Even though the waves can sometimes be rough, the people in Schleswig-Holstein rely on the water and everything that lives in it for food. One of the most famous meals from this part of Germany is called fischbrötchen (fish sandwich)! It's not just any fish sandwich, though. It is made of pickled herring with onions and mustard between two pieces of bread. Places that are surrounded by a lot of water usually also have a lot of rain, and this is definitely true in Kiel. While I don't always like the rain, it helps a lot of vegetables and other crops to grow in this area. The vegetable we grow the most in Schleswig-Holstein is cabbage! Some towns even have a cabbage festival where everything is made out of cabbage, like cabbage juice, cabbage sandwiches and even cabbage ice cream! Would you try cabbage ice cream?
In the winter, it usually rains here every day. The problem is that it's also really windy, so people who live here can't use umbrellas to stay dry. The wind flips our umbrellas upside-down! That means that we have to wear out rainboots and raincoats to school every day and get used to always being a little wet. Kiel is also much closer to the North Pole than most cities in the U.S. This means that our summer days are really long, but our winter days are really short. In the summer, we get 18-19 hours of daylight every day! The sun doesn't set until 11:00 PM. All this sunshine makes summer a lot of fun, but when winter comes around, we only get five to six hours of daylight per day.
