In which Denmark is overjiggled with jellyfish.

The morning began ominously with a gray, blanketed sky and cold wind off the sea. Not optimal for a planned chill-on-the-beach-and-do-nothing day. Some apricot walnut pancakes were concocted to try and buy us some time while pleading with the summer to come back, which unfortunately hadn't happened by the time the Pfannekuchen had been demolished. So! New plan: leave the country. To the north!

Weyll, technically to the west and then north and then east, but whatever. Hopped in the car and hopped back out shortly before all the signs donned the Danish. Flensburg is the last German stronghold before the border and, as I had only experienced it at night on the one night of the year (the first night... or the last) when everything is exploding and the streets stumble over themselves with intoxicateds, I wanted to take another peek.

A lovely Stadt, but a little droopy in the sudden cold weather. We had a look into one church where a wedding was about to take place and I was a bit spooked out by how dark and dreary it was, each corner creeping with shadows, hardly brightened by the symmetric, tacky white flowers dressing the pews. We did, however, see lotsa fancy schmancy people on their way there as we were leaving, which certainly lightened the mood.

Nuffa that -- gimme some exotic lands! Up, up and across the border and into sporadic sunshine we drove. Slowly the color started sneekling back into the landscape and above as we made our way along the bay.

Landfall was made in sunny Sønderborg, a slowly touristifying town in a prime location. The wonderful colors of the buildings were made juicier still by the now-constant and fluff-speckled blue sky. There didn't appear to be too much going on as we drove in, but an eager opening of the car door let in the sound of a teenage choir rocking out on the other end of the parking lot. I hustled over to see what the bustle was all about and discovered we'd arrived just as a music festival was getting underway, brought to you by joint German and Danish schools on both sides of the border. I was particularly excited when one of the blonde teenage girls nailed Beyonce's key changes. All the parents standing around were impressed, too.

A stroll along the harbor revealed many amusing sights -- doggies napping in the backs of boats, persons napping in the back of boats, people sitting in windows while slurping up as much sunlight as possible, everywhere bicyclists, boat parades lined up and waiting for the drawbridge to Inceptionize (two points if you get that reference) and allow them passage -- cowboys in cute, curtained boats (!), a woodsculptor sculpting, smiling.

 

The harbor peters out to make way for a fortlike castle of sorts, rocking its many shades of red, windows blue with sky and grounds as green as could be. Further still and you find yourself back at the water and, in this case, in the water -- water that was clear clear clear and shimmery above its extensive and colorful palette of stones, some of which were sparkling themselves. Occasionally a jellyfish would jiggle by, blubbing its way over toes and feeling oh, so silly.

A swing back toward the downtown led us past a middle school band honking out SMOOOKE ON THE WAAATER, NUH NUH NUUUH, NUH NUH NUU-UUHHH!!!!
Kind of like I did in middle school. Yeah, that was awesome.

[ < reminisce > ... </ reminisce > ]

Fully pepped, we continued up one of the windey hills into the commercialier district and found -- not much. More colorful buildings, nice afternoon lighting, a creepy ice cream statue, and hardly a soul in sight. Unusual for a beautiful Saturday afternoon.

Confuddled and slightly paranoid that we were in the midst of a zombie apocalypse, we rejoined the remaining humans we could find back down at the harbor, passing a restaurant advertising PULLED PORK SANDWICH(es) -- DEN AMERIKANSKE KLASSIKER ca. 20 cm for 35 DKK (six and a half bucks or so), complete with a picture of Uncle Sam with a cartoon beak and wattle saying "TRY IT NOW! TRY IT NOW!" Ääähhm. How can we prove to the world that all these stereotypes are not true (at least not entirely) when they keep being otherwise enforced?

I didn't have time to be ponder such issues of national identity before being distracted by ice cream and thousands of jellies jellying along, seemingly ballerinaing like salty plum fairies to the conducting of my dangling footies. A satisfying end to one adventure or a great beginning to the next.

Some time later, back in the Deutschland, a quick Supermarket stop was shopped and jazzed up by adorable children and some wandering water fowl, also adorable and even more ridiculous.

That already adventuresome day came to a slow end with a nocturnal beach excursion. T'was already past 11 p.m. but as it was not yet dark, it was decided that we should get as much out of the latenite summer light as possible before it disappeared for another year. Discoveries: golden windows, subtle sunset residue, an angler (who, after much speculation, did turn out to be a live person), wind on the waves, wind in the grasses, wind blowing all the twinkly little skyspecks into the night.

