Day Trip to the Nordsee

After a rainy and cool start to July, summer finally arrived in Hamburg last week. For the first time since last summer, I experienced temperatures above 90F. Even though I have enjoyed the few days of warm weather, I dread returning to the smoldering Oklahoma heat. I'm one of those weird people who prefer cool, rainy summers over hot, sunny ones. To escape the hot subways and sweltering city, Kaitlyn and I took a day trip to the Nordsee (North Sea) on Thursday. After a "short" 3.5 hour train ride, we arrived in St. Peter Ording. Even though it was long, it was a really enjoyable ride through fields filled with wind farms and solar panels. I wish the US would put as much effort into renewable energy as Germany does. As an added bonus, we got to see tons of sheep and cows. Apparently sheep are a really big deal in northern Germany...who knew?

The beach at St. Peter Ording was enormous. I have never seen a beach this large in my whole life. It stretched on and on and on. And it wasn't just the length that was shocking - the beach itself was over 1km wide. At one point, I looked behind me and saw a desert-like mirage in all directions. To get to the beach, we had to walk over this really long wooden bridge that stretched across a nature preserve. The experience of getting to the beach was an adventure in and of itself.

Walking over the Nature Preserve to get to the beach.

The Nature Preserve 

See, I wasn't kidding...the beach was ridiculously wide.

North Sea

The water was surprisingly warm. After seeing how cold the Mediterranean was in Barcelona, I was expecting the North Sea to be unbearable. But much to my surprise, it was really comfortable. The water was actually more enjoyable then the air. We chose an extremely windy day to go to the beach, so we were pretty chilly sitting on the sand. Kaitlyn and I ended up bobbing around in the waves for a bit to warm up. Speaking of waves, I'm not sure if it was just because of the wind or if it's always like this, but the water was really choppy. The waves definitely knocked me on my bum a couple of times. The difference between high and low tide is also really extreme. We had to get out of the water multiple times to move our stuff further up the beach.

Even though I'm not a huge fan of the beach, I actually had a really fun time. While Kaitlyn read her book, I built a shoddy sand castle, ran around pretending I was on Baywatch, and tried/failed to do cartwheels. My inner child definitely made an appearance that day on the beach.

My sand castle before the tide came in...

...and after the tide came in.

Kaitlyn and me at the beach (yes, she has a bathing suit on)

"I see skies of blue and clouds of white
The bright blessed day, the dark sacred night
And I think to myself what a wonderful world."

Sand shadows

After a relaxing day on the beach, we returned to town to feast on ice cream, fish and chips, and currywurst before heading back to Hamburg. All around it was a fantastic day at the Nordsee. Tschüss!