Week 3: Norderney and Amsterdam

We spent this past week on the island of Norderney. We learned about the physiological effects of saunaing and thalassotherapy, before getting to experience them. At the badehaus we got to see the behind the scenes where they purify the schlicht and the seawater. After the tour and a lecture on thelassotherapy, we got to spend two hours relaxing in the badehaus. This was incredible! There were several different baths, including an outdoor bath, saltwater bath, firebath, a steam bath, and a large therapy bath. The 6 meter showers were amazing. It was like getting a water massage on your shoulders! My favorite baths were the saltwater bath and the firebath. After enjoying the saltwater baths we went and did the mud bath. This is possibly my favorite thing we've done in Germany. It was so relaxing and my skin has never felt better. I thought the description of feeling reborn after seemed dramatic before, but its true! We also spent some time in the 85 degree Celsius sauna. My muscles felt so relaxed after being at the badehaus. We had a BBQ at the hostel. It was so fun to hang out and relax as a group. We had dinner, smores, then listened to music and danced while the group of kids there laughed at us!
I really enjoyed biking around the island, but it was a little stressful in that large of a group. Especially after I saw Carol crash into a fence. She was badly bruised, but got back on and rode the rest of the week! Pro-biking tip from Carol: "don't run into fences."
The nature bike tour was a lot of fun. It was interesting to hear about another hobby of Dr. Wasser's, bird watching. It was pretty difficult to bike through the dunes as a group, but we made it! At the end of the nature tour we had lunch and I accidentally ate a musli bar with peanuts. My friends took care of me and Alexa followed me around with an Epipen, while Henning got me allergy medicine. I didn't feel well but I'm very glad that I was still able to participate in everything the rest of the day. I'm very thankful to everyone to kept an eye on me and made sure I was okay. We went to the bademuseum that afternoon and got to see the history of baths and bathing suits in Germany. It was very thoughtful of the museum owner to switch our time to the afternoon so we could enjoy the sunshine on our nature tour! That evening we went to the mudflats and had a tour where we got to see different animals that lived there. The tour was a lot of fun, despite the cuts on my feet from the shells. She timed the tour well so that we could see the area we were standing on disappear as we walked back to the shore.
Over the weekend I met up with my cousin in Amsterdam. David lives in Germany, so I have only met him once before about 11 years ago. We have kept in touch through social media and it was really cool to get to see him as adults. We had a lot of fun seeing the city and catching up on the 11 years since we've seen each other.

I spent the next morning with Carol, Deniz, Mary-Cate, and Amanda. We got incredible Dutch pancakes at a restaurant very creatively named "Pancakes".

We got matching shirts at the restaurant!

After breakfast we walked around the city for a bit before catching our train. 

This was definitely a week for the books!