From the Sea to Windmills

I decided to leave Hamburg and head north to the North Sea and have lunch and spend an hour or so there. I departed at 9:46 am for Bremerhaven and the north coast of Germany. This little town was simply beautiful. Quaint seaside fisheries and ports dotted the shoreline. Little coffeshops and pubs lined the streets. Every road had a tree-lined island in the middle. The people were all smiling, old men smoking their pipes, and yes, old ladies with their hair in the lrge dryers as I walked by some salon. It was a really innocent scene from all angles.

I started walking to the sea with my pack. 30 mins later and my aching shoulders telling me to drop the 40lbs. on my back, I found the "Wilhelm Bauer". It is an old Type XXI U-Boat commissioned by the Germans in the late stages on 1943, and never saw action or fired a single shot at the enemy. This boat was entirely different from the Russian ship in the sense that it had room for me to walk around in. It was confined and tight, but more or less what I would have expected. I could stand and walk the passageways without much discomfort. The Germans truly were years ahead of their time in submarine construction.

I ate lunch at a seaside fish place and it was delicious. I got the impression while walking through the town that they get very few travellers as the sight of me and my bag caught many by surprise it seemed.

I returned to the train station at 12:50 where I found the small print at the bottom of the train schedule alerting me that the next train that I thought was at 12:57 ran on all days except Saturday (inconveniently for me, June 2nd was a Saturday). I had an hour to sit in the train station, my shoulders thrilled at the down time they would get from my sitting and waiting.

I boarded a train that in only 5 and a half hours would arrive in the small town of Wageningen in Holland and the spot of the one and only Mel Upjohn.