Daily Archives: August 7, 2016

Today is the day we start our transition from pampered relaxation and cultural exploration to the familiar family visit.  We had our last breakfast on board and were seated with the most entertaining people:  a Greek couple from Australia who are in the middle of a 7 week holiday.  We had a fabulous chat about travel, the state of world politics, how long you can visit family before it’s not fun any more, and lots of other enjoyable topics.  We were very sorry that we hadn’t met them earlier in the week.

Then it was back to the cabin to finish packing and then to my least favorite activity:  Hurry up and wait.  We took a seat in our designated location, broke out the cards, and played Go Fish until it was our turn to disembark.  The grey clouds were starting to break so we opted to walk the 20 minutes to the train station instead of queuing for the shuttle bus.  We hadn’t bought our train tickets yet because I was never sure what time I should aim for.  I figured out that there was an Intercity Express that left at 12:38 and was by far the fastest option so we decided to purchase tickets for that one.  The very nice woman in the ticket office told us she could sell us tickets but couldn’t assign us seats because the train was completely full and every seat was reserved.  We decided to take a chance that we might have to stand for the 2:07 travel time.  I figured out where the dining car would be and we decided to make a dash for a seat there.  And just as we were ready to stake out the correct carriage, the sky opened up.  We crammed into a shelter on the platform with everyone else who had the same idea and waited for the deluge to pass.

Eventually, it did and we stalked the door to the dining car.  While we were waiting, Frank struck up a conversation with another stalker and when the doors were opened, the dash was on.  We didn’t get a seat originally but the chatty fellow had staked out a table and offered us some seats.  That started a fabulous 3 hour conversation with Peter, the retired psychologist who spends 4-5 months a year in South Africa.  We discussed everything under the sun: how he spent the last 4 weeks sailing around the Baltic sea but had to get home because his best friend died last night, what volunteer work he does in South Africa, what Germany thinks of Trump and Brexit, and just about everything in between.  We grabbed a bit to eat on the train (they had an entire list of allergy stuff for the food offerings!) and arrived in Bremen dry, fed, and thoroughly entertained.

We found our way to the hotel, dropped off our bags, and began our exploration. We wandered all over the old town and through markets, alleys, church plazas, and eventually found ourselves on the water front enjoying the late afternoon sunshine in one of the biergartens with the rest of the city.  There were at least 5 hen parties and one bachelor party working their way through the bars on the water front and we got to see two sets of newlyweds.

We eventually found ourselves in a restaurant under the town hall: the Bremer Ratskeller. It was in a cellar with vaulted ceilings, huge beer vats and little alcoves with art deco glass.  The building dated back to 1405!  A little touristy but the menu had allergens clearly marked and the food was !Although Frank wasn’t that enthusiastic about the pickled herring. So after several hours in transit and 19,841 steps, we’ve retired to the hotel with our 4 euro bottle of wine procured from the local Lidl and it’s time to watch some Olympics and see how long the hotel wifi will hold out.