Badeinsel Regatta

The regatta took place on 25-July-2009 by the river Weser, that runs through Bremen's city center. Some time ago, teams of two competed to see who the lucky 100 teams would be to race on these giant inner tubes. On the day of the race, it was like Breminale all over again. There were ethnic food vendors, live music, and Beck's beer.

All I cared about was getting my hands on one of those tubes.

The line of tubes was used to rope off the race course. After the race started, Priya and I saw a little motorboat bringing the tubes back to the bank. There were a few people around who had tubes, but I couldn't figure out where they were coming from.

We decided to stick around for a while to see the fate of these tubes. All of the sudden, it was like a flood gate of greedy tube-coveting spectators (like myself) had been opened. We sprinted to the dock, but most of the tubes had already been claimed. I saw one that was still untouched, and ran up and touched it to stake my claim. Success!

Now the challenge of getting it home... We didn't want to deflate it, because we wouldn't be able to easily blow it up again. So instead we brought it with us on the tram. It took up two seats.

Haake-Beck, as we affectionately named our tube, currently resides in Priya's room. We have yet to take him out to the unisee, the nearby lake, but on a sunny day we will. The plans for Haake-Beck after the summer are still uncertain, but I hope to deflate him, bring him home with me, and use it as my first piece of furniture in the new apartment.