Rügen: Part I

I went on a little vacation to the Baltic Sea this weekend. It had been an alarmingly long time since I'd seen the ocean, and I was glad to get out of Jena for a little while. Kelly is nearing the end of her time in Leipzig, so it seemed like a good time to go to a part of Germany that I hadn't seen yet.

The trip started well enough. First, for some reasons first class tickets were cheaper for the train ride and I had always wanted to see first class. Here's the thing: not that much different. Second class is quite nice. First class is slightly nicer and I did get a complimentary pack of chocolates (Kelly didn't, she got on the train later) and I ordered a coffee from my seat. I think you may also have computer access, but I wasn't planning on working.

The trip was sort of long, and it was dark by the time we arrived. I printed out a map from the train station to the hostel and we made it easily. The man at the front desk didn't speak English, but we were doing okay. We pay at breakfast. Breakfast lasts unitil 9:30. Great. But where is the room? We asked. The man replied "Das ist kein hotel." What? Not a hotel? Kelly eventually figured out that he was saying the word for tent. Oh. It turns out that it was a campsite. Fortunately, the man gave us flashlights, sleeping bags, and a cots. The tent was sort of a permanent structure. Here, it looked like this:



Walking to the tent we had also realized that there was absolutely nothing around, and we would have been concerned about what we would do that evening, except that we got good news from the guy who checked us in. On the very same campground a country music line dancing festival was being held. And if you were staying on the campground, you got in free.

Before I describe it any further, there's a video you all need to see.


You might think this was taken at a country bar somewhere in the U.S., but I promise you - this is Germany. These are Germans (who don't speak English, I might add) dancing to country songs. They were wearing cowboy hats. They had American and Confederate flags hung on the wall. I was amazed. Here are some more pictures.




Clearly, in this situation there's only one thing to do. Buy a cowboy hat and try to fit in. So that's what we did. Here's us immediately before making an attempt at line dancing, and a couple of hours before returning to the tent to shiver in our sleeping bags all night.



That it's for today, folks. You'll have to wait a while to find out about how the rest of the weekend was.