Ijmuiden

This morning we awoke bright and early to drive out to the North Sea. Ijmuiden is a coastal town only about 20 miles away from our apartment, so we decided it would be fun, if cold and windy, to drive out early enough to see the sunrise and eat some breakfast. Just as we suspected, it was cold and windy, but the sunrise was gorgeous. By the way, Ijmuiden is practically impossible to pronounce correctly unless you are fluent in Dutch. We have asked several people to teach up how to pronounce the "ij" and "ui" sounds in this word correctly and have failed miserably.

Since it is November, we were two of only four people on the beach when we arrived. Even after walking along the shore for about an hour only four or five other people had joined us. We were, however, accompanied by 2,000 seagulls who stayed at a comfortable distance since we had no food with us on the beach. It was so beautiful to start the day outside by the water, hearing the ocean. We found a few lighthouses and watched several large boats come into dock. It would have been nice to eat out on the beach, but we decided it was much nicer on such a cold morning to eat the picnic we had packed inside the car with the heater on!

The only thing we might regret about this morning is waking up so early when we're still awake at midnight or 1 tomorrow morning visiting the city's museums, which are open from 7 p.m. to 2:30 a.m. tonight for a special event called N8. We think it might be a good idea to take a little nap right now!