12:30 pm Tuesday: Crossing the Mississip

We crossed over at La Crosse (aptly named I guess). There are several islands in the middle of the river here so you never feel like you're crossing one big river but rather a whole bunch of little ones.

There is a group of Amish or Mennonites on board now. I think they boarded at Winona MN, or possibly Red Wing. About 10 people all told ranging from babies to grandparents.

Interestingly I could not at all recognize the language they were speaking. I expected it to sound Germanic but it was more Slavic. I just looked it up on the internet and it turns out there were two waves of Mennonite immigrants to America. One came from Germanic regions and one came from the Russia/Ukraine region. The language had lots of words I didn't recognize (but the accent was Slavic) and then every so often it would slip into English. I think they call that code switching. Really interesting to listen to but I did begin to feel like an eavesdropper (because I was totally eavesdropping) so I left the observation lounge.Read more