RÜGEN PART 4 (THE END)

Somehow I was able to tear myself away from that incredibly fuzzy little fuzzball of evilness doggie. Some photos of the KdF-Bad buildings from the outside:

The only good system is a sound system!!!

And in the middle it says “Save the Agatoad!”

We went to the King’s chair, and were shocked by the hordes of tourists flocking it. Then we went down to the beach and walked as far as we could from the crowds, so that Ilan could take off his clothes and we could do some shooting for this video he is making. :op

I found a chicken god on this beach. o/
When I have chicken I can hang it n their coop, and it will protect them and keep them healthy and let them lay eggs without problems, if the Crimean Tatars are correct.

Actually, it’s not a specifically Tatar belief, but its origin seems to be in Slavonic mythology, which has been adopted by the Crimean Tatars Yevtushenko writes about in the short story that spawned the popularity of the chicken gods in East Germany.
An interesting linguistic detail is that the word “Hühnergott” has been in DDR “Duden” dictionaries since 1975. In 1990, when the first common Duden dictionary after the reunification was made, the word was left out(!!!!!). Only in 2000, it was finally added again.

We were preparing to walk back the same way along the beach, but then we saw this extremely steep and muddy path up the hill. And that looked like a lot more fun. :o)

Once we had climbed all the way up the hill, the view on the not so white cliffs of Rügen was splendid.

A nice abandoned house in our base village Nipmerow:

Evening light on the less spectacular view towards the east from our living room. (No view of the ocean, but to the south we had some very nice fields on rolling hills, and forests in the distance.)

One of three very sweet horses. When we came walking from the forest they spotted us and came to say hello to us. The red one came first, and lost interest after a while. The black ones hung around until we left. They all wanted to chew on us. Awww.
It’s nice to see real working horses like these.

Finally, a DDR style hostel, now abandoned. What I could see of the interior was decorated in nice 70’s style.

Some more photos from this batch can be viewed here.

That was the first real vacation of more than one day at a time that I have had since I started freelancing in 2006. Whee!

RÜGEN PART 2

So, we went to Prora to see the huge KdF-Bad complex.

This doorway is open, but it was bricked up on the inside. However, later on we found an entrance into another of the buildings …

♥ Triumph over fascism ♥

Pretty green wallpapers in the common bath area. This building was obviously in use in the 1970’s, when the complex belonged to the GDR military.

Ilan meets a challenger …

Kitchen elevators make me think of Jet Li, even though those were actually laundry shafts in Kiss of the Dragon …

Here comes another example of why thoughtless vandalism is very stupid and harmful.

In this room on the top floor, there was a bird trapped between the two window panes in a double glass window. It had flown into a hole in the broken glass on the inside, and could not get out again since it was too narrow and slippery to get back up to the hole.

Ilan broke off part of the inner glass to make the hole wider, and my arm luckily fit between the two panes. After several tries (and while also doing my best to get over my fear of hurting the tiny little robin – I’m not used to handling birds at all), I was able to lift her out, and she flew into freedom through the window at the far end in the above photo.

There are two windows like that in this room, with broken inner panes. Both of them are filled with the carcasses of dead birds.

^ This is how that makes me feel.

Er, they already left more than 60 years ago?

Doggie beach is that way. So of course we went that way.

I can’t wait to post the next batch of photos … :3
Meanwhile, there are some more photos from this batch here.

RÜGEN PART 1

I am back from a brief internetless vacation. Here are some of the first photos:

The land behind these ruins slid down into the sea.

We were walking for a long time along some annoying paved road with cars running us over, until we finally found this path that led down to the sea. There was a sign that said, “Enter at your own risk. – The mayor”. The way down to the sea is very steep and maybe dangerous.

A big dead fish on the beach. It was like 40 cm long.

We found two intact light bulbs on the beach. Kind of amazing how the glass survived their ordeal as flotsam completely intact.

Ilan on the rocks where the land slid away. They’ve built breakwater structures in the sea below. Black cormorants like to hang out on them.

Then we went to Prora, where there is the huge KdF-Bad complex built during the Nazi times and now largely abandoned …

A couple of more photos from this batch here, and more photos to come.