A few months ago, upon learning that I wasn't going home for the holidays, a dear friend proposed that we spend Christmas together by means of taking it easy and cooking up something(s) delicious. This sounded delightful, and a plan started to form that would eventually lead us up and out of Hamburg several hours before the crack of dawn on Christmas Eve day, over hill, over dale, over field, over train and bus and ferry to a tiny, North Frisian island in the North Sea, where we would bravely brave the wind and waves and cook scrumptiously and nap most courageously for several days.
Our destination was the second largest of the Halligen Islands, being around 3.5 square miles in size and inhabited by about 100 people on 10 different raised Warften, or artificial hills built for humans (and livestock) by humans for protection from the storm tide, usually in winter. These islands are very low and very flat, and the whole thing floods completely if the sea level reaches 1.5 m above normal high tide. That is, completely except for the little houses/communities, which then stick out of the water like tiny islands of their own. In German, this is called Landunter, i.e. "land under". Sometimes German is brilliantly logical. Most of the island community lives off of tourism, which is apparently huge in warmer months with a yearly average of 90,000 visitors alone on Cozy Christmas Island. There are a few quaint cafés, a little museum, a church, a potter, a general store, and many holiday apartments for rent. There are horse & buggy rides and guided tours through the surrounding Wadden Sea when the tide is out. 1 pastor, 2 medically-trained persons that trade off, 1 teacher in the school for about 6 kids. Some people have livestock, some people have other jobs they can do at home. The woman who owned the apartment we stayed in was a massage therapist who had moved to the island well over 20 years ago and now only went to the mainland every 6-8 weeks; her husband was born and raised there. A stark contrast to the action of the city, to say the least.
The journey started very early, on my end at about 4:45-and-merry-christmas-to-you-too-you-stupid-alarm-clock-just-kidding-thanks-for-waking-me-up-so-as-not-to-miss-my-train-xoxo, and travel went smoothly for all parties involved. The sun started considering getting up after we'd been training for an hour and a half, its rosy fingers tickling the clouds a cotton-candy pink. It finally got serious with the whole rising thing about an hour later once we'd transferred to a bus, and hurled itself heroically over the horizon, donning its festive "orange ball of fire" outfit for the occasion. Once we'd reached the ferry landing on the coast, it looked like this:
The wind was already pretty confident by the time we reached the coast, and after quickly exploring all decks of the ferry, we decided on the warm indoor option below deck, where the boat motion was minimal and nobody lost their breakfast. The portholes got a good splashing from time to time, but generally all was well and quiet on the water.
I went outside a couple times for some slight exploring and sighted some of the other, smaller Halligen Islands in the distance, meaning a few peaked rooftops silhouetted on the water, floating on invisible innertubes or who knows what. You can see them in the next two pictures (as always, click for fullscreen).
It soon became clear that the view of the Halligen from the water was very similar to the view of the Halligen from the Halligen, except that the waves were replaced with flat, green fields. Little clumps of structures in the midst of not much in particular. Being there immediately reminded me of being in the desert, with the big, big sky and wide open spaces. The colors were different, of course, and the air was very different, but the feeling was the same. There was also something surreal about it, and I found myself thinking about what colonies on Mars could look like -- maybe little groups of buildings huddled together like this, each community sealed in an oxygen bubble and nothing for miles in between... I told my friend about my vision and he said the view was more like what he imagined Monument Valley to look like, which I found a very apt comparison if you put all matters of dimension aside. Of course, neither of us have ever been to Monument Valley and are not fit to judge, but our imaginations are healthy and ever so flexible.
After a timely arrival we met our hosts and the sheep of our hosts, got settled in our apartment with a view, did some eating, did some exploring, did some napping, and at dusk, headed out into the wind toward the tiny church on the fading horizon.
There was a Christmas Eve service and we were hoping for a little holiday cheer to carry us through the next days. The light was almost gone by the time the church started getting bigger in front of us, except for a couple stray strands of evening sky still unmended by the clouds. An eerie stillframe in silhouette with the barren bones of the only trees I'd yet noticed on the island.
The light from the one streetlamp did not reach very far into the courtyard, and the small, stonewalled cemetery was barely lit by the light within the sanctuary, but once you crouch through the low entryway and pass the thick, wooden door...
The space was flooded with candlelight from all sides, and the imported evergreen in front sported its own flaming candles with gusto, still smelling of old pine forests. The pews were mostly full with people of all ages; hard to say who was "from here" and who was not. We recognized some people from the ferry, including a blond toddler who had unabashedly peek-a-boo-flirted with me on the way over, and some from the general store. There was one foreign family, parents with two kids, who we later learned were refugees from Afghanistan. Talk about a change in lifestyle.
The service was beautiful; I was excited to know most of the selected xmas hymns and could jauchzen and frohlocken with the best of them. We left in full Christmas spirit and shouted carols over the cold, dark wind on the way home.
The sun rose late but with umph the next morning and I went to greet it, coming back frozen from the very wintery wind that had greeted me in turn. I could later see out the window how the sun flooded the fields in the same way as it does the desert, and remembered watching the valley below Taos fill with gold on one cold, fall morning last year.
After a breakfast of Christmas Pancakes, we suited up and let our long shadows loose outside to wander the coast and ultimately get soaked from the knees downward in North Sea Splash. (--"Let's keep going!" --"You a crazy chick!" --"I'm a Mainer!")
See the lighthouse?
My reaction to this was, "Well, that's creepy, but at least it's not a severed Uruk-hai head". Thanks, LOTR.
There were many birds on the island -- geese and seagulls and ducks and others, but we didn't see any non-winged wild critters. Apparently there are seals that live nearby, but none sighted by these eyes.
We did randomly stumble across this guy though. On December 25. I just pretended he was sunning himself on the beach after a long, hard night, and went on my way.
It stormed heavily that night, though not heavily enough to flood. The wind was unusually strong and sang all night long as I lay buried under heavy blankets, dreaming and peaceful. The wind and rain continued all the next day and I opted to stay in, cooking and doing quiet things and taking advantage of our host's well-trained massage offerings. The rain stopped eventually and we went for a walk once night had fallen, returning to the water -- now nearly waterless at low tide -- attached ourselves at the elbow and made our way out onto the pier that we had previously glimpsed under crashing waves, the wind howling on all sides. It was so loud that we had to yell to be heard, and so strong that at points it really did hold me when I leaned into it and nearly knocked me over when I stood on my tiptoes and raised my arms to the sky. Don't know how long we played with the dark, dark wind at the end of the pier on that moonless, starless night, but it was long enough to cleanse me into quiet giddiness.
The Cozy Christmas Island adventure came to an end the next day, though we both agreed that a few more days would have been gladly welcomed. We ate up, packed up, cleaned up, and walked to the ferry landing, passing the pier from the night before, now almost covered again. The sky had some pretty dramatic closing remarks above the Warft that had been our home base, and we finally found some fluffy cows.
Tiny church, big sky.
The ferry came right on time, the sun sank down into its cloudy cushions, and the journey ended as quietly as it had begun.
Aber die Lüfte . . . aber die Räume . . .
