I LOVE looking at this map...it makes me wonder who you all are way off in the far reaching corners of the world...if you feel like it...who are you? If you click on the globe map on the sidebar and then click "Map with smaller clusters" you will be able to see approximate viewer locations...too cool...
:-)
The train station, one of the cool HABA games-in-a-tin we play on the road, Riel and TBG peering back at us from in betwixt their seats, the oh-my-goodness-are-we-really-going-that-fast train speed of the super efficient German train service, slogging bags...thank goodness for strong 7 year olds...looking at the scenery change and rush by (our favourite thing about taking the train) and LOOK...Guess who we discovered at the Munich train station!!! And finally arriving a mountain from our destination...
Weeewww hoooo!!!!
PS..Is this collage not THE coolest thing...if you click on the collage the it will enlarge so you can get a better look!
MMMmmmm... I see raclette and fondue and lots of red wine in my future...
and then meandered through the old town area 
past the Market Church... 
here...
The old buildings are beautiful, sort of remind me of Charles Rennie Mackintosh and border on kind of a Glaswegian style of architecture...guess we are not really ALL that far from Scotland after all. So then I meandered down a few allies, discovered a very old church... 
and town square... 
that I had so far completely missed, I always love unexpected discoveries...
In this photo of the town sqaure you may notice some very modern sculpture in the thick of all this medieval architecture. Hannover is just sort of like that, due to the extensive damage sustained during the war large sections of it have been rebuilt and there is more modern sculpture here than in any other place I have ever visited...sort of cool...
... and wound my way along the river. 
an homage presumably to the first world war and the second shot ... 
...of the river Leine.
So we started off with mixing the egg yolk paints, and I love to use cupcake tins for theses sort of (messy) projects, keep all the goo in one place you understand...
We already had the dough made up, so just softened it for a few secs in the M-wave, and then got painting...it all looks pretty serious...not to mention WAY fun...
And not too mention way COLORFUL!!! I particularly love the purple and green angel from where-I-know-not...
The troops sampling the booty!! Way to go kids!!
Yumm!!! Yep another uber-successful Christmas cookie year!!
This is what we are aiming for...we made it last year check it out here...and it sure was YUMMY!!! So ...lets see what we end up with...
First we separate the eggs, you know separating eggs is a pretty 
Then to measure all the dry ingredients, with a scale and in grams since the recipe is European,
Then we prepare the pans to bake the genoise (the cakey layer that will be the roll, like in a jelly roll ) for the buche. The we put down backpapiere (German); waxed paper (English); papier de cuisson (French) (we are multi cultural here these days) to make the genoise easy to remove from the baking sheet. 
Once we have the genoise cooked we remove it from the waxed paper and then roll it while still warm in a tea towel, let it cool a bit to take a rolled shape, then brush it with a sugar syrup.
Then we layer it with the yummy filling mixture, cream, white chocolate mousse and fresh raspberries...slice it up a bit and arrange it to look log-like and cover it with a yummy white chocolate icing applied to look like bark...really!!!
Delish!!
The finished result and the happy and VERY TALENTED chef!!! Good work Riel!
Bon Appetit!!
Guten Appetite!!
Dig in Everyone!!
...and as we move inside we felt dwarfed and awed by its towering columns...and hushed interior...
and its soaring vaulted ceiling...as well as the massive pipe organ...
*Boy we feel small*...
*And LOUD* ...
*ShhhhhHHH!!*
Lily and her Dad lighting a candle and having a moment of quiet reflection while leaving a donation for someone less fortunate.
After visiting the treasury stories under the cathedral floor, which among other gilded treasures contain the remains of the three Magi of Christmas story fame, read about it here, and having our minds completely blown away by all of that, we trudged some 500 odd steps up the (claustrophobic) tiny tiny spiral turret en route to the roof... *puff...puff...puff...*
...to peek in at the bell tower halfway up for a breather and to look at the immense bell, the largest free swinging church bell in the world weighing in at a hefty 24,000 kg. One can get an idea of the size by the figure to the right of the photo as well as the gentleman doing maintenance above the bell. The bell was smooth and thick cool brass, and we could not help but wonder about it's sound and fervently hope it was not due to ring anytime in the too near future, as well ponder its manufacture in the day when every scrap of metal would have been melted and forged in a wood or coal fire. We could also not help but speculate as to the degree of engineering involved in its installation hundreds of feet above the church below. Wow.
The kids made it ALL the way up, it was quite a feat, and though we all (read I...) felt a little (panickstricken) vertigo especially as the last little bit involved ascending a rather rickety wrought iron staircase suspended up middle up the final windswept turret some (several kilometers) 100 metres up in the air....(almost as bad as the "dining naked in the high school cafeteria dream") *Shudder*... but we all made it....
Riel enjoying the view...
Needless to say the view was spectacular, and made the climb well worth the effort though the degree of the graffiti was a little astonishing. Seems folks port up their own little bottle of white- out all the way up those stairs to leave their mark on the centuries old hand carved stones.
A gorgeous view of the Rhine river and some of the town far far below.
So we took this path, on such a gorgeous afternoon and walked way, way, WAY up, until my legs were thanking my behind for sitting down and finally taking a load off when we arrived at the top!! 
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The happy kid(s)...
Off we go!!!
Hmmm.... REALLY gotta concentrate...
zoom...
And ZOOOOMMMMM...!!!
