Germany 2011-2012 Exchange: Herbstferien Urlaub nach Pepelow (Vacation trip to Pepelow)

I'm writing this from Sievershausen, but it's about a totally different place. This past week (a whole week, from Sunday to Sunday) I was in Pepelow, a town on the Baltic Sea. Well, not directly on. It's on a little bay, which is connected to the Baltic Sea. But still, only about 4 miles from the sea. We didn't all go, just me, Papa, Jonathon, and Mathilde. But it was a lot of fun!

The main reason we went was to be able to go sailing. Jonathon and Papa each had a little sailboat they brought (not a bit yacht, just little ones that could carry maybe 4 people each). And they sure used the boats a lot! Nearly every day they went out on the water for at least 2-4 hours. I don't blame them, either. Mathilde and I went out three times, and I loved it. Usually it was sunny, even though it rained one day, and the wind off the water was so fresh! I didn't even mind when the waves splashed up on me and I got soaked. Haha, okay, maybe I cared a bit... I mean, I was totally wet afterwards! But still, I enjoyed it.

And the times when Papa and Jonathon went sailing and we didn't go along, Mathilde and I usually rode our bikes around, or we played games. Once we rode along the beach, where we discovered a little stream that flowed into the bay. We, being us, decided to build a dam there, which took up quite a bit of our time. And, I'm a bit sad to say, it didn't work all too well. Whenever we got the water blocked, then it would just erode some sand away and go right around the whole dam. But, it was really entertaining. And I found some sea glass, as well as a 50 Pfennig (that's from the Deutschemark, before Germany switched to the Euro) coin from 1990. I was pretty excited about that, even though Jonathon informed me that it really isn't anything too special, because Germany only switched to the Euro in 2001. Not like it's a rare Roman coin or something. But still, that's 10 years ago, now. So to me, it's pretty interesting.

Before we left home, Mama had given me a kite to fly. Good thing, too, because it was always pretty windy and we flew them quite often. At first, I had some issues trying to control it (alright, so twice it landed in the water). Sometimes, though, I was convinced that the Drachen (kite) was, for some reason, dead set on repeatedly ramming itself into the sand on the beach. But once I got the hang of it, it was really easy. I even managed to keep it from committing suicide and flying into trees, or doing a kamikatze dive into the water.

Like I said earlier, it rained one whole day. Originally, we had thought about going to an indoor waterpark in Wismar (next big city in the area). Once we got there, though, and saw the long lines waiting to get in, we changed our minds. Instead, we walked around Wismar and looked at... everything. Papa studied here for two years, so he knew all the history of everything. Even if a lot had changed since Germany's reunification (Wismar is in former East Germany).

One thing we saw there was one of the three churches/cathedrals. Well, we didn't really see the church itself, because it was mostly destroyed in a bombing raid in WWII. Strangely enough, the bell tower wasn't destroyed, though. So that's still standing, but there's nothing else. Inside the bell tower is a

little museum about the style of building it was. There is a nice little 10 minute 3-D movie about how the church was built. Which I found really interesting. They showed how the foundations were made, how the bricks were made, and finally, how the bricklayers eventually put it all together and made it into a beautiful building. Now they are beginning to raise money to rebuild the church, so that there isn't the empty space there anymore.

Whenever the weather was nice, we went to the beach. Not to go swimming (the water was about 45 degrees), but to just walk along and enjoy it. Mathilde picked up a whole bunch of stones, and Papa found a crystallized tree branch. I think I might have found one, too, but... then again, I might just have tricked myself into thinking that. You know what I mean; you can convince yourself to think anything if you try hard enough at it.

And then it was Sunday again, and we had to leave. I really had a lot of fun, but it's kinda nice to be back home again. I've got one more week to just relax, and then it's back into school again! Oh, yeah, I forgot to mention-- I'm on break now. From last Monday until this Friday I don't have school. Nice, right? : )