Moin Moin Norderney

28/05/2010
Early in the morning we boarded a train. I slept the whole way. We eventually arrived at the Sealcenter in Norddeich to find an employee feeding the seals and speaking a lot of German, which I did not understand. The facility rehabilitates stranded seals. We had a detailed tour of the whole facility. We then continued the tour at the nearby Walloseum where an assembled whale skeleton rested in a center room. For lunch we visited a seafood restaurant where I ordered a variety platter of fish. The raspberry cream dessert was delicious!
The afternoon was quite a surprise! After meeting our tour guide, we then proceeded to walk into the intertidal zone. I figured this would be just like walking on the beach during the low-tide, but I was quite mistaken. We headed straight out on a cement wall covered with marine snails. I carefully tried to step on as few as possible. When we reached the end of this structure, we then stepped down into a plain of thick mud. This was quite difficult to walk through and before long it seemed as if we were walking in circles. It was very fun to pick up the sea life we found and listen to the guide give a brief explanation of its lifestyle. To make things more interesting the guide decided it would be enjoyable for a few of us to wear blindfolds. With a blindfold on, I did in fact walk in a circle. We finally reached the island where we found rabbit bones scattered everywhere. After much more walking on the island, we began to see live rabbits running around. We finally made it to the bus, but were told to sit on the floor because we were all covered with mud. The bus then dropped us off at the wrong hostel so we waited for some taxis to take us to the correct destination.
The next morning we all received bicycles and again met up with our tour guide. The bicycle tour covered much of the island. I stayed near the rear of the group so that a fellow student would not get left behind, but we both were left behind anyways. Luckily Olaf, the program guide, decided to pedal back and find us. After some more biking and some cold rain, we arrived at a nice restaurant to have lunch. We ate outside and the food was delicious! After lunch we had another long bicycle ride back and we boarded the ferry to return to the mainland. We were all very glad to not have to walk through the mud again!

-Knut
(a blog by Greg Hoyt)