Travel snapshot: M-I-S-S-I-S-S-I-P-P-I

How do you spell Mississippi? This is one of the few things from the English lessons at school that I can still remember vividly. Why does “useless knowledge” actually stay in the memory the longest? M-i-s-s-i-s-s-i-p-p-i: give it a try. It’s best to start slowly and then get faster and faster until you can’t laugh anymore.

And then, suddenly, I found myself standing on the banks of this mighty river, which I had only known by spelling. For almost 4,000 km, it meanders leisurely from northern Minnesota to flows into the Gulf of Mexico south of New Orleans. As spectacular as the delta looks from above (thanks to the window seat), the river looks surprisingly “normal” from the shore. How I would have loved to sail north with the paddle steamer like in the good old days…