Sunny Sunday, Part II

After returning home with the Mischievous Mutt, I persuaded the boys to brush their teeth and put on their shoes (only took an hour or so!).  Our house neighbors told me we could find seals down by the harbor, and I used that as bait to get the boys to come downtown with me.  


We saw all kinds of cool stuff (again, no photos this time :(  We saw little sailboats that you can wheel off the dock like a small wagon.  I think we might try to buy one! There were two men, literally sitting in the harbor.  They had these little floating easy chairs and fishing rods.  Zachary verbalized what I was thinking: "How can they catch any fish?  The harbor is full of boats and ships.  Won't the fish all be scared away?".  I was also thinking how cold it must be, to sit in a chair surrounded by water in the middle of winter!  


We walked along the harbor looking for the seals.  They were not wild seals, as I probably should have guessed, but I had hopes... They were in a tank outside a very tiny aquarium.  The water was so filthy, the seals were just barely visible.  Little kids were pressed against the glass, squinting.  "Oh, there's one!", a boy said.  If that tank were in the U.S., PETA would be picketing day and night.  Funny thing is, for all I know, the seals like it that way.  Crystal clear water is largely a human concept, after all.

We went into the aquarium, which was really very, very tiny.  Just one room, with about 6 tanks.  The ones I remember were the herring and the flounder.  Does anyone else go to an aquarium and think "Oh, I bet that one would taste good, egg dipped, floured and pan-fried", or is it just me?  

Speaking of food, we left the aquarium and found a really nice little restaurant on the harbor.  There, I was able to put a newly acquired German vocabulary word immediately to work:  Scholle means flounder!  Yum.  Even better, gebraten means fried.  Just how I imagined it, with remoulade sauce, potato salad and some green salad.  I couldn't convince the kids to order anything interesting, so they had mozzarella sticks and chicken nuggets with fries.  Good, old-fashioned Brown Food. Oh well.

Perhaps the best part of the day: Z announced he will buy himself a sail boat one day!  M really wants to learn to sail, so they may have a nice activity for the Spring (no, we aren't buying a boat, but maybe we can rent one).