the isle of sand and snow

Katherine and I took a four-day weekend and rode a train as far north in Germany as we could go: to Westerland, on the island of Sylt. The day we arrived was sunny and beautiful, so we walked on the beach in search of our hostel. We were told it was "a little outside of the city." That was okay; it was a nice day for walking.

The sun disappeared more or less permanently after that first afternoon, and it turned out we were about a month too early for the start of the (summer?!) season. Our hopes of going to the beach sauna in List and then jumping in the North Sea were dashed, since the sauna doesn't open until April and large sections of the bay were frozen over. We consoled ourselves by eating at Gosch repeatedly and taking a car ferry to Denmark.