Day 127 Wednesday

So we're on vacation on the North Sea at Joern's Father's summer home.  Sounds great, right?  We got the ocean, sand, sun...okay we actually don't have sand or sun at the moment.  We don't have sand because the North Sea beach is pretty different from all of the other beaches in the world.  The tides don't go in and out a couple hundred feet, they go in and out for miles.  The soil here is actually more clay than sand, so a lot of the time when the tide is on its way in or out, you have a pretty huge mud flat, charmingly named The Watt (vatt).  People here love to walk around in the mud here because in other parts of the North Sea the mud is actually quicksand, and the tide is so fast you're likely to get swept out to sea by it.  So, all in all, the mud here is pretty appealing by comparison.  Except when it's really cold outside and raining, like it's been for most of our vacation week.  Not to worry, we've been consoling ourselves in the Sauna and building fires.  It's actually pretty cozy.  We also went to one of the best restaurants in the area.  Their specialty is a dish called Flammkuchen.  It's in the pizza family but not actually pizza.  It's paper-thin dough spread with crème fraîche, onions, and bacon, and then baked in a wood-fired oven.  It's my new favorite dish until probably Christmas (when Lebkuchen comes out...you know, I could totally order my year around different types of kuchen...).  So here's the coolest/weirdest thing that happened while we were there: The people at the table next to us ordered a round of Schnaps.  From each shot glass hung a piece of pickled herring.  Everyone, including the waiter, put the piece of herring into their mouths, the waiter yelled "the fish's gotta swim!" and then everyone drank.  Not bad entertainment for a Wednesday night.