A fjord is a body of water that is formed by an ice sheet carving out a ditch as it moves from the land to the sea, which is then filled in with water after the end of the ice age! You guys actually all live along the southern-most fjord in the Northern Hemisphere: the Hudson river! Here in Kiel, though, the process happened in reverse, with the ice sheet coming from the sea into the land because the Baltic Sea is a relatively new body of water, forming only in the last 10,000 years or so! Thus, the ice sheet came from the sea to the land, giving us a Förde instead of a fjord!
Long ago, the access to the rich waters of the Baltic made this a very desirable area in which to live, as the waters were perfect for shipping and fishing! In Kiel, our city often offers a special type of fish: the Kieler Sprotten. This fish is somewhat like an anchovy or sardine, but it's traditionally smoked! I have not yet gotten the chance to have one yet, but I know that I could get one any moment that I look for it!
In addition, the flat lands, as flattened out by the glacier, make Schleswig-Holstein a great place for farming. In fact, Schleswig-Holstein is the highest producer of cabbage in all of Europe, which means we have cabbage dishes galore here! The cafeteria here at the university actually makes a special red cabbage dish every single day during December, which has been really delicious! And another fun fact is that the winds are almost always blowing in from the west, means that they do not need to use so many pesticides in farming because all that is to the west is the ocean!
