A Little Boat Ride

I've joined this club - The Cosmopolitan Ladies Club of Bremen.  Don't let the title fool you;  I guess we're "cosmopolitan" because we come from all over the world, literally.  The major qualification for membership is that you are a woman, you are not German but are married to one, and you seem to fit in with this diverse group.  Basically, if someone asks you to join, you're in.  It's pretty low-key.

Generally, the language of communication is English, but there are some women who don't do English very well, so German is the second choice.  But it was important to the founders that the club did not become German.

Once a month there's a luncheon, then one or two other events. It's been interesting - small plays, tours of museums and galleries, gardens and parks, a belly-dance evening. Frankly, there were way too many mirrors for me on that event!

Last week some club members went on a little boat trip in a Torfkahn, from the middle of Bremen to the outskirts of the city,  along the canals that were built to bring peat from the moors to the city.  It turned out to be a really nice day - mostly sunny and pleasantly warm.  Good thing, too!  We'd already postponed it from the week before when it was rainy, nasty and 60° - NOT a boat trip kind of day!

Here's the boat.  It would have carried peat from bottom to top, front to back.  One person, maybe two, would have managed the trip which would take several days.  Up front there was a place to crawl into to sleep, a little stove to  heat water for tea.  Not cruise ship conditions.

 But here we are, with Captain Gabi at the helm.  This was a fun trip.

 

We passed desolate places full of algae and water lilies and rotted posts of former docks.  At least I think that's what they were.

 After two hours, we got to the café at Dammsiel, where the little Wümme (the stream we'd followed) ran into the Wümme proper.  Then we celebrated - coffee floats, chocolate floats, coffe and cake, sitting under the apple trees along the river.

Our lives are so much more luxurious than the peat farmers...