German Shop

I forgot to say that the reason we were near the sand dune was because we'd been to a German shop. One of S's friends had told her about his place, and so we made an expedition there. It was full of German people, wandering about wide-eyed and open mouthed, and saying "Och! Jaegermeister!" and "Och! Kloese" (which is pronounced Klurzer), and "Och! Dr Oetker" (which is headquartered in Bielefeld, where S comes from). Their non-German spouses looked on and tried to feign interest. We bought $177 worth of Knoedel and Schwarzbier and Kinder Surprise (you didn't know that was German did you? Well, maybe you did, but I didn't - and it wasn't even Easter) and Pumpernickel - actually that doesn't sound like it comes to $177.

Then we went to the German cafe next door, where S had a coffee, that was served in a china mug, was small, and was strong. The boys had a chocolate pudding to share - the server took pity on us ("I know what it's like having children"), and gave us another for free. I wanted to explain that we only bought one, because they weren't going to manage to eat even that, but kept quiet.

There were signs up asking people not to throw away the plates, cutlery ('flatware', as they call it) and mugs.

There was a little beer garden outside, which was playing German music, and was authentically full of old people drinking beer and smoking. S said that it was enough German for one day, so we left.