A Trip to the Baltic Sea
========================

Today we returned from the Ostsee (Baltic Sea), we did a
spontaneous family trip over there beginning on Thursday
and ending on Sunday. It was... exhausting, but oh so
good for the mind. We rented a little holiday house just
a couple of hundred meters from the beach, a bit cramped,
but that doesn't matter when your plan is to spend most
of the time out there.

The drive to the place was about 6 hours, but with a
little break and multiple traffic jams we did need about
eight. Surprisingly, junior had no problem being in the car
so long and to the contrary found it quiet entertaining to
watch the changing landscape, comment on the passing cars,
houses and everything else. We arrived somewhat exhausted
on Thursday around 17:00 and moved directly to the beach,
even before moving our stuff into the house. Junior was
completely flashed by the ocean (if you can call the tiny
Ostsee an ocean...), he digged in the sand, collected rocks
and - even given it was just a bit over 15 degrees Celsius
- he also spend at least ten minutes with his feet in
the water. We stayed for about 1,5 - 2 hours at the beach
and spend the rest of the evening with storing our stuff,
making supper and relaxing from the quiet exhausting day.

The first real day on site was spend exploring the nearby
Viking museum and village at Haithabu - while junior
tried to do somewhat of a speedrun through the museum
my wife and i managed to take at least /some/ time to
view the exhibits... including the remains of one of the
longships so iconic of that age. About a kilometer away
from the museum a recreation of a tiny part of the once
big settlement of Haithabu can be visited, junior had a
blast there and ran in and out of the houses, exploring
every accessible centimeter and looking into every oven
and every corner. All in all, its absolutely worth a visit.

The second day we first visited some local fish stores
as my wife wanted to buy some (or some more...) local
fish. First we went to some touristy store where we bought
some smoked fish (including a big smoked eel as a travel
gift for my mother), then we visited the port at the city
of Kappel. There my wife discovered a tiny fish store
right at the other side of the pier with a fishing vessel
moored before it. If you want to see a very, very happy
Vietnamese women, give her access to a store with really
fresh fish. Lets just say we filled up the coolers my wife
brought along for this reason.

After our fish shopping spree we boarded a touring vessel
and made a little tour across the Schlei river, took a
guided tour around a little island in the river with the
pilot house and returned to the port about three hours
later. Junior is absolutely fascinated about everything
maritime - i guess this runs in the paternal line of my
family. Shortly before we where back at the port juniors
excitement boiled over and we had to scramble to catch
our maniacly giggling toddler running around the ship.

Back with firm ground under our feet we returned to our
house, my wife cooked a delicious fish meal and afterwards
we again headed to the beach. As it is common for the area
at this time of the year it was a bit overcast and windy,
but we nonetheless we spend around two hours there until
we finally headed back to the house to fall into our beds.

Todays drive home was uneventful, a bit more traffic jams
than on Thursday, but we arrived home at around 17:00
today. We are all somewhat exhausted and now we are only
heading again towards our beds... i just wanted to write
this all down while the memories are fresh.

All in all it was a great little vacation - without
Internet, without computers, without news...