 

In which we toodle through fields of gold (and beyond).

June 2013. My employment situation shifted significantly between May and June as I magically poofed into a full-time in-house translator for a large Hamburg-based company. However, it took several weeks for bureaucracy to catch up with the times, which left me with a month of limbo while awaiting the approval of a new work visa. These few weeks of temporary unemployment, as it were, turned out to be a delicious blessing. Caught up on sleep, detoxed from stress, traveled north and west and east and south with companions from many different spheres of my past and present. All that topped with a fancy visa good for the next few years and I'm as content as a really happy clam.

The first adventure took place with a friend amongst wee villages and fishing towns on the coast of the Baltic Sea and elsewhere at the tippy top of Germany and bottomy bottom of Denmark.

It's dangerous to go on vacation after so many days of good weather, but the celestial kind regards just kept on giving. Hamburg became greener and greener as the vehicle zoomed north 'til there was no more city to be seen, just fields clinging to a last, light fringe of fragrant, yellow canola bloomings. The Autobahn eventually switched to Manualbahn and towns were traversed as ever quickening speeds (without the help of the Beschleuniger). Thatched and browning (or rather greening) roofs were a surprising sight and seemed out of place above modern walls and windows, as if the houses had spliced while going through a time machine, leaving their toupées behind. And everywhere flowers -- branches hanging heavily with grapelike blossoms, eye-popping orange poppies, lilacs, lupines, Queen Anne's Lace, all thrown into pleasantly shocking contrast against the blue sky background.

The keys to the little apartment we were renting were set to be picked up at an old chateau. The building was found without too much difficulty, canons and all, though a neighbor had to help with locating the keys in their very secret hiding place. The blue and white chateau had been renovated into private residences, though was not touristy in any sense in it's almost-off-the-map location. We were just easing some ginger orange pecan muffins into our mouths when a little old lady easing herself onto a nearby bench started speaking to us -- not a common occurrence in my experience. She was so warm and as chatty as she was classy -- very -- nice weather, where're you from, whatcha doin', to-do suggestions, grandkids, isn't baking wonderful and well wishes for our stay, P.S. mass at the chateau on Sunday. I wanted to adopt her as my German Oma right then and there, but felt like that might have been a little too forward. So I said my tschüsses, regretfully, and we drove back across the wooden bridge, over the squacking ducks in the moat, and on through more fields dotted with blink-an'-yull-miss'em villages to see the sea the sea the sea.

Despite the questionable directions to our destination, we found our way there and were not greeted by our black and white neighbors, who were the least friendly, least curious, and least greedy cows I had yet encountered. Maybe that was because they were spoiled with their own self-service (a.k.a. wipe yer snot here) water fountain, but I doubt it.

A propos neighbors, cheap motion detectors around the house were set a-squeeching by the car, by the cows, by us. The neighborhood farmer told us upon arrival that they were to keep the neighbor cats away. Motioning across the hedge, "Der hat so um 30 Stück davon!"(He's got like 30 of 'em!) and continued explaining that the sensors give the felines an electric shock from several meters away -- but don't worry, it only works on cats and knows the difference between creatures like that and creatures like us. (Skeptisch bin ich ja.)

The Baltic was just a short jaunt down the road, as were sheepies, sand art, and goldeny golden goodness.

The next brilliantly weathered day was spent exploring noselike peninsulas and many of the wee villages and less-wee towns along the Schlei, a skinny, salty inlet of the Baltic Sea that snakes its way inland for 20 miles or so (and has a really fun name). Fields a-plenty, wind-twisted trees, quiet cobblestones, grassy docks, and umlauts galore. Swan yoga and calm nest sitting while buff, blue-overalled dock workers did this and that or nothing at all. Shaded, off-road shallows providing perfect spontaneous swimming conditions while an extraordinarily large women frolicked with three extraordinarily small dogs on a strip of beach nearby.

(How much longer?)

 

The cathedral in Schleswig dominates the shore as you zoop around the Schlei, giganticking across the waters. We had a peek inside and discovered lovely ceilings, darkening spots of sunshine on the stone floor dyed by stained glass windows, and many adorable children in various homemade costumes preparing for a play rehearsal.

Adventured out, we wound our way over shrinking streets back to the neighbor cows, turned golden and black in the late evening sun. Cooking, chilling, and sleeping all needed to be verbed before the explorations could continue the next day.