Kiel, northern Germany

 After a grueling 24+ hour trip we finally arrive in the small coastal city of Kiel, to spend some days with my brother Henning and his family. We are properly jet-lagged and manage to sleep 14 hours after a delicious spread of fresh tapas, prepared by Henning's wife Rica. The kids did really well on the long trip, not complaining much. I am always amazed at how they can sleep in the most crooked positions. I am not great at sleeping in upright positions and am very grateful to get horizontal soon after dinner. The next few days we spend sleeping in, eating delicious foods: bread!, fresh berries from the garden, Fischbroetchen (the famous northern bread roll with pickled fish), curry-wurst, fancy fish, more fish and fish (yum). Of course lots of local beer and schnaps to go with it. We ride bikes all through town, hike along the coast with some pretty steep cliffs and go swimming in the baltic sea (about 18 degrees celsius). I love seeing my niece Ada (7) and nephew Paul (11), who get along great with our kids. Miles gets to spend a morning at Paul's school, the local Waldorf school of Kiel. He is amazed at how different school is here, with singing, dancing and playing. The latest hip thing for school kids here are uni-cycles. Miles describes recess as 'a literal circus'. Yesterday we left for Hamburg, to celebrate my uncles birthday on a boat in the harbour. We will report separately on that.. 

Tosh:  I forget how vibrantly green northern country can be in the spring/summer. Every plant seems to know that it only has about 3 months to grow as much as possible, so the greens are almost florescent and every flower is the most vivid color imaginable. It's very different to the darker greens of sun-drenched southeast or the brownish greens of the sun-scorched west. Beautiful. 

Seeing Henning, Rica, Paul, and Ada was fun. Family life in a European city seems fun. They've one car, which they don't really seem to use that often, as everything is accessible by foot or bicycle. Kiel, being a harbor town and the mouth of the canal that cuts from the Baltic to the North Sea, is all built around the water and wharfs. Henning tells me that Kiel was a major shipyard for submarine construction back in the 1930's and 40's. So, as you can imagine, the city is pretty much brand new; nearly every building, road, and public work being rebuilt in the 1950's after being bombed flat during the war, so close a target to the Allies' air bases in Britain. Anyway; it's a beautiful city in the summer. We're off to Hamburg next!

Miles: I had a great time in Kiel with my cousins and the place was very intresting. I went to Pauls' school and it was a lot less strict then ours in America. later that day after school we went on a hike and on that hike were thousands of snails and a sewege filter where it smelled very bad also it was almost snowing because how cold it is. did you know that the sun goes down in Germany at 11 at night and comes up at 3 in the morning? true fact as i have woken up at 3 the past few mornings thinking it was 9 in the morning, it is VERY hard to go back to sleep from that.

Tut: I had a great time with Paul and Ada. We went to the park and played a lot they also had a piano i played some songs on. They had a lot of games and toys. When me and my mom and my dad went to go pick up Ada from school we got to go inside the school and it was huge!!! it had a big sand pit and a play ground and at the end of the day they jest got to play around and do basically what ever they wanted to do i saw some kids playing one a one wheeled bicycle and falling of one girl face planted on the ground. when we where walking back from picking Ada up from school we went to there garden and they had the most delicious berries i have ever tasted. It was a really cool experience being there.