Europe - Trip 5

Day 5 - February 8, 2002

The bright sun of Schiermonnikoog

Got up at a reasonable hour this morning and had breakfast. We hopped on the bikes and toured the interior of the island, visiting another section of the huge strand. The middle of the island is a National Park with a fair diversity of botany, from what looked like Scotch pine to tall stringy march grass. We tooled around for a while and then ended up at the old German WWII bunker in the centre of the island.

Sue op de Fiets

We got on the bus to the ferry later that day after a beer in the posh hotel in town. Todd was sad that he did not have a chance to go swimming but then given that the beach was almost 500 metres wide, he figured that he would have frozen after the swim, if not before getting to the water…

The ride back was uneventful, except for the teenager fella behind Todd who kept bouncing his football off the back of Todd’s seat. Off the bus we hoofed it through town like natives, picking our way through the crowds and streets like we knew what we were doing.

A beach that is wet

Just prior, we stopped at the market to get the food for the Mexican dinner we were gonna cook for the family for the Sunday meal. The stalls in the Vismarkt gave us virtually all we needed – we settled on Victoria fish of some kind as well as chicken, and got our hands on onions, limes, lettuce, chillies, advocado and chilli paste. We even found a place that sold Sol which was a critical element of the dining experience. Of course given that we didn’t have to make it until Sunday the excitement died quickly as we put everything in the fridge.

Enjoying a Murphy's Red

That night we had another lovely dinner with the Wierengas again and then headed out for a beverage evening at the Society of Key, a lovely bar on the canal where all the Hanseatic League store and trading houses still stand. Other than a strange incident with an overreffreshed lady, her fella and Ite’s glasses the night was fabulous.

Seemingly no rain today but it could just be because we were becoming immune.