Unlike us crazy postgrads, my mother doesn't travel very often for work. She does some sort of work in Human Resources for a company called Studio Seven (that's about all I know) and she loves to travel, so a couple of months ago, when the opportunity to spend two weeks in Berlin and Bremen learning about family friendly resources in businesses came along, she jumped at the chance to go.
As is also quite typical with my mother, as soon as she was accepted onto this program, she checked out flights from Manchester to Bremen, and discovered they were super cheap with RyanAir. So "Nicky....come visit me in Bremen!!!! I'll pay your flights!!!". Which is why last Thursday morning I was on a train and then a plane to Bremen, for just a day and a half!!
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| Thanks to Google Mappage |
Bremen is a small city in the North of Germany, as you can see from this lovely map. Therefore the flight only took an 1.3 hours. It would have taken even less than that if Bremen hadn't been covered in a cloud of fog upon our arrival and the pilot hadn't been forced to withdraw his landing, return to the sky and reattempt a landing ten minutes later on autopilot. Not a fun moment - I'll tell you that.
Eventually we did land, and after a short tram ride, I made it to Hautbanhopf (the Central Station), where my mother's hotel was located. Obviously she didn't give me more than five minutes to dump my backpack before we were back on a tram heading to the suburbs, where she knew of a little shopping center containing Bremen's only Primark!
So then followed an afternoon of shopping. For lunch, I was treated to a giant Frankfurter on the go. I felt pretty awkward wandering around the shops trying to scoff that.
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| Wasn't really that big!! |
When we finally finished shopping, it was dark and freezing outside, and we needed to get back to the hotel before meeting all my mum's colleagues for dinner. Mum had clearly provisioned up so we had a couple of glasses of wine whilst getting ready, then we headed back into town to get to the pub restaurant that had been booked.
It was quite a big group of people: about seven women and two men, then me and mum. A couple of the ladies were enjoying some of the beer but mum and I were onto the wine and feeling fine!! On top of that, the restaurant served great food: I enjoyed me some veal schitzel, fries and green beans, and my mother's mixed meat medallions were exceptional. We were a bit unsure of one of the meats (I think it was horse), but regardless...I'm impressed with German food!!
The next day was stuck on freezing and we were on sightseeing/shopping mode. We wandered into the city centre and looked around the old town and cute little shops and cafes they had there. I must say that Bremen has some really pretty architecture, especially in the very center where all the markets were appearing.
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| Bremen Cathedral and Square |
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| Old town |
We walked along the river as well, which was super pretty. Shame it was so cold and the boat rides weren't working, because that would have been fun to do. Nevertheless, my mother managed to take some awesome photos (which she has yet to send me).
We spend the rest of the day shopping, mostly after we stopped for lunch and a glass of mulled wine at a cafe by the river. It made me feel so Christmassy. Christmas has really taken a firm hold over Bremen already, and everywhere we went there were plenty of decorations and presents for sale. So clearly we bought some of these. Finally, after a long day's shop, we retired back to the hotel for some chinese and wine. Sadly, my mum's flight was at 6am the next morning (mine wasn't until 11.30), so we had an early night and that was the end of my brief sojourn to Bremen!!
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