Back from Goettingen

I went south to Goettingen on Tuesday and came back yesterday (work related trip). It started snowing when I left to Hamburg at 7:15 am. In Hamburg I took an ICE (Inter-City Express) train that got up to 170 km/hr (over 100 miles/hour) at points along the way! It took precisely 2 hours to get from Hamburg to the center of Germany, faster than you could have flown with the checkin, security wait, rescheduling and all--I was impressed. The landscape changed near Goettingen with rolling hills near the Hartz mountains, the train even went through a few tunnels! It made me realize how long its been since I've seen hills or mountains in any form in N. Germany (and most of the land around the Baltic extending into the Netherlands is as flat as it can be). I spent the night and Wednesday morning it was snowing nicely in Goettingen, I walked around the old city for a bit before heading back. Unlike the trip down there were a number of delays on the way back and I actually got to Hamburg an hour late. They handed out ticket vouchers on the train for missed connections. Back in Schleswig-Holstein there was a couple inches of snow that had fallen and the kids had attempted some snowmen out on the porch.

Pictures from Goettingen:

Synagoge Square


View up inside the Synagoge memorial




The "Goose Girl" statue. This is supposed to be the most kissed statue on the planet (link).