Rügen: My second day

On the second day of my trip, I woke up early for my hostel's continental (either appropriate or redundant, considering where I am) breakfast.  Once I left the hostel and was on my way, I was glad I had.  The morning had brought a beautiful stillness to the island.

Even the morning sun was gentle, but present.

And place that would normally be fairly crowded, even in the off season, were almost empty.

There were still people on the beach, enjoying the morning hush.

Out on the boardwalk, it seemed as though you could see a long way.

Sometimes, the clouds made things even more beautiful.  And they seemed to made the island feel very silent. 

After visiting the tourist office, I decided that I would hike to Sellin through the woods, and go on a crane tour in the afternoon.  The woods were incredibly colorful, and unlike the minihike I took on my first day, the trail took me through the thick of them.

I also visited the Schwarzer See.  A sign next to it explained that it is a very unusual body of water.  If I understood correctly, it's because it's between a mid-marsh and high marsh ecosystem, and has unusual plants.  However usual or unusual it was, it had some gorgeous fall color.

And at first, I had the lake to myself.

I wanted to keep going to Sellin, but I was pretty tempted by these seats by the shore of the lake.

Finally, the trail came closer to the coast.  The foreset goes almost down to the water, so I was still hiking between trees and over piles of crunchy leaves. Something funny happened a little while before I got to this lookout.  An older couple was hiking in front of me.  They were quite a bit older-I would guess they couldn't be younger than seventy.  Of course, I was quickly catching up to them.  But before they noticed I was there, I saw the woman grab her man's butt and start to kiss him!  It was pretty cute.

One of the downsides of a nearly private island is there aren't many people to take pictures of you.

Here, the trail wound down through the woods all the way to the water.

And soon after, I arrived in Sellin! They have a very impressive boardwalk. And at the end of it...

There's a chamber that submerges you in the Baltic Sea! I was actually disappointed in it.  Most of the time underwater was spent with the windows closed watching a film, which is not what I paid for.

The traditional architechture of Rügen can still be seen all over the island, and new houses are still being built with these roofs! They remind me of the traditional thatched roofs of Japan.

After a little time walking around Sellin, it was time to go on my crane tour.  Every year, tens of thousands of cranes stop their migration on Rügen for about eight weeks.  They're drawn by the shallow marshy areas, perfect for sleeping, and by the corn they can glean after harvast.  This is Breege harbour.  From here, my boat set out for one of the main sleeping places.

Here it is.  We had to stay at quite a distance, because cranes are incredibly shy.  One major sleeping place was abandoned just because a kiteboarder got a little too close to it.  But as long as the ship stayed at a distance, the cranes weren't afraid.  My little camera was too weak to get pictures of the cranes themselves, but thanks to a rented pair of binoculars, I had a wonderful veiw.  They came flying over the marsh towards us, sometimes in small groups, sometimes in hundreds.  Their calls were amazingly loud through the cold night, as if they were all around us.  They kept coming until nightfall, and if you adjusted your binoculars, you could see some of them standing at the water's edge.  Then they huddled in for the night, with wet feet, but safe from the predators of the field. If you're ever in northern Germany during the few autumn weeks the cranes migrate, I think it's worth any trouble to go see them.

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Rügen: My first day

I'm a little late writing this, but on my fall vacation, I decided to go to Rügen.  Rügen is the biggest island in Germany (and likes to bill itself as the most beautiful).  After seeing it, I couldn't disagree.

I stayed in Binz, a cute little resort town.  It was a little like a ghost town while I was there.  You could tell how many people would be there if it was the high season, but it was pleasantly quiet.

The beach sweeps around in a wide curve.  The tree here are a beautiful hike that goes to Sellin, the next town north of Binz.  I did the hike on my second day on Rügen, and I'll post those pictures in my next post.

I thought this structure was wonderful.  It would have been a great place to watch a storm, but if it was open to the public, I didn't see how.

One of the things I loved about Rügen was that its beauty had a very restful quality. The fall folliage was wonderfully colorful.

And there were some beautiful rock sculptures.

This is the beginning of the trail to Sellin.

There were many birds.  In fact, one of the highlights of the trips was the great crane migration. But more about that later.

This couple was so adorable!

I had some sun on the first day, too.

A real toadstool! It was already knocked over when I got there.

