Today, we had our Bremerhaven City day. Uschi dropped us off at what is called the “Museum Harbor,” and we started out by going to the “Zoo am Meer” which is right at the water’s edge (although this is technically still the river Weser’s mouth and not the Atlantic Ocean) and where we watched and photographed polar bears, otters, seals, sea lions penguins and some animals that have nothing whatsoever to do with the water or the North sea). The best part is always to watch the seals swim from underwater, through the windows in the lower level. We then traded “way down” for “way up” by traveling twenty stories up to the viewing platform on a humongous hotel, where the view (on this calm and sunny day) was fantastic; it was surprisingly calm up there with absolutely no wind. Then we had some food at a little Imbiss (fries and brats, that sort of thing), and walked through a fake Italian / Mediterranean mall that rivaled the Vegas equivalent, except for the use of natural light through sky lights and the presence of a Jack Wolfskin store and a CHEAP and excellent gelato store. We then went to the Auswandererhaus, and “experienced” the immigrant’s path into the US via ship from Bremerhaven all the way to Ellis Island; as I suspected, the kids and Mark all really enjoyed this, and I liked the new part (about immigrants into Germany, with a retro 70s setup) as well. We spent some time on the computers and actually found Mark’s dad’s Russian-German grandparents–the ones that went to Hastings from Frank, Russia–in a ship’s log for the 1907. That was pretty cool, and the fact that they said their destination was Hastings indicates that there was already a relative or friend from Frank there. The info tallies pretty well with what we know from Mark’s dad and with the documents they have, but the ship’s name and the date is new.
After the Emigrant Museum, we called Uschi and she came to pick us up and show us part of the gigantic container harbor, which is fun to watch. Mark and I walked on the dyke out to the open sea and along the coast to the next village (about 6 km) and Uschi and the kids picked us up there. We had a lovely stew for dinner, and then hung out at night, talking and going to bed fairly early.