Deep Creek Lake and Chinese Satellite TV

Recently, I went on a vacation to Deep Creek Lake, Maryland, and I had a surreal experience that I'll never forget, involving the sudden arrival of Chinese satellite television. My girlfriend and I were spending a week in a nice small house that we had rented, on a block of similar houses, most of which were vacant since it was outside of peak vacation season - this is exactly why we went at that time, of course, as the house was very cheap. As soon as we got to the house, we went inside and started moving our stuff.

As I usually do, I turned the TV on and went about unpacking the few things I had brought with me. The white noise helps me to focus on chores like unpacking for a trip, and I keep it on all the time, much to my girlfriend's dismay. One of the reasons we had selected this particular rental house for our vacation was that it had satellite TV, provided by Dish Networks, a service that I've always had great experiences with. It's much better than cable, so I was glad to have access to it on the vacation.

I brought a few changes of clothes, my toothbrush and other toiletries, and some hiking equipment, since I had hoped to see the beautiful scenery of western Maryland. My girlfriend - who does not like having the TV on to provide white noise as I do - went straight to the kitchen to start unpacking the food we had brought. We brought our own food to help save money, as it can be very expensive to eat out while on a vacation. When my girlfriend was finished in the kitchen, having taken about twenty minutes to put everything away, she came into the bedroom and stared at me in disbelief. I had no idea why she was confused, but she had a look on her face like I was speaking a foreign language. Not knowing what was going on, I thought she must be mad at me for something, so I reached out to hug her. It was only then that I noticed that the TV that I had turned on twenty minutes before was playing news, in Chinese. Apparently, either the previous renters or the owners were Chinese, and had Chinese satellite television. Once we figured that out and got it fixed, we had an excellent vacation!