Today, another window to a parallel universe was opened as Caroline’s and my paths diverged. She and Klaus are on a train traveling to Hannover, Germany, to deal with some family matters while I’m on a different train going somewhere else.

Is that quiet I hear the luxury of 1st class travel. Is the blur in these images the effect of traveling over the landscape at a high rate of speed due to being on an ICE? As I ventured into a new place I thought was new only to realize it wasn’t (read the blog entry following this one for details), Caroline and I remained in contact thanks to trusty old chat clients and the random photo or two shared with each other of where we were.

This post will be brief as instead of Caroline writing it, I’m behind the keyboard adding the bones, but if a body is built out around it, that will be up to her while editing this to details I may not know of.

Walking across town, they passed the Hauptbahnhof (main train station) again, but with better sunlight available, they used the moment to snap a selfie celebrating their very first solo trip with each other, just as Klaus and I did back in June when we visited Husum up on the Wattenmeer.

Hannover is one of the German cities Caroline and I have in consideration for where to retire, so besides dealing with other matters, she was there to consider the architectural feel of the city and maybe get a sense of the culture as much as one is able to do with only about 7 hours in town.

Their lunch break was a traditional lentil stew with potatoes and sausage at the restaurant under the striped awnings in the photo above. It is situated on the Lister Meile, which is a pedestrian street with many shops and cafes.

From their midday meal, Klaus and Caroline still had a few hours to explore Hannover before their train was scheduled to depart. They walked down Lister Meile, did some window shopping, and got some ice cream.

While I would have preferred 100 photos to choose from, just as my wife is apt to do, she gets caught up with talking and just looking at stuff as I’m the one usually snapping away at everything, but on occasion; she remembered to whip the phone out and snap an image. As you can see, she very much enjoyed the North German style of architecture, which made heavy use of red bricks. The weather was fantastic, pleasantly warm, which was great because Caroline managed to forget her sweater on the train.

So, if we are considering moving here in retirement, you might wonder why I didn’t accompany Klaus and Caroline. Well, I had that solo trip with my brother-in-law just a few months ago, and the entire few days we were out, we spoke English. If I had traveled with them, they would have deferred to me and spoken English and not been able to have an immersive day getting to know one another better, speaking German. Maybe you ask, how do we not know Klaus better if he’s our brother-in-law? While Klaus and Stephanie have played host to us more than a few times, we had busy schedules and always figured we’d have more opportunities to get to know im better in the future. I should add that Klaus and Stephanie didn’t marry until Caroline and I were living in the U.S. Finally, after returning to Germany for regular visits starting in 2013, we’ve been making a serious effort this year to spend more time with Caroline’s sister and her husband.

So Caroline, might you have anything to add on your behalf as to how the day spent getting to know Klaus better passed by? Not really, John. After our ice cream, we headed back to the Hauptbahnhof area and got more steps in until our train’s departure back to Frankfurt, where we met up with you and had dinner at Kebab Han.