Meyer Werft has taken this plan to fantastic levels.
We are now in the flat flats of northern Holland and Germany. It is probable that much of this land has been recovered from the North Sea through the industrious work of the Frisian and Ostfriesian people in building and improving the dikes and running the windmills. Again, things I have seen everywhere remind me of dad. Someone has said, "What you believe comes out your fingers" and I think there is a truth that what you've been taught, what you know, what you love also comes out in what you do.
I remember on 2460 Kummer Drive that dad early on planted a row of poplar trees as a border which grew and grew, but later became diseased and he had to cut them down. Here, we see tidy rows of espaliered trees used as borders. We see lots and lots of boxwood and evergreen hedges (remember the one we killed, Dwight, in combatting a bees nest with
Hedge in Ihrhove while looking for Manfred's house and the church
Espaliered trees on a street in Groningen, NE where we are staying since Pappenburg was booked for a convention.
More espaliered trees in the princes gardens behind our hotel which is a refurbish church and prince's home from the 1800's.
I get carried away with garden pictures, but they are so inspiring!
Looking through the arched walkway "window" at the hexagonal garden inside.
A view from our window in Groningen, Hotel Prinsehof.
Greg using the stair "rail". We took these stairs once, but usually use the nice new stairs or elevator. This hotel took 3 years to refurbish and opened about 2 years ago. 
Okay, more reminders of dad.... there are cannas everywhere, especially in Pappenburg. 
No wonder he was always so amazing at growing these. The flat lay of the land reminds me of Nebraska...so it made me think that it was not so hard for him to adjust to living there. It is just as flat here as the Platte River Valley where Columbus lies. He could grow the cannas, the zinnias, and the many other common plants I see here that grew well in NE. There are large fields of tall corn growing in the dark, fertile soil.
No canals really in NE, at least not like here. No windmills except the ones he would build and put in his yard. But here, you frequently turn a corner and see a canal or drainage ditch and still see (though less frequently) the old, traditional windmill. They have been replaced by the modern windmill that we see across the plains to harvest wind energy...
...on our drive back to Holland today...
...in Pappenburg where I remember dad said his Uncle Edo used to work on the canals.
So, back to Noah and Meyer-Werft. We got up early to make it back to Pappenburg by 9:00 to tour the Meyer-Werft Ship-building facility. Though they have been shipbuilding operation since the late 1700's, 6 generations, and currently are a world leader in Cruise ship construction though they still build ferries, research vessels, river cruise liners, container ships, and livestock carriers (aka Noah). We pulled up, and this is what we saw....
Huge cranes on tracks move along the side of the ship, delivering parts for the continued construction which has been in process for over a year.
It began months before inside one of the monstrous metal buildings...
Above is a model of the whole campus. The cruisers are first constructed inside and at a certain point, transferred to the canal outside where the one which met us out front was floating while late stage construction was being finished.
These huge cranes also deliver materials in the indoor facility. 
Materials ready for use
This map shows how the Cruisers are tranferred to the Northsea when complete. You can see Pappenburg in the lower right and they are pulled from the canal at the yard to the Ems and guided out to the bay and the sea. They control what time of year they release the new Cruisers based on the weather and temperatures.
Norwegian Cruisers, the Disney Cruiser, we saw the final stages of a Royal Carribean to name a few of the lines they construct. Of interest, we did not see any women among the labor crews at all. They employ ~3000 people. The yards are so large and the bicycle so common with paved bike paths from town to the site, we saw hundreds of bikes on site that are used by emplyees to get to work as well as from place to place on the campus. We took the tour entirely in German. We would have had to hire a private tour guide at $200 a tour and since there weren't 20 other English speakers to split the charges with, we opted for th $10 (each) German tour and bought a book.
So, in the tradition of Noah building extremely large vessels of carrying people and animals, Meyer-Werft has embraced the idea and stretched the limits. Their cruise vessel being worked on today will carry up to 4188 passengers (2100 sleeping cabinets). Animal transport vessels already completed have carried 80,000 sheep.
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