Gera, Germany---Oct.4 and 5

I wanted to get a picture of this postal worker bike in Bielefeld, but found on in Gera. Note the 2 little wheels that serve as a stand. This thing, fully loaded, must be really heavy, and I've realized I've never seen an older person riding one. Very efficient when the houses are so close together and parking is a problem....

Postal delivery person in Gera

Heidi did her fall semester of high school senior year in Gera, Germany. Gera is in the old East Germany, about 125,000 people, and is a sister city of Fort Wayne, IN, where we were living at the time. Heidi lived with a couple and their 2 high-school aged sons in he middle yellow apartment. The couple has since divorced, and although Heidi was able to track down a middle-aged fellow whose kids were friends with the 2 young men, he didn't know where any of them now are. At least the building was still standing, as opposed to Mainz where everywhere she had lived had been torn down!

We traveled to Gera on a Sunday, and the train ticket clerk had suggested reserving seats. We had 3 seats, on either side of a table, which was nice. I do not do well riding backwards, and most of the time, I guess one way and have to change seats once the train moves. Heidi and Pete spent part of the trip watching DVDs on Pete's little Blackberry phone.

Heidi in a food court area in the Gera shopping mall, with a piece of her favorite chocolate dessert. This was really diferent, and very good!

My hotel room in Gera---small but comfortable. The bathroom was HUGE by European standards, and miracle of miracles, had a BATHTUB!! The tub was so deep I had trouble getting ouf of it---probably the deepest bathtub I've ever seen.

This sign was in the hotel hallway. Note that you are not to panik. You are also supposed to "Bring you to safety."

The hotel sign

The hotel had a restaurant, and this sign mentions the various holiday brunches and meals.

This sign was near a school---no translation needed!

Kleider is clothing---this was cute!!

The AmpfelMenschen again, perhaps since this was East Germany. This was the only place where we saw "Grun kommt"---green comes, or come with green, I suppose.

One part of the town square. There were a few teenagers skateboarding, which is really noisy on cobblestone streets. You'd think they'd shake themselves to death.....

Gera was a much larger city than I had expected, for some reason. We saw Heidi's old school, which has been updated, cleaned up, and is now an administration building.

Heidi and Pete in the restaurant area of our hotel; Pete and I had a Kostriker bier and Heidi had tea. For the picture, they both have bier! The older fellow who was on duty when we got there Sunday evening was really chatty and very nice; the younger fellow the next morning wasn't nearly as sociable. This older fellow, along with several other people along the way, told Heidi that they were very impressed with her German, thinking that she was German. Her vocabulary and "very slight" accent (says Rainer) evidently serve her well!