Traum von Ameland

This past week I was on the beautiful island of Ameland with 16 other people from the local Big Band. We didn't take our instruments or anything along, but instead enjoyed the trip as an opportunity to bond with one another while on an idyllic Dutch island in the North Sea. 

Watskeburt?!?

Something that struck me during the trip is that teenagers and tweens aren't that different around the world. I mean, the first thing the other kids found once we got to the house was the WIFI password. Another thing was that pretty much everyone bought a ton of junk food, but instead of Hot Cheetos and Swedish Fish they had "Paprika Kartoffel Sticks" and two of the guys spent a few hours the last night on homemade potato chips.

Be it Holland, Germany, or the US, phones are still an attention magnet.

We even played a game super similar to Assassin from South. Everyone was randomly assigned someone else in the house who would be their "target." We played more than one variety of the game, but it certainly wasn't something I expected to encounter post-Saxonhood. 

As you may notice, I was one of the last survivors. 

We could bike pretty much everywhere on the island, which was awesome, especially since Dutch bikes are ridiculously comfortable. We biked on the dykes to the island's lighthouse in the biggest town on Ameland, the adorable metropolis of Hollum, home to 1400. Afterwards we hit up a Pfannkuchen house at the lighthouse's base camp. Pfannkuchen directly translates to mean "pancake," but they're not your Aunt Jemima's breakfast food. They're more like a crepe and they're A+. 

Written in history forever.

Two days later we went back to Hollum to check out the Paardenreddingboot reenactment. It's an event that only happens a few times a year and the purpose is to remember the early times of rescue boats on the island. It was thunderous to say the least. So many people gathered at the boat shed/museum area-- I didn't even know that many people were on the island! Then the riled up horse team was brought in two at a time and saddled up to the boat, which was on big, LOUD continuous tracks. Once the horses were situated, they started their work pulling the boat to the beach. Everyone followed creating a big, spontaneous-feeling parade through the town and the fields and finally over the dyke to the ocean. 

Just in time for sunset!

The sailors unsaddled the horses, pushed the boat into the water and then everyone was happy. There were so many little blonde children running around in galoshes. And of course, everyone was recording the whole show on their smart phones, iPads, Kodavisions, etc. 

The continuous tracks were gone at this point, but the horses and people's dogs were still loud.

I mentioned the kids in galoshes. Well, our group got to run around in our own boots, too. The coastline just off the mainland of the Netherlands is a big zone that consists of tidal flats and wetlands called the Wadden Sea. That means we pretty much got to walk on water. Pretty neat, right? We took a tour to learn about the biological diversity-- and we got to walk on water. 

I'm holding a little critter found courtesy of our fantastic local guide, Esme.

And of course, when teenagers hangout there will be lots of loud music. I heard my fill of Eminem, German rap, and Karnevel songs this week. One of the Karneval hits that was played quite often was Traum von Amsterdam, but really it should've been Traum von Ameland. I mean, it was a pretty picture-perfect trip-- we walked on water for goodness sake!