On my first evening, I wanted to have a traditional meal, and that was exactly what "plattduutsch" (plattdeutsch) claimed to have.  I noticed only too late that they were a hotel restaurant, and they were just okay.

Amber is one of the specialties of Rügen.  It's even one of the places where people have been known to find amber! I wanted this amber hedgehog, but I couldn't justify paying so much.

And that was the first day of my trip to Rügen!  More soon...

Oktoberfest 2013

And now, for Oktoberfest itself.  Somehow, it never occured to me that it would be a lot like an American state fair on the outside, but so it was.

The rides were impressive, but I didn't go on any.  Notice the man in the grey pointy hat in this picture. Some people had similar hats with an motorized mechanism in them that moved the hat back and forth. (I swear I'm not kidding, this is a real thing you can buy at Oktoberfest.)  They reminded me of the Sorting Hat from Harry Potter.

I wanted to get a picture of both the Ferris wheel and of this man's amazing hat.  There were a lot of great clothes at Oktoberfest, and one of my favorite things was that almost everyone was wearing Tracht.

That thing next to the man?  That is a motorized beckoning finger.  Someone thought that was a good idea.

I thought these were so clever! These gingerbread hearts are a major Oktoberfest tradition, and normally they say things like "My treasure, I love you" (the big one on the top) or "do you know just how much I love you?" (second from the left on the bottom).  The ones with black on the edges, however, are anti-love hearts.  From left to right, they say "you've lied to me a thousand times", "with you I can only...get desperate", "you used to be my dream", "you've hurt me a thousand times", and "without you, everything is...wonderful!"  A little black humor to balance a lot of sweetness.

This is the tent that we went into on the first night.  It was unbelievably busy.  If we hadn't had an in, I don't think we would have ever gotten inside.

And this is what it looked like once we were inside: wall to wall people, with a roar of people talking that sounded like the ocean.

It was both amazing and overwhelming.  There was definitely no doubt that we were at Oktoberfest.

Here I am on the balcony, the most exclusive place of all! It was a lot of fun, and we even got to dance on the tables (relatively speaking-no one dances on the actual tables, you dance on the benches next to the tables.  No one is going to risk spilling Oktoberfest beer, which costs almost 10 Euros a Mass!)

In the end, maybe my favorite part of that night was the pretzel we split, which was, and I am in no way exaggerating, the best pretzel I have ever had in my life.  Guys, I lived in Austria for a year.  I have had some good pretzels.  But nothing like that.

On Saturday, we went back to Oktoberfest during the day, for a much calmer adventure.  We went in the Traditions Zelt, which was crowded, but much less so.

We saw a traditional dance (which, honestly, was more like a traditional walk.  After the knee-slapping, musical whip using, schnapps-drinking dances I saw in Austria, I was kind of disappointed.)

The Steins in the Traditons Zelt were gorgeous.  Here is mine.  It has Apfelschörle (apple juice and sparkling water) in it, because I was really done with alcohol from the night before.

I thought this sign really summed up the spirit of Oktoberfest: "These places are not reserved.  And when necessary, just squeeze together!"

It was a great experience.

München and Freising

I have a lot of writing to do.  There's been more happening than downtime to record it! For now, here's my recent trip to Oktoberfest.

This poster was one of the first things I saw when I arrived at the main train station in München.  I thought it was really well done, and well placed, too.

I didn't actually stay in München, but in the nearby town of Freising, where liveth Liz.  Liz and I met for the first time in Köln before the orientation-one of the great things about being a Fulbright ETA is all the wonderful people you meet! Liz was my amazing host for this trip.

Freising has a wonderful bear collection.  This one was my favorite.

The main square of Freising.

Luftmalerei! That made me so happy.

There was also Luftmalerei of a less formal nature.

The little river in Freising.  Klein aber fein indeed.

This is from München, a very mischeivious and rather confusing fountain. I spent a fair amount of time in München NOT at Oktoberfest, but mostly looking for a cheap dirndl. (I did find one in the end, as you'll see in my next post!) One of my favorite parts was the Vitualenmarkt. It had whole fresh truffles! I didn't buy any, but I did get one of the most delicious fresh juices I've ever had-raspberry, pineapple, and orange.

As for Oktoberfest, that deserves a post of its own!