Day 9
After saying goodbye to Jeff, I got on a train to Emden, Germany to visit a friend of mine. I have shared an office with Kim for the past three years and he is in my research group. It was serendipity that Kim was visiting his parents while I’m in France so I couldn’t resist the opportunity to visit him there. He had a very busy tourist itinerary planned so we started right away – but not before some tea and cakes with his family.

The first evening we had four destinations. Kim and his brother Lutz proved to be excellent tour guides providing a wealth of information about the history of the area. The first stop was an old castle – which was really more like an 800 year mansion. Next we visited Greetsiel, which translates to something like “great lock” and so the town has a lock and two very quaint 19^th century windmills. It definitely felt like an old-world German village. After Greetsiel, we drove to the coast to see two light houses and the North Sea where we watched a very impressive sunset over the Netherlands. Finally we went to get a closer look at the modern windmills that dominate the landscape of this pastoral German area.

The region is extremely flat (more so than Champaign county believe it or not) and the wind from the sea is essentially constant making it the perfect area for a wind farm. Cattle farms are as abundant as corn and soy bean fields in Illinois and seeing these green pastures and picture perfect Holstein herds against the sleek, modern wind turbines was my favorite part of the landscape…and these turbines are huge and impressive. They also make the best sound as the rotate in the wind.

We then went home for a delicious homemade German dinner and back out to Schuetzenfest – the equivalent of a county fair without the demolition derby. The Schuetzen are a traditional German shooting club and each little village has its own chapter complete with unique military style uniforms. There is even a Schuetzen princess and a parade where each Schuetzen chapter shows off its marching band. We went to the parade in the next day. We ended the night with a beer at a bar in downtown Emden. Like I said, Kim had a busy tourist itinerary for my 2 day visit.

By the way, the man in this picture is a Schuetzen who I harassed at the fair. I'm sure he's wondering why this funny American wants his picture.