Voyage 2008: Chapter 3

01 Dec 2008, Our Moony Vacation Begins, 54 21.60 N/ 010 12.60 E

Levi is doing well considering his age and his cancer prognosis so we decided that we should pursue our trip to Kiel Germany to visit Wolfgang and Denise from SV Moony. We left yesterday at 1809 ET from Dulles airport and headed for Kiel via Zürich and Hamburg. All went well but Bob did not like much to sit for 8 hours at a time. Still he endured. We arrived in Hamburg at 0930 UTC where Denise was there waiting (Wolfgang was at a doctor's appointment). Denise expertly crafted our Fiat through all of the traffic obstacles to the Autobahn, past Kiel Zentrum to a suburb of Kiel, Hiekendorf. But before we went to home base, we picked up Wolfgang at the University hospital where we discovered that all was well. Our holiday flat was quite spacious for the four of us and it had Internet access. For lunch, we went to the Karstadt department store. Of course, Denise and Wolfgang had to translate for us. Not bad! Sadly, lazy Bob did not take many pictures of this trip so poor Ann had to do the job. Therefore she is not in the pictures. Not good!

3 Dec 2008, Seeing sights of Northern Germany , 54 21.60 N/ 010 12.60 E

Tuesday morning we headed for Kiel to drop off Wolfgang for a doctor's appointment. We then headed for Karstadt again for bread and coffee where Wolfgang met us around 1100 LT. Nice view from the cafe. Then we headed for lunch at the restaurant near the Holtenauer lighthouse at the northeast end of Kiel Kanal. The restaurant has recently been rebuilt and it was quite classy. Prices were not too bad and the euro exchange rate was getting better by the day. Tuesday was like most winter days in northern Germany; a bit cool and almost always cloudy. Next we headed for the AWN marine store where we were supposed to just look around. Instead we bought a xxx (Ann will not let me say how much) euro oil lamp for Jule. Hope she appreciates it. Next we headed for the Christmas Market (Wiehnachten Markt) for some Glühwein. We were really getting used to this stuff

Wednesday found us on the snowy roads somewhat early (0800 LT) heading for the Farmer's Market being celebrated near the city's Zentrum. After buying nothing, Wolfgang headed for another doctor and Denise and we headed for the Rathaus to renew her passport. We finally re-united around 1100 ET and headed for Flensburg to pick up some stainless steel stuff at Niro Petersen's (where SV Moony received her stern arch). Afterwards, we headed for the Danish border to pick up some herring and get a few wieners from the local hot dog stand. No Weihnachten Markt this day.