We got up at the usual time around 6 am, had a pretty early breakfast with Andrea and Peter, and since Andrea‘s broken toe was behaving reasonably, we went for a walk in a neighboring park and botanical garden, along the Wandse (a small river running through part of Hamburg), to look for some fun flora and fauna. We saw some beautiful flowers, including digitalis and a yellow flower that we had never seen before, and also a large turtle and some interesting bugs. But we didn‘t find the specific kind of spiders and their cocoons that Andrea wanted to show me. But it was glorious cooler weather after some overnight rain, and we really enjoyed the walk. We came home about 10 am and then Andrea and Peter walked us to a bus stop where we said our goodbyes, and then took the bus to an S-Bahn (Hamburg‘s Elevated) to Altona, one of Hamburg‘s train stations, where we met with Imke, who had come directly from Osnabrück, so that we could jointly travel to Neumünster about 1 hour north of Hamburg. That’s where my sister Judith picked us up, since it‘s the closest train station to the teeny village where she and her husband Michael live.
We quickly toured the downtown area, and went to a little Asian restaurant and had a very simple sort-of Chinese meal, and then some wonderful gelato on our way back to the car. We drove to my sister‘s village (Schonboken), and met Michael at the apartment. After a rejuvenating cup of coffee, we hung out and enjoyed the quiet, and actually took a little nap while Judith and Michael ran some errands. We had a lovely German-style dinner and then went for a long walk on the wonderful country roads that surround their house, for about an hour. That was perfect. We came home and communed for a little while with the cows and calves that live very happily on the huge meadow behind the house where Judith and Michael have their adorable apartment. Then we hung out for a while on the balcony, while it was still light enough (given that it was midsummer and we are practically as far north as it is possible to be in Germany, that meant about 10:30-11:00 pm), listening to the last of the birds do their evensong thing, and even spotting a deer walk across the fields behind the cows‘ meadow, and went to bed, ready for another wonderful day with family tomorrow!