Hiking in the Deister

On Sunday I took a nice hike in the Deister hills.  Hannover itself is flat, as is the area towards my school, which is called the Calenberger Land.  The Calenberger Land is very pretty rural, with long stretches of fields with scattered villages.  However, along the edges is the Deister.  
My day got off to a bit of a slow start when the local train I wanted to catch ended up being jammed packed with soccer fans on their way to the game, so I had to wait another hour.  Since it's legal to carry alcohol around, tailgating is already going on on the public transit on game days.  But I finally made it to the town of Wennigsen, met my hiking companion, an American who's lived here for awhile and knows the trails, wandered through the town, and then got to the edge of the Deister.  Suddenly, it was all uphill.  The first two hours were pretty much uphill the whole time.  

Then we finally made it to the Annaturm!  This is the highest point of the Deister, at 433 meters.  There's a typical little restaurant/Biergarten there and I ended up splurging on a half a little chicken (only non-pork thing on the menu) and some fries, but I needed the protein.  Then up to the Annaturm, where there's a wonderful view of the Calenberger Land.  You can see across to Hannover, Nordrhein Westfalen, and on some days, over towards Sachsen-Anhalt.  
After that, the hike back downhill to the village of Springe.  
Overall, it was a lovely day to hike with weather around 72 degrees and sun.  The forest itself is a mix of spruce trees and beech trees primarily, and there were some really beautiful sections.  I don't remember seeing a lot of undergrowth, so you could really see some beautiful spreads of trees over the hills.  Near the end the walk was more in shadow and the trees were much oranger, which led me to get the first real feeling of fall.
Hopefully I'll get a chance to get back to the Deister at some point.  I've heard they have a lot of history as well, with old graves and bomb craters from WWII.  I'm not sure if I'll hike back to the Annaturm though since it was quite the trek.

I climbed over that hill!

Speaking of fall, I found something close to apple cider here, which is exciting.  However, my cooking is still very much in summer, so I'll have to at some point figure out some good fall foods and learn how to cook squash better.


Also - I'm now moved into my apartment!  I'll be living here through January.  I'm just subletting, so it's nice that everything is already all furnished and decorated.  My room is very cosy, and I have to say that it is really nice to have a radio and TV "for language practice."  I also have two roommates, who are both nice, and it's also a relief to have a pretty much fully stocked kitchen.  I have to say that my cooking has progressed immensely from three years ago.  The only thing getting used to is that it's a really old gas stove/oven, so I have to do some self lighting and guessing of temperatures.  But hopefully it should work out. 


Other funny thing to note - at the opera (I saw Othello on Saturday,) you could drink your fancy drinks at intermission with soft pretzels.  That's Germany for you!

View from the Annaturm