You've seen the picture... now, here's the REST of the story!

We took the early train from Zürich to Hannover, and ended up getting to Hannover at about 2 o'clock. Penny had telephoned her friend Julian to let him know, so that he could meet us at the train station. Penny had met Julian when he was here in the U.S. as a student. He had been staying with a family in Plainwell, and the family had arranged for him to go out one evening with one of Penny's co-workers from Meijer. Penny and Julian met, hit it off, became pen-pals, and have stayed in touch since then. The last time Penny saw him was when she visited him in Germany in 1996.

So we got to Hannover, and looked around for him for a little while... and stayed in one place for a little while, so that he could find us... and then we went to see if he could be at the other entrance to the station... and we heard a voice come over the loudspeakers... "Achtung!" the voice said (not really... but it sure feels good to show off one of the German words I know!). Then the voice continued: "Vas ist eine Pfennig Rosema? Fahrvergnugen Penny Rosema?! Walken past eine klerken desken!" (OK... so that wasn't what the voice said either... but you get the idea... something in German that I couldn't understand... and then something that sounded an awful lot like Penny's name. Penny claims is was "Penny Rose-uh" and I say it was "Rosema.") In any event... we walked back toward the area where we suspected we were to go, and after a bit of looking, we hunted down Julian. We said our good hellos, and decided to get some food to take back to his apartment.

With a market right there at the station, we picked up some asparagus, potatoes and ham, and started walking in the rain back to his apartment. We presented him with a gift: a CD containing some of our favorite songs, for him to better remember and know us by... And then we just spent the rest of the day hanging around and talking. Penny checked her E-mail while Julian and I scrubbed potatoes and talked... we ate and chatted... sat and conversed... we listened to the CD we had brought, and to one of the CDs I bought in Italy (the "macaroni" CD, which we all agreed was top notch!).

After a good long while, Julian suggested that we go out for a beer. It was probably about 10pm, and Penny and I said that we didn't need to go far, just to a local bar would be fine... so we put on our rain gear and went to a Turkish Grotto just around the corner. We each ordered a beer, and Julian asked the waiter to throw together a plate of appetizery food. He came back with a plate full of cheese, sausage, olives and such. We ate and drank and talked some more, and were having a wonderful time of it all...

and then...

Julian stood up and said he wasn't feeling so well... we had been talking about some of the bad food one could get in Germany... did this have something to do with it? He went off to the bathroom, and the owner of the Grotto came to our table and said "Das man ist kaput on der toiletflooren!" or something like that... I went to the bathroom to find Julian on his knees in front of the toilet. He said that he thought he would be OK, but that we should probably head home.

Julian had been ill for some time with some sort of eye malady. He had a little pool of blood in his eye which had interfered with his work as a doctor. He had been taking some medications, and perhaps there was a reaction with the beer he had or the food... or something... if only there were a doctor in the house! He decided that he would try to sleep it off, and we would wake up in the morning to head off to Berlin...

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