Well, it was an interesting day! Fun, though not quite a ton was done. It was certainly different. It started with a trip to the Nordsee (North Sea) Aquarium. A fairly small… a very, very small aquarium. Or at least it was going to start that way until I walked by the massive lighthouse again and saw people at the top, so I thought “why not do it? There’s probably an elevator, it will be cheap and cool.” There was only one problem with my reasoning – the was only one way up and down, and it wasn’t an elevator. It involved steps. 308 of them to the top. Just when you’re looking out the windows on the way up you think “finally! I’m there!” But no, it’s not that simple, it’s at least always another 25 steps. The lighthouse was built in 1879 and is just inches short of 200 feet tall.

After getting some cool pictures, then I finally went to the tiny aquarium which was barely worth the €2.50 entrance fee. It had about 2 dozen small aquariums, with about a dozen fish in each of them, there there was a big one with some cool bigger fish, with about 12 halibut, and some crabs which nearly perfectly blended in with the sandy bottom. It also had a bunch of interesting dead fish preserved in jars, as well as some old fish fossils, including a neat fossilized crab.

After that I got some lunch at a nice local pizza place, next to the giant lighthouse where they were setting up a stage for a performance. As well there was a “police officer” on stilts walking around, blowing his whistle and entertaining crowds, along with a woman dressed as a nun, talking to crowds. Or maybe she was a real nun, I couldn’t tell. Then after some shopping, I went to try something new!

Off to the beach with my towel and glasses and sandals. I went for a nice swim in the North Sea for a while, and it was a lot of fun. The water was not as cold as it could have been, and felt quite nice once I got in. There was an island not far off with dozens and dozens, maybe even a hundred or more of seals

. Here the are called Seehunde, or Sea dogs. The beach was very very crowded, thousands of people playing in the sand, and swimming in the waveless waters. After some time in the water I finally came back, though by the time I got my pictures of the beach a huge amount of other people had also decided to head back. That’s all I have to say about that…

Except for one more thing, the Island I am on… I took the train from Hamburg to the port town of Emden, which has a ferry that runs to… Borkum! This biggest one.