Friday in Bremerhaven

I finally get the computer to make another post. I have spent all of my computer time adding pictures to previous posts (Check them out!) and learning how to rotate pictures so you don't have to tip your head to have it make sense. I also have to share the computer with boys who want to check their email, get on Facebook, and IM their friends as well as with students who are thrilled to have Len's Skype phone and to find out it is free because it is calling from one US phone number to another.
Today we took the train to Bremerhaven. It is a Sea Port on the North Sea. The train travels 150 miles per hour and has very few stops along the way so you can cover quite a distance in very little time. The students had passes which covered it and our family used up one of our 5 days of our Euro-rail pass.

It was cool and rainy in Bremerhaven. Unfortunately, our Bremen tram tickets aren't valid there so we had to rely on our feet to get us where we wanted to go. After coffee and donuts, we decided to spilt into 2 groups. One group (the bigger of the 2) went to the Deutsches Schiffahrtsmuseum. (In German, they tend to join several descriptive words together to make one long word.) This was a museum about ships. Len and Jake joined that group. Jake was disappointed that they only got to see half of it because he thinks they saw the boring half. :-)
Michael and I went to the Deutsches Auswanderer Haus. This was a museum on immigration since a majority of people who immigrated from Europe came through Bremerhaven. We were given tickets with the identity of an immigrant and we could follow their story throughout the self-guided tour. We also had cards which enabled us to activate narratives (in our language!) at various stations. Once a woman accidentally swiped her card on a pad that controlled the head phones I was listening to. Instantly, the narrative started over in her language! We got to walk through a ship and see what it was like for the various classes to travel. At the end was an Ellis Island station. You could answer several questions that they actually asked immigrants. You had 5 seconds to answer each one. I was approved but since Michael accidentally hit the button that said he had a physical impairment, he was ordered back on the next available ship.

Both groups met up several kilometers away to take the Harbor Bus tour which had been recommended by several people. Unfortunately, they were all booked for the day so we took a boat tour instead. However, the captain only spoke German so most of us couldn't understand anything he said for 90 minutes. As a result, the waves lulled some of us into a nap. :-) We did pass an Iraqi ship that had come in for repairs during the Gulf War and was found to have weapons on it so it was confiscated.

After the boat tour, we walked back to the train station. We thought we needed to be on track 4 but it didn't seem right when we got there. Jacob kept looking at the schedule and finally said, "We're looking at the incoming schedule not the outgoing schedule! We need to be on track 2!" We quickly hurried down and around and back up to track 2 and got on the correct train. Once back in Bremen, Len and I got groceries and Michael and I made grilled cheese and tomato soup along with a salad for dinner. Now everyone is sleeping and I am finally getting to make a post.
Ann