Adventures of Sassnitz.... AKA "Sassytown"

What a weekend! A small group of us decided to take a weekend trip up to the Baltic Sea knowing just of the town's name and that there was a sea close by. We started off having to sprint to the train station half-way across Berlin (so it felt like) b/c our ubahn station was closed. I think every train we had to catch throughout the whole weekend we either had to run to make it or we just happened to look up and realize we needed to switch trains. We had a lot of close calls, but managed to make it every time! Nothing like playing it by ear! So, we got to our original destination -

Bergen auf Rugen (Rugen being the island) - walked around and could not find anything that looked promising for two days worth of sightseeing. So, we just hopped back on the train and went to the next town where we read was a national park on the coast. Once we got off the train, we went to find a place for lunch and ended up at a restaurant in the harbor right on the Baltic. We quickly learned our way around town, for it was a small quaint little German town organized around the harbor, a platz, and the main street.It was really neat to experience this part of Germany. Sassnitz we figured out is a small tourist town, but more so for German tourists. It reminded me of places like Hot Springs - lots of older people and nearby visitors but with lots of character. So, Saturday we ate, found a hotel, walked around town, ran into a festival going on in the plaza, and ended up watching part of a world cup game in a local bar. Upon exploring the town we came upon a really nice bridge that was Calatrava-esque. So we felt like we got our architecture jollies fit into the weekend. As we interacted w/ the locals, we realized (as expected) that they did not speak as much English as Berliners do, but they were much friendlier! Even though it was hard to verbally communicate at some points, the universal language of smiling became very valuable.... the people there smiled back, and that was comforting. Sunday, we got up ate breakfast at a bakery and went to the German "Super 1" - Netto - to get some lunch food for our hike. We went up to the national park (just at the end of "main street") and hiked the trails. We had seen pictures of limestone cliffs on postcards starting back in Bergen, so we were determined to find them on this hike. We never could figure how many km's we hiked, but it was alot! The forest, though, was incredible. The picture speaks for itself. The weather was perfect - cool but not freezing. Very peaceful. Along the way, we started getting little peaks through some trees of the iconic cliffs, and finally got to a lookout w/ some "money shot" views, and ate our lunch on the top of the cliff. There were apparently stairs that led down to the beach, but we never made found them before it was time to head back. Everyone wanted to make it down to the beach so bad that, some of the group started getting creative in the paths to get down there. It was decided that we could slide down this "gentle" slope, land in some trees, and hopefully make the 8-10 ft. drop from there down to the beach. So, Trey, Lindsay, and David went down first. But to get to the slope we had to climb down a tree. So, as I'm being guided backwards down the tree, the ones on sliding down the slope decide this is all not possible. The ground was not solid and there was nothing to grab on to. After it was all said and done we made it back up the hill and tree with just a few scrapes and bruises, but just happy we were alive and on solid ground. Now, we look back and laugh. Later down the trail we ran into a town on the beach and found stairs to go down there. The beach was different. There wasn't much sand, but instead the ground was covered in really neat black/white rocks. These however were difficult to walk on. But we were successful in being able to say we've "swam" in the Baltic Sea! After all the hiking, climbing, running for trains, and hanging from trees, we were exhausted, but we all had an awesome weekend. Its definitely a trip I'll always remember. I feel like I haven't even captured how much fun we had w/ the words I've written, but alot of our laughs were "you just had to be there" moments. We're all looking forward to our next weekend trips! ... and of course more of Berlin!