herumfahren

Noodle walked me to the bus stop early early in the morning. My train ticket worked by days... so I bought 4 days of travel. Each 00:01 to midnight. Riding with free changes from one side of Germany to the other, I think checking out a few cities on the way is the obvious best use of time.

Stuttgart for shopping, wandering, and a few churches:Cologne to see the (arguably) most celebrated cathedral in Germany:
We learned about this Gothic guy in our German architecture course...

So the Cologne central train station had a few differences to others that I am familiar with. In addition to a weird luggage storage system (there are standardized day-use lockers, which are highly convenient might I add, at almost all central train stations), I also couldn't find a big, backlit map with tourist interest points. I was just about to ask someone where I could find the Koelner Dom when I decided to wander on my own.

And thank goodness. I walk outside the open entry/exit and looked up to my left to see an unobstructed side view of this massive cathedral. It was really amazing. I bet the Germans just think it's so funny that one of the greatest tourist attractions of the country is literally on the same lot as the not-so-romantic central point of transit. Actually, now that I think about it, that would have been the ultimate people-watching area to sit and relax. Noted.

konstanz am bodensee

I went to visit Michelle, aka Noodle, at her place in Konstanz. She's been studying in Germany for almost a year now; first semester in Tübingen. The train ride down was a slow 10 hours, but it wasn't so bad, especially when we wound through beautiful hills of the Black Forest on the last leg.

Noodle met me at the train station, still early-ish in the morning, and I think she was just a little bit happy to see me :)So it's much sunnier than it seems in this picture... We went together with some kids from her program every day to this area just outside of her dorm to lay in the grass with all the sunbathers and walk down the paved ramp into the crystal-clear bodensee to swim with the current.After a weekend of fun, I decided to stay until Tuesday morning, knowing that the train ride back would be just as long. Of course, Noodle had class on Monday morning so I walked around the city and met her for a nice lunch in the city center. This is from the main church tower in Konstanz. Those little hills are Switzerland:

märchenwochenende

So I haven't been writing because I haven't been able to upload photos. Luckily, I remembered to check back in on this photo problem... and everything's back to normal!

I visited the Kroth family once more and they showed me a lovely weekend that turned out to be fairy tale themed... starting with a maaagiiicallll musical :)

The Brothers Grimm were born in Hanau and every year, the town holds a faily tale event, mainly centered around performances and musicals. We saw Dornröschen, or sleeping beauty, auf Deutsch, of course.

One day to Heidelberg with Marcus and Angela:

That evening to a street festival in Frankfurt for the regional (and delicious) apple wine:

And Steinau an der Straße, another town where the Brothers Grimm were raised:

ende des besuchs

Side view of Schloss Cecilienhof, complete with 55 unique brick chimneys. This is where the Potsdam Conference took place, headed by Truman, Churchill/Attlee, and Stalin. It's in a public garden along the water in the area of other little castles and monuments, etc. Nice.

One day after class, a group of 5 of us went up north of Berlin to visit another concentration camp, Buchenwald. Personally, I think that every time I visit anoter site of this nature, I am more and more affected by what happened there; this time resulting in a general feeling of urgency to leave. I decided that I won't try to see any more of the Holocaust - my eyes have been opened.

So, a sort of recovery train rideback into Berlin, straight to Under den Linden, the S-Bahn stop right by the Brandenburg Gate. We walked up to the Reichstag, this time at sunset.

The sun was setting just right, so you could see clearly into the plenary chamber.

I think the Reichstag is a must-see in Berlin, if not the must-see. So for me, it was a little bit intense to see such different sides of German history on one day...

The next day, Mitch came on our school tour to see Russian sides of Potsdam, including this KGB prison. It was eerie and really interesting with lots of erased areas of its history. In this picture, we're being lead down to the basement to see the horrible conditions of the "criminals" which was yet another delightful image.

Oh! We also revisited Belvedere am Pfingstberg which had a little building in front. I went here before to take pictures out the view of Potsdam (remember? no? didn't expect you to) but was not aware that Schinkel's first building, albeit small, stands outside the caste. Schinkel was the architect so important to neo-classicism in Berlin/Germany; we're learing about him in architecture too. Cool!