a fairy-tail  novel, the views of the river Lesum mixed with the old trees, small ponds (yes ducks and frogs!) and trails made me think of  little red riding hood walking through the forest. The next day we made the short journey to Bremerhaven, which is actually the harbor where my family departed to go to Canada. There we went to an immigration museum, which was done very well and made you feel like you were about to make the journey to the new world. It even gave you the opportunity to dress up like an immigrant! I learned a lot of facts about immigration, and we even found a document that named the boat that some of my family travelled on to Canada. After the museum we walked around the harbor, saw a submarine that was made during world war II, and went to a mediterranean themed shopping mall. We stopped at the fish market and got fresh fish, which we cooked that evening-very delicious- Renate and Rudolf are fantastic cooks.
 On Saturday we met up with Suzanna and we all went to downtown Bremen to see the historic districts where most houses were built in the 1700's, and remarkably not damaged during the war. We saw the famous chicken on a cat on a dog on a donkey (the town musicians) statue, ate our first bratwurst, and had a nice glass of white wine in a fine cellar right in the middle of the market square. That night Martina took us to a music festival that was on the river banks, many local bands were playing and we watched one that was from turkey as well! It was nice to do something that the locals were doing and it gave us an opportunity to listen to the local artists, who were actually really good. It would have helped for sure if we could speak and understand German, but especially with music this isn't completely necessary it's more about the tune, knowing the lyrics is more of a bonus. We also had our first falafel at this festival and drank local beer (becks) which is from bremen!
On Sunday we went to this historical town called Worpswede, situated about 20 km away from Rudolf and Renate's home in Lesum. This was a charming drive, we got to see the country side- btw their cows are all the cute black and white ones, no brown cows there!!-which is completely different from our countryside back home. Obviously they have more trees, and what seems to be about 20 different species of trees more than Canada. They farm, but their crops are very small, probably for every crop we do, they would have 10 in that space. They farm a lot of corn. Anyways back to this amazing little town. It was where artists went to paint, so there is a huge artists community there. The weekend we went they were having a showcase of all the artists in the area, so we saw a lot of beautiful sculptures and paintings. Jess and I are not huge art people so we were more interested in the architecture of the old converted farm houses where all these galleries were. The houses had so much character, the whole town just oozed of it. It was as if we were walking in a postcard. Which is how most of Germany is- gorgeous enough to be on a postcard. That night we went to an amazing restaurant, with very cool architecture, called the Kaffe Worpswede. We had a 3 course meal which was to die for and made for an amazing sleep.
On Monday we toured around a 3 mast sailing ship called the Schulschiff Deutschland. It is a gorgeous ship that is used to train sailors. It was very neat to go on such a large sailing ship, and made us want to go sailing. We met up with Ingrid there, and it was very nice to see more of my Germany family. She is a busy worker so I definitely appreciate her taking the time to meet up with us! That night, because of their great hospitality, we treated Ruldolf and Renate to a dinner in the market square of Lesum. We all had pasta and the restaurant had huge portion sizes so we had to go for a long walk around the town and country to work it off. We first went to the church, which dates back almost a thousand years, and then we walked through the old farm houses and into the beautiful country. I honestly did not think things would look so differently but I am being proved wrong everywhere we go. It is honestly breathtaking some of the sights we have seen. Germany was an amazing stop, and anyone who is traveling to Europe I suggest stopping in one of the smaller towns to get the proper feel for the country.