Spiekeroog! (The first day)

Our friends the Beattys, along with another friend, Maddie got here on the 14th and left this morning. We all had a ton of fun, but the best part of their trip (for me) was our trip to Spiekeroog.

Spiekeroog is one of the East Frisian islands. It' s in the North Sea, just off the coast of Northern Germany. Mr. Beatty has relatives there that they all wanted to meet, so when they found tickets here, they added that as part of their trip. They had one extra seat in the van so I was lucky enough to get to go with them.

We drove for about 6 hours to get to the ferry. In the car we did..nothing..not really anything of interest. Played music, listened to the ipod, read, talked a little, and said a rosary. That's about it. I have to say that it was more enjoyable than my family car rides because Lucy slept most of the way and it was pretty quiet. Except..I had to sit in the middle..in the back.

About half-way there we stopped for gas and a bathroom break. I thought I'd be fine until we got to the ferry..well.......By the time we got to where we had to park the car (There are no cars allowed on the island) by the ferry..Did I say by the ferry???? No! We had to walk for about 15 min to get from the car to the ferry. It was not the most enjoyable walk/jog/run. By this time I really had to go to the bathroom, it was really windy and cold, I didn't have my windbreaker on, we were trying to hurry, and I had a heavy backpack on my back (I knew I shouldn't have packed so much!) and I was trying to pull the backpack with the baby's stuff.

We did finally get there, but by the time we did, it took about 10 min for my face to stop being numb. We couldn't find the bathroom, so we had to wait until we got on the ferry, about 5-10 minutes later. Finally a bathroom!

We spent the beginning of the ferry ride over playing Egyptian rat's-crew. (a card game involving slapping certain cards) I think I won..but I don't remember. Then we came up with a few more words for the Aroog language. (That's a little joke made up by Andrew Beatty. "Can you Spiek Aroog?" is what started it.) We are now partly fluent in that wonderful language. My favorite thing to say is, "Ga ra mamooger napoog toogs!" (You are getting on my nerves) That was probably the most commonly used phrase besides, "Ga ra Papooga." (You are annoying)

When we were pretty close to the island, we went up on the deck of the ferry! Boy was it windy! This should give you some idea. ( right: [L-R] Jack 12, Andrew 14, Maddie 12, and Nora 9 with her hood up.) Jack's hood kept hitting him in the face. (left) I was really glad I don't have long hair anymore. Poor Nora's hair was flying everywhere!

We got to the dock after only about half an hour on the ferry. I took lots of pictures of the island from the ferry. (top)

We walked down the gangplank and waited for Mr. Beatty's relatives to come up to us. They were really nice. Heio (High-oh) is Mr. Beatty's 2nd cousin (I think) and Kris is his wife. They both spoke perfect English with an English accent. (Actually, Kris [Chris?] is British.) They had come to meet us along with another of Mr. Beatty's relations. We all walked through the windy, quaint, car-free, bike filled streets of Spiekeroog (The only town on the island) to get to the apartment where we were going to stay. It was a neat little apartment. Very German, clean with the usual German style of bed: One comforter, one fluffy pillow, (too fluffy in my opinion) and no top sheet.

While Mr. Beatty went to the store for breakfast food we watched ice dancing on tv. At 6pm Heio came to pick us up to go to his house for a dinner of spaghetti. It was really good! There were two different types of sauce. One was the usual beef, mushroom, tomato sauce and the other one had tuna and cheese and was really really really good!

After dinner we played more Egyptian Rats-crew. I don't remember who won those games. Then we went back to the apartment. Maddie, Jack, Andrew, and I went up the tight curving spiral stairs to the loft where the boy's room was. Up there there was also a little alcove which became our clubhouse for the weekend. I taught them how to play 'games', a really fun card game with 4 players. We did that until we had to go to bed.

And that was ourfirst day in Spiekeroog!