Today is a beautiful spring day. The sun is shining, the bird are chirping, and the neighborhood roosters woke me up at the lovely hour of 4:30 this morning. We decided to head to the beach and investigate. On the way there we passed through a little tourist town with shops selling kites and beach gear, and I heard German and French being spoken by other bikers as we passed them by. I saw families with skim boards and young girls in bikini tops and short shorts, holding the hands of their eager boyfriends – but wait, it’s April. Am I missing something?
When we walked up the path to the beach, I was surprised by how wide and vast the beach actually was. It must have been 3 or 4 times as wide as the beaches in Florida, maybe even 5, and there were lots of wind tents set up and families playing in the sand. I started thinking about swimming. Would it be possible without a towel? Can I really strip down and swim in my underwear? Would I want to ride my bike 8 km back to the house in wet clothes? All of these people are at the beach today, it must be nice for a quick swim. I eagerly put my feet in the water only to discover, you guessed it, that it was so freezing cold there was no way in hell I would be swimming in it! I’d been thinking that we were in the same latitude as, I don’t know, maybe Maryland, and I could imagine people swimming in Ocean City on a beautiful spring day. Why not, right? So I still wasn’t sure why the water was so cold until I got home and looked up exactly what our current latitude is. 52 degrees North. Same as Maryland? No way. New York? Not even close. Get this – it’s Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. Doh! Sometimes I even embarrass myself.
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