We started August in style by heading to the east coast of Germany for a weekend. We picked up a car and used the opportunity to return a few bits and pieces which we ended up deciding against. It really is awesome how easily they exchange and refund parts! Our Kitchen and garden were both really taking shape 🙂

We drove to Dierhagen for a long weekend and to catch up with Manjas Family for a bit as several were holidaying in the same area. After a drive of a couple of hours we arrived in a cute little apartment, which was walking distance from the beach. The weather was nice, so we walked the beach for a while and chatted about life. The weather was a little windy, so not pleasant enough to tempt us into the water with more than our feet 🙂
Toward evening we returned to the main touristy part of town to find ourselves some dinner. I decided on trying the local delicacy – a Plaice  – which is a type of flat fish. We also stumbled across a brochure for the local gemstone museum, which had a special exhibition of Australian Opal, so we decided we would have to go there tomorrow!

 

We decided to get up super early to watch the sunrise. Well, Manja decided and I came along 😉
We managed to get ourselves outside and to the beach as the sun was rising, which really was super pretty. One of the reasons for doing this, besides the quiet and relaxing atmosphere, was to look for “Donnerkeile” or “Belemnoidea” which wash up on the shore when the conditions are just right. This morning they were not so perfect, so we didn’t find anything of note, other than plastic which we collected of course. On the way back we stopped at a cafe and grabbed a breakfast roll each which we then ate on the balcony while watching the world wake up around us.

Alex, Angi and Kids were also holidaying in the area, so we agreed to meet them at the Chrystal cave in the morning. Given that they had already explored the museum the day before, we arrived a bit earlier to have a look through it. It’s a private collection, large enough to cover a 3 Story house, mostly of precious gemstones but also of some stuffed animals, with a fairy garden to boot. It’s extremely impressive, especially given that it remains completely private! One of the highlights for me was a rams skull which had been completely covered in Gypsum crystals, from, you guessed it, Australia 🙂

As the family arrived we looked through the store a bit more, and decided to purchase a nice gemstone necklace for Manja. We headed to a local beach as a group and spent a good couple of hours looking for Amber or more Belemnoidea, while playing in the water with the kids. Eventually Manja and I headed off to explore the town a bit, finding ourselves at a little cafe which had the best iced-coffee and ice-cream-cake I have had. When we headed to the beach we drove past a little nature path, and agreed that we wanted to check it out, so we stopped by and walked through the forest for a while on an educational path meant for children but managing to fascinate us.
From there we went to another small township where we would meet the family for dinner again. We had one small problem: Very bad internet connectivity, very little cash and no ATM anywhere nearby.  As we were traveling with kids we decided on Döner and Pizza for dinner 😅
Before leaving we decided to walk the Graal-Müritz jetti, which just happened to be surrounded by extremely large jellyfish that day.

Full of food we headed back to the family accommodation where we played a card game for a few hours before heading back ourselves, totally tired from a long but fun day 🙂

Sunday Morning we headed back to the beach, still early but not quite early enough for sunrise. We decided to take a longer walk, walking along the beach for a couple of kilometers and back via some breakfast restaurants…. or at least that was the plan.  When we tried to get back to the road we had to get through a hotel, where we expected a locked gate any moment. As luck would have it though, every gate was open and we managed to pass 😊
We checked out a few places and eventually settled on a pancake-kitchen style breakfast restaurant. I had my savoury bacon and egg while manja had blueberries – both delicious and both shared 😋

We walked back to the hotel and checked out, and then went back to the beach to go for another walk. One of the cool sights was that someone was making sand sculptures along the beach, which were pretty damn good! At one point in our walk Manja suddenly jumped. There was a kid nearby playing with her dad, who also thought something might have happened based on his face. What actually occurred, though, was that Manja found a perfect little piece of Amber just lying there and grabbed it before the waves did. When we got back we still had some spare time, so we settled down to do some reading for a bit before we had to leave for the long drive back, where we were joined by the worlds most tame Seagull. It didn’t want anything, it just settled in about a meter away from us.