{Germany Series...Day 1 & 2}

Day 1:
So, the busy week began slowly!  The first day was really laid back, which was good since Ethan was sick that day.  We met up with the Bryon, Jennifer, Melissa, Sepp, Melanie, Hildi, Hansi, and a couple others to have lunch at the Pizza Shoppe.  Hansi ate a whole queen size pizza!  Afterward they all took a trip to the grocery store, which doesn't sound all that exciting, but German grocery stores are way different than ours! (and their shopping carts are way cooler--they go sideways in addition to the forward/backward movement.)  Everyone's day one was different since they spent it with their host family.

Day 2:
One of the things our group wanted to do was go to Steamboat Arabia.  This steamboat was traveling up the Missouri River from St. Louis, when it snagged and sank shortly after leaving Kansas City.  Imported goods were on this boat to be delivered to different towns along the river to settlers new to the midwest.  In 1988 some locals decided to try to find the ship since the river had been "moved" by the government, and the boat now laid under some famers land.  Even though history had claimed the boat had already been discovered there was no record of it, so they went digging.  Not long after starting, these men discovered where the boat lied!  If you dig history this is one cool museum to go to.  The boys really loved seeing all the stuff that was found on the boat.

Before our tour of the steamboat started we enjoyed some shopping and lunch in the nearby city market. It gave me a chance to snap this picture of the old opera house.  In Germany this would be called the "new" opera house!!  We also spent some time waiting for the tour as a group.  While we waited ice cream was in order.  German ice cream is more like what we call italian ice, so for them to taste our very creamy ice cream is a treat!  I think they enjoyed it too!

The boys loved checking out the boat wheel, which is in the background of many of the pictures you see here.  It's SO big.  There were two of these wheels on the boat.  One on each side.

Sepp admiring the wheel.

A very tired April was along for the ride!  (I think she slept a whole 20-30 min of the whole time we were there!)

Getting started on our tour took a little more time than we had hoped for but we finally got started!!  The following pictures are of some items that were found on the boat.  They are STILL going through the artifacts, cleaning, restoring, and putting back together!

The stern of the steamboat is all that's on display.  For several years they had to treat it with a mixture and water to preserve the wood.  That is why you see the shower curtain and shower heads.

Just some of the bottles found on the boat.  Aren't they beautiful?

Just hundreds of the clothes pins they found!

This is only a small fraction of the number of keys that were found.

Nails rusted in dirt.  Here you can see women working on repairing some of the artifacts.  This day they were working on some of the bolts of fabric.

The boilers that were in the boat. 

Sitting around trying to decide what we want to do next!  We are headed to the Liberty Memorial where you see a beautiful view of the city skyline, Union Station, the Plaza for ice cream and then to Gates BBQ for dinner.

We did have a blast hanging out at Liberty Memorial.  Some of the crew went in the morning so they opted not to go again.  They were closed by the time we got there so we didn't get to go into the museum, but tried again later in the week.  We got some great pictures though!

The boys checking out the view with opa, what fun!

Hanzi pretending to fall off the building!

Ethan & Sterling playing something along the side of the wall.

A dirty mouth = a good day!  Oh, and a fun game with this soldier.  

The crew that came for this activity!

We then headed across the street to Union Station, which is one of two still active train stations in the United States.  The other being Grand Central Station in NY.  If you've never been inside Union station it's a must see!  You feel like you're walking back into a different time period!  

This next pictures is one of my favorites!  It's Ethan and Sepp.  Sepp and his wife are the couple we stayed with 5 years ago when we went to Germany.  It was so cute to see the bond these two created during the time Sepp was here!  It's almost like it was instant; like Ethan already knew who he was!  The more amazing thing with this relationship is that Sepp doesn't speak any English and Ethan doesn't know any German.

Dinner at Gates was fun, yummy, and long!!  We got home around 9 that night, which was early.  Most of the gang went to Kyle's house to hang out after dinner.  What a cram packed day it was!