Sunday, June 13, 2010

Oh Sassytown...

WOW. What a weekend adventure. We (Melissa, Kyle, Trey, Leah, David, and I) decided not to go too far this because we only had two days to travel; so we decided to take a 3 hour train ride to Jasmund National Park in Burgen auf Rugen which was along the Baltic Sea. We said in Sassnitz, which we gave the nickname 'Sassytown'. It was quite an adventure because our planning went as far as purchasing the train tickets. The rest we played by ear; which made it all the more fun. It was such a spontaneous and random adventure that I will always remember. When we arrived to the town, we found it to be a small village with a fairly active harbor and lighthouse.
The village was a small community of cottage like buildings with small rubbled streets. There were cold winds coming off of the Baltic Sea as we headed down to find a place to eat along the harbor. My face got a little wind burnt. It felt bizare being in such cold weather in June. But we found a place to eat, Moby Dicks, and enjoyed some fresh fish from the Baltic Sea.
Then we decided to go exploring the town. Lucky for us, they were having a festival, so we got to watch a elementary dance squad dance to 'Beat It' MJ and hear a German thug rapper. He took the stage after the crowd cleared out . Then we continued to walk around to see what the town offered...it didn't take us long to get a full experience of the atmosphere. So then we went to rent a hotel room for the six of us to stay and headed to discover something 'fun' to get ourselves into. Since the small town was fairly conservative and didn't have much of a night life, we decided to make a night of our own with good spirits. We ventured out into the woods of the national park and later randomly stumbled upon a pretty deprived zoo that only contained goats, lambs, and wolves. What fun for a kid! Then we headed back into town and went into a pretty cool local bar. It was underground with brick vaulted ceilings and completely covered with German decor for the World Cup. After that we called it a night to rest up for our long day of hiking ahead of us. Our second day was really exciting because we got to hike in the woods along the edge of the cliffs that border the Baltic Sea. We just spent the day enjoying the natural beautiful scenery.
The climax of the day was when we attempted to slide down the cliff. What we thought was a farily good idea quickly turned into a fearful feeling of regret. We were getting frusterated because we couldn't find any steps leading down to the shoreline, so we decided we would find our own way. Only Trey, David, and I were dumb enough to start climbing down, in which we ended up sliding while Melissa had a death grip on the tree and the others watched. It was a fairly steep cliff and at first I thought I had a handle on it until I felt thorns digging into my legs and couldn't find a solid grip. We were only grabing leaves, sediment, and cold chunks chalk. My laugh almost turned into tears when I feared there was no turning back. But I managed to grab onto a tree limb and carefully pulled myself up. We all came out of that adventure with our hearts rapidly beating and I had minor scratches, blood, and chalk covering my legs. Later we eventually found some steps and walked along the shoreline.
It was a picturesque walk along the Baltic Sea with it's beautiful morphic black and white rocks and large white cliffs. We got to see a lady composing rock art sculptures that reminded my of Andy Goldsworthy.
It was a great day. It was full of hiking until exhaustion, testing our fear factor, and laughs of relief. I definetely consider our trip to Sassytown quite a spontaneous fun adventure.

2 comments:

  1. Lindsey, this is Trey's mom. I've been eagerly awaiting pictures from the Baltic Sea...yours are the first! And, you even included the most important "proof of life" photo that mom's realllly appreciate:)

    The rocks, the cliffs...so georgous.

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  2. Looks like you all had quite a weekend. Glad you made it through it all safely.

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