Germany, day 8: Nach Bremerhaven

Today was our first Friday entirely in Germany, which means that today marks one week of our arrival and of our luggage misfortune. I'm doing laundry to celebrate.

As our group would have it, we have classes four days each week, resulting in Fridays off from class and 3-day weekends all around. Spiffy. This weekend was our one weekend without plans, so we asked the Uni-Bremen engineers for advice for a day trip. Of the options presented us, we decided to go to Bremerhaven, Bremen's seaport-town.

We took a train from Bremen's main station, a mere 10-minute ride on any of the trams heading north from our housing. The train ride was super-smooth, and took only half an hour; it was an express train, so it made only one other stop. Best of all: it's free for Uni-Bremen students.
(Pictured: Our group on the train, right before it left Bremen.)


We didn't have a very clear plan for our activities in Bremerhaven, so we had some down time to grab a bite to eat and chill. Should you find yoursulf in Bremerhaven, or indeed anywhere in Germany, stop by the bakeries. You can get a cheap sandwich or baked good that is very fresh. I had no problems with getting veggie-friendly sadwiches or wraps. Just expect tomatoes on the sandwich.

I noticed this statue as we walked along, so I decided to interact with it. Everybody stopped to take pictures of me and the statue, but I made sure that my camera caught some, too.



As I said, we didn't have definite plans, so we split up to visit the recommended sites. I went with a group to the Deutsches Schiffahrtsmuseum, pictured as seen from one of its ships. (German Maritime museum)

They had a lot of cool models, artifacts, and data, and the museum is in the process of rebuilding the Hansekogge, a ship from 1380 that was found in the Weser river. (Sorry, pictures were forbidden!)


We took a tour ride around the harbor, but it was all in German. I caught snippets, though, which seemed to be a lot more than anyone else in our group. It was raining for a good part of the ride, which means most of my pictures are hard to make out.

(Pictured: The captain, still talking away in German, but showing of a bit.)


The train ride home went well, after we found seats, which was a long process. I really enjoyed the trip, except for the crummy weather.

We re-stocked on bread and bananas, which will make tomorrow easier, so I can focus on homework. I had a container of cherry Quark with chocolate sprinkles. It was really good -- it was like yogurt, but focused more on the fruit flavor than overall sweetness.

All in all, I think today went really well and I enjoyed it a lot. I have become the unofficial translator for our group, which is sometimes a bit annoying because the professor, who tries to organize our group activities, speaks no German, and I don't have the extent of vocabulary that I think I need to effectively translate. Ah well, time to learn.

Bonus picture: The view from our window at night. (My camera doesn't do well in low light, so I apologize if it looks bad.)