Post #32

I am back from my holiday at the north of the country (Cuxhaven was the name, if you have an atlas). And we have perfect weather, which was a good thing to help our spirits considering on Sunday we had to get up at 4am to catch the 5.30 am train and then travel 15 hours, changing trains 9 times! Unfortunately, in our joy of arriving at our last changing-of-the-trains, we got off one stop too early. Had to wait an hour for the next train, realised that that train is only on weekdays and we had to wait another hour for the next train. We then walked for about 4 hours, lost, in Cuxhaven trying to find our house when in the end we called for a taxi. We slept most of Monday. Then we went to a ‘beach’. I use inverted commas because it wasn’t really a beach. It was a lot of grass and a lot of water, but about one square meter of sand. And the water was freezing (okay, I just sat on the green green grass and read, but the people who went in said it was cold). Then on Tuesday we got up at 4am to go to the 6am fish market, which we discovered upon arrival, isn’t on Tuesdays anymore. But we bought some fish anyway. On Wednesday we went on a ship to see the seals. A nice pirate (complete with Nike sneakers and mobile phone) onboard gave everyone lollies. On Thursday we did something really cool. Unfortunately, I don’t know the English word (oh, I’ve been saying that phrase a lot lately), but what do you call the kilometres of sand at the beach that is really wet when the tide is out? It’s on the whole north-east coast of Germany, but I have no idea what it’s called. Anyway, we rode in horse carriages across this expansive bit of nature, freezing our butts off, admiring the beauty of it all. (it really was very pretty). We rode the 10 kms to this island (which belongs to Hamburg, somehow) and stayed there for an hour and I bought some hot chocolate, but I when to the toilets my (empty) mug was missing. And then we rode back. We then walked through the whatever-you-call-it down the coast to the next beach. It took about 2 hours, and about half way it turned to this mud stuff were you kinda sank and got stuck (had horrible thoughts of death by quicksand) and then remember how we played ‘stuck in mud’ during swimming lessons at primary school. On Friday Franzie, Verena and I went to Bremen. Oh, wow, Bremen is beautiful!! It’s got a very old town centre (something like 1300 years old) and this tiny part called ‘Schnoor’ which is also very old and the buildings are built so close together and the alleyways are wide enough for only one person. We met Verena’s cousin and his girlfriend (both of whom are very nice) and we drank coffee (they drank coffee, me not) and then we walked around a little more and then we went to listen to the glockenspiel. That was really cool. We ate at a restaurant there and then went back to Cuxhaven. The next day we got up at 4am (the 4th day of 6) to catch our train back home. I took lots of photos, unfortunately Nathaniel, it wasn’t ‘all wet and cold and rainy and stuff’, but there’s still some cool photos. I also learnt how to count to 20 in French.

School starts again tomorrow. It’ll be good to go again and see and meet all this people, but it also means that I don’t have much longer here. I shan’t dwell. I still haven’t decided on what classes to take, or which grade to go into. I’ll see the deputy principal tomorrow.

I’m going to London on Friday!!!!!!!!!!! Yeeeehaaa! I managed to find some semi-cheap plane tickets and it fit in with Aunt Shelagh’s plan (the rest of the family is coming up from Lowestoft this weekend). Really really happy and excited. Ohh, and a big Herzliche Willkommen to Franzie and Verena, if they’re reading. And I would say that in Afrikaans for Christof, if I could…

A belated Happy Father’s Day to my wonderful Dad. But it doesn’t really matter that I’m late because every day is Father’s Day, isn’t it??

Love, Alicia