Finally found a hotspot!

So I'm sitting on a bench in some random little square, which aside from the large pile of horse maneur on the street 50 or so feet in front of me, could actually be referred to as charming.  Nothing special, but relatively empty, quiet and relaxing.  Occasionally a car or bike goes by in which case you hear that slight jingle of the bell on the handle bars as the bike rides over the cobbelstones.  Anyway, I made it here safely.  Here is Hannover by the way.  The flight was relatively uneventful.  I had the great fortune of getting assigned a seat in the emergency exit row which meant plenty of leg room!  Even more fortunately, the flight seemed to be relatively empty (or at least not filled to the brim) which is probably why there was an emergency aisle seat available for the checkin girl to offer me.  I was a bit afraid I might end up sitting next to somebody else as big as me, but no, in the three seats there were just two of us (one seat empty betweeen us) -- me and a mid sized roumanian guy who apparenlty lives with his parents about half a mile from the house I grew up in.  We took off a little late and our seats made us privy to the real reason why -- it seemed there was some mishap with the food order and they had to get it straightened out at the last minute.  When meal time came I said I'd ordered a veg meal, but if there was any shortage I could take either.  No, there was plenty of veg!  My neighbor the roumanian asked for the chicken, but all they had was the "muslim" meal of mutton.  A minute later they came out with a chicken meal for him, but he'd already opened the mutton the gave him both.  I offered to take the mutton off his hands and he was more than happy to oblige =)  mmmm, free airplane food =)  Yeah, these were the highlights, relatively uneventful.  Anyway, we landed, disembarked, went through customs (if you can call it that -- there was no line and some guy stamped my passport and waved me on in matter of seconds).  Later on after the baggage check there was also a spot with two lines -- nothing to declare and something to declare.  This may sound odd, but I went through the nothing to declare line twice.  The second time there were two people in front of me and it looked like one of them was getting checked so I was frustrated with myself for walking back into that area in.  Basically after exiting I wanted to find somewhere that I could buy a sim card for my phone.  There was nothing downstairs so I went back upstairs.  I found a shop, but didn't like the price so headed back toward the train -- the stairs said baggage claim and to trains.  I imagine there had to be some other way to get back down without going through the baggage claim, but they could have pointed that out...  Anyway, I'm getting ahead of myself.  As I waited for my bags, I called a friend who happened to be in Frankfurt.  Man it was nice having euros including plenty of coins on me already!  Unfortunately she said she was pretty busy and didn't have any time to hang out.  She gave me some tips on where to go to pick up a sim card, but I didn't end up at the place she recommended until today -- and unfortunately didn't bother to bring my passport with me so couldn't get one!  Anyway, getting ahead of myself again.  It was frustrating watching the units drop down on the phone though, and rather than throwing another euro in, I unfortunately let the call get cut off just as I was saying, sorry, no more time, have to go!  I'll have to write her an email now that I've found a connection...
So I hopped on the first train for the main trainstation -- there must have been some recent construction, because I don't recall having to run all over the place to get to the tracks.  They were rather out of the way and as I was still carrying a duffle bag rather than a backpack (the backpack was pulled apart and stuffed in a duffle bag for the plane checkin) the walk was tiresome on my hands...  I eventually switched over to wearing the duffle bag as though it were a backpack.  By some strange twist of luck, my train was late and I missed the connection hannover in frankfurt.  When I checked for the next train, I saw there was one that left even later from the airport which I had completely missed, yet arrived earlier in hannover -- I could have had a direct trip had I paid better attention...  Oh well.
The train came, I boarded, and opted for an empty cabin.  The cabins are much more condusive to meeting people than the open seating areas, and I'll admit to at times even selecting a cabin purely because a cute girl was already sitting there (that is after all how I met one of my best friends here in germany...) but today I opted to take my chances and see who would join me -- somebody always joins you.  In this case it was and older german gentleman (presumably traveling on business) and soon thereafter a very obviously american couple -- also older.  As it turned out, the german was very amicable and had spent 11 years of his life working in various locations around the world and his daughter currently lives in the states so the ride was one non stop conversation (in english).  Not quite what I might have hoped for, but also more pleasant than it could have been.  I spent the first few minutes debating whether I wanted to shun my fellow americans, but gave up on those thoughts quickly.

Eventually we made it into hannover and I disembarked.  When I called my friends house I was happy to hear his mother's voice.  I hadn't done the best job preparing them for my arrival, so if nobody was home I might have considered moving on to some other location and finding a hostel.  My friends mother gave me directions to their place which I must have half misunderstood, but certain stops sounded familiar enough that I tried my luck getting off at one and asking some random locals which way to their street.  At last. I was home for the night.  I could set my bags down and relax!  We had a quick snack and talked for a bit, then I took a nap and rebuilt my backpack.  When my friend came home from work we went out for a quick drink and some nice catching up and capped the night off with one of my favorites -- a doenner kebab!  Mmm!  I planned on leaving this morning for Denmark, but the jetlag hit me a little harder than I hoped and I didn't sleep that well last night.  I was also battling my cold a bit, so decided during my sleeplessness that I'd stay and extra day in hannover to relax and recover a bit before moving on.  Denmark will still be there tomorrow =)
Ok, time to go do some more wandering.  I've been at this park bench long enough.  Till the next time...