Bremerhaven, Germany (Part 1 of 3)

The very first thing I had to do on arrival in Germany -- a giant beer and a pretzel!

  When we were kids, WWII was in the rather recent past and Germany was definitely one of the bad guys. We'd heard and read a lot about how the country reconciled that history and were curious to learn for ourselves; this would be our first visit. One of our young shipmates last year was German; he said he was proud of the country he grew up in for rejecting its past, and for the steps they'd taken to make sure it wouldn't happen again. He told me that Nazi symbols are banned and the Holocaust is taught in schools. I compared that to the US, and how Confederate flags still fly in parts of the South. We still haven't  explicitly rejected that, and cry "free speech!" But there have always been limits on free speech in service to public safety; yelling "fire" in a crowded theater is the textbook example. Germany apparently classifies echoes of the racist history in the same category of danger. (Recently, Wales has made it a crime for politicians to lie, and 6 other EU countries are considering the same. Again, balancing free speech with public safety limits.)

We saw several examples of this new philosophy as we walked in town. Ironically the first time I saw one, I didn't recognize it for what it was. I thought that the seating part of this park bench on the promenade near where our ship was docked was truncated in the kind of social engineering we'd do here to discourage the homeless from sleeping on the bench. Then I used my trusty Google Translate that has made my traveling life so much better. Nope. It's public art with a message: the back above the truncated seat reads “no place for racism” in German.

"No place for racism." The rest are welcome to sit on this comfortable bench with a view of the water.

Before our German guest left, he gave us a few suggestions for where to eat and sightsee in town. He strongly recommended two museums within easy walking distance of where our ship was docked. We managed both of them, and I'll cover each in a separate post. 

A "goodbye" photo with the German crew trainee.

The ship's hull and sails are Heineken green! 

One of several canals the tall ships were docked in. We look so tiny here in this photo taken from the roof of a nearby building; docked between tall ships from other countries. The one directly ahead of us is the Uruguayan (?) navy training ship; like our Coast Guard Eagle. It has a crew of 230, to our 21. Across from us is Germany’s. At 08:00 we hear dueling national anthems from several countries. Comment from a friend when I originally posted this on my Instagram :"...we hear dueling national anthems..." 😁 add it to the list of “weird sentences I never expected to type.” (Can't find us? We're the dark shape near the middle of the photo, almost directly above the copper cone-shaped chimney cap in the middle ground. )

City's logo on a manhole cover. 

Street view on the pedestrian plaza in the downtown area.

I'm not sure what this sculpture was about. But it was clearly designed with a break in the row of "people" so visitors could interact with it. I found it amusing that, by chance, the clothing I was wearing that day coordinated with the color scheme perfectly!

We were attendees at a tall ship festival, after all, so we took the opportunity to ... tour some of the other ships at the festival and talk with their crews. Crew-to-crew conversations are very different from those we have with visitors to our own ship. Visitors ask how big our ship is and how many crew, and where do we sleep (many seem to think we each have private staterooms like on a cruise ship and are stunned when I tell them we sleep in a dorm with 14 of our shipmates) and how did we get this job and what was our training. With other crew we want to know how's your watch schedule, do you have a dedicated cook or just take it in turns, how's the helm, and other minutia of daily life aboard. The festivals often also include crew parties after hours (with a little bit of beer, arm-wrestling competitions among people who haul on heavy lines and raise sails for their daily activities, can be intense!) fireworks, and parades. We'll sometimes get a peek behind the scenes into non-public areas, as well. Here, a montage of ship details and stuff-the-public-doesn't-see. The irony is that the public parts of these ships is much more crowded than my photos indicate; I usually waited for quiet moments for pictures. 

The Peruvian ship offered displays of cultural heritage and foods as part of the tours

One of the crew members of the Omani ship had lived in Tampa as a child, so his English was excellent and we exchanged some stories. He invited us for tea!

Another part of the Omani ship. I was impressed by the subtle detailing -- the arches on these louvered doors to me have crown shapes evoking Middle Eastern architecture.

check out the rope work on this ship's bell, intricate work carefully done in the national colours of Oman

Group photo of the crews from all the ships in the festival at the end of the crew parade. The Galeon delegation is in the middle of the photo, in navy blue polos.

View back to our ship, from the deck of the ship docked ahead of us.

Goodnight, Bremerhaven! (Nightly fireworks and light show, as seen from our quarterdeck.)