Germany Day 1- Hotel Freihof

We arrived safely at our hotel in Germany a few hours ago. This will be our home for the next eight days. 

The crossing was fantastic. We were both asleep by the time the ferry left Harwich and when we were woken by tannoy at 6:30am local time (5:30am GB time) we were almost at the Hook of Holland. The extra is a testament to how calm the crossing was. I took the pic at about 7:30am. The bar wasn’t open so the bottle and glass must have been there from the previous evening and stayed completely unmoved all night.

It’s very strange being in a country where I know almost nothing of the language. I know some French and a bit of Spanish but no German. Well not quite none……………. Igor asked me as we were driving down the autobahn if I knew any German words and after a bit of thought remembered I knew one word. I picked it up on a lesson I was covering a few years ago for an absent German teacher. I told him I knew the German for hamster. He laughed a lot and said he didn’t think it would come in very useful. I told him what it was anyway. The german for hamster is der hamster. I distinctly remember telling the students in the class I was covering that I thought they wouldn’t have much trouble passing their German GCSE. Sadly most of the language is not quite that easy.