Spot the 10 differences…
“You live on Ameland and you’re seriously going to another Wadden island for your only holiday that year?” Absolutely! Not because we’re afraid of discovering another continent, but precisely because we’re very curious about the other parts of the Wadden Sea World Heritage Site. We visited five German islands and the difference turned out to be quite a lot bigger than just a different lighthouse.
As people in our forties, for instance, we felt really young on Norderney! Mobility scooters and rollators were parked outside almost every ‘coffee & cake café’. The German Wadden islands are popular with older people, who go there to ‘take a cure’. Health insurers invest heavily to let patients recover in the healthy sea air. But to be honest, the food there is a little less healthy.
We felt slim there; the other visitors turned out to be true bon vivants. Chips and fried sausage were ‘the standard’ almost everywhere, and salt is used like icing sugar, not sparingly, let’s say. But hold on tight to your tray of chips on the island of Helgoland, because… there is a 50 euro fine if the seabirds snatch your tray and everything ends up on the street!
The cultural differences were amusing and are a reason in themselves to visit the islands of our Eastern neighbours. Whereas in the Netherlands we would simply give a guest a paracetamol, that is a real ‘no-go’ at a restaurant on Langeoog. The employee handled it neatly by the book: “We are not allowed to provide medicines; for that you need to go to the pharmacy.” That is of course the right route, but we ‘Hollanders’ did need a moment to adjust to these formal answers. Clearly everything has been thought through. You only need to follow all the warning signs and you’re safe.
The signs are impossible to miss, too, because they feature clear pictograms of people drowning or falling near a bridge or beach. Often made even clearer with text in bold letters, exclamation marks, bright colours and, of course, the necessary repeat signs every so many metres. Back on Ameland you can’t help thinking: am I actually safe here? Who is thinking along with me about where I should walk or what I can and can’t do? We could understand the East Frisians reasonably well; in writing, too, the language resembles Frisian. But did you know that my 2-metre-tall son got stuck in almost every door frame, bed and bathroom on the East Frisian coast? The people of the region so close by here turn out not to be nearly as tall as the Frisians and the people of Groningen!
I won’t give away any more surprising differences, but I recommend everyone to take a look further along the Wadden area too. You really don’t have to fly to Brazil to experience fun cultural differences! And those exuberant exclamation marks to add emphasis, I happily brought home with me: we’re keeping those (!).
