Early Mornings-- Week 1

This morning I woke up at 6:55. My alarm was set for 8 am, but 6:55 rolled around and I was ready to start the day. In case you mistake me for a morning person, this is NOT typical for me. I thought about it and realized that I haven't slept in past 8:15 since I was home in June. In fact I'd consider 8:15 to be sleeping in now. This might partly be due to the long days here where the sun gets up early and goes to bed late, but it's been great since we start the mornings early in order to fit everything into each day. It sort of seems like the extended sunlight hours are especially for us, so that we can get everything done :)

We'd only been in Bonn three days and it was already time for a vacation from our vacation to Hannover, then Nordenaie, then Amsterdam. Wednesday morning we met at the train station at 6:45 am to catch the train to Hannover. After a busy day of hospitals and spiders and pizza for dinner, we stayed up late in our rooms watching the world cup game among other things, even thought the next morning we had to meet for breakfast at 7 am. Thursday morning came quickly, and we packed up again and headed to Nordenaie. I can see why it's such a popular vacation spot for Germans, it's an absolutely beaustiful island. It was the perfect setting for the rehabilitation center we toured there. It was interesting to learn about all aspects of the medical field, expecially in Germany where the healthcare program is different. After that we went swimming in the North Sea. It was so cold, but so fantastic. After all this, we still made time to play frisbee, eat dinner, explore the town, and sit on the beach. The next day we woke up at 4:30 am, let me just repeat that, 4:30 am! I didn't actually plan on going birdwatching, just getting up to watch the sun rise and going back to sleep, but about halfway down the horse trail I realized I had in fact committed to the birdwatching excursion, so I brought up the rear on the morning hike before breakfast and a long day of walking across the North Sea. It was fantastic, and not just because I like hiking but because it was such a unique and amazing experience! About 6 miles later, and we still had time to visit two museams and travel to Amsterdam.

Amsterdam was fantastic! Although it was a bit nerve racking trying to find our hotel after midnight in a big city wearing very large, conspicuous backpacks. We got up around 8 am both mornings to start two very busy days of sightseeing and museams and some of the other, less respectable forms of tourism in Amsterdam. By the end of the weekend we were exhausted, and I sincerely wish I had brought along tennis shoes! As much as I liked all the walking, my feet were starting to hurt. As much as I enjoyed Amsterdam, I was glad to be headed back to Bonn on Sunday to see what kind of days the early mornings would bring the next week.