We went with Stabe’s (Jodi and Ben) to Papenburg for the 2014 Niedersachsen Landesgartenschau and to tour the Meyer Werft. The Landesgartenschau is a big gardening exposition that occurs every 4 years, each time in a different city in the state. They have all kinds of new products related to gardening, playground equipment, interesting ideas for how to plant stuff and new materials to use… pretty much anything you can think of related to your yard they have it. Someday when we have a house I think Morgan is going to require a badebottich. A badebottich is a Scandinavian version of a hot tub- it is headed by a wood fired stove. Though it seems lo-tech they are pretty pricy; one with a diameter of 180 cm (enough space for 6 people) costs about €2,300.
Separate from the main garden exhibition area there was a second area where the THW (Technisches Hilfswerk –or Federal Agency for Technical Relief) was set up to do demonstrations and answer questions. The THW is a civil protection organization controlled by the government. Interestingly, 99% of its approx. 84K members are volunteers. Our friend Ben is a volunteer, so he was excited to show us around. They help with all kinds of disasters such as traffic accidents, industrial disasters, floods, fires, etc. and things like putting up the Christmas trees and other decorations for the holidays.
Next we walked around town a little before meeting the shuttle to go to the Meyer Werft. Who knew that the majority of the world’s largest cruise ships come from a small town in northern Germany that is not even near the coast? Meyer Werft has been located on the Ems since 1795- this canal connects Papenburg to the North Sea. They build everything from cruise ships and river cruise liners to research vessels and container ships. We couldn’t get over how big the Quantum of the Seas was (that is the ship they are building currently). Because of the bends of the canal the ships are now the longest they can make them and they are pretty much as wide as they can get as well, since ships have to pass through several draw-bridges. Currently there only a few feet of clearance on either side of the ship when it passes through them!
After the tour we headed back to Jodi and Ben’s house in Ankum for dinner – yummy salmon on the grill. Rather than driving back to Osna late at night, we stayed at their place and went with them to a town festival on Sunday morning celebrating the 500th anniversary of St. Nikolaus (the Catholic church in Ankum).
