Around the World in 330 Days: Brian's Fulbright Journey in China and Elsewhere: Day 329: Berlin, Day 4--Day Trip to Potsdam (New Palace)

The day began with Kerry and me deciding to try the breakfast buffet here at our hotel. The verdict is that it's better than the one in Paris. I like the room, in particular, because it's less cramped. I also love the fact that the had lots of salmon and brie cheese! However, the bacon looked gross and the eggs weren't particularly tasty. Still, most of the food was good. I had three glasses of OJ....just carbing out all around today.

After breakfast, we departed for a long trip to Potsdam, Germany, partly because my late grandmother, Anna Ackerman, is from there. (At least, I'm quite sure she was.) So...it was a way of paying tribute to my German ancestors, in a sense. Kerry and I took the subway...it was a bit of a long ride....and then take a bus to the New Palace, an 18th century palace, owned by Friedrich II. Apparently, he didn't spend a lot of time there, but he had quite opulent occurrences, such as dances, fireworks, and musical showcases there. (This is according to the brief film we saw in the Visitor Center.) Speaking of the Visitor Center, I noticed that both the ticket seller in the Visitor Center and one of the tickets women in the Information area in the subway station weren't particularly pleasant to us. No smiles, just stern looks. I saw this from the guards at the New Palace, too, actually. So it's inaccurate to say that "everyone is friendly" here. It's usually the older people who are more stern.

The New Palace was quite beautiful!! The Grotto room, in particular, on the ground floor, was exquisite, and the rooms had opulent furniture, colorful designs, and beautiful art. Much of it was done in the Rococo style. Upstairs, though, we had a bit of a different experience. Most of the rooms lacked audio guides, and the guards were rushing us from room to room, even though it was only 4:45 and the palace didn't close until 5:30. This ticked me off. I know Germans are punctual, but damn! We did have time to marvel at the Marble ballroom...one of the prettiest rooms I've ever seen in my life.

I did complain about the tour to the English-speaking girl who handed out the audio guides at the end. She conversed with her colleagues in German about what I said and also apologized. Soon after we departed, I heard "Hello, hello" behind me. So we went back. There was a blond woman who agreed to "show us the rooms we missed." To me, this wasn't exactly the point; my point is that we weren't allowed to use the audio guide on most of the upstairs rooms. Still, she "let" us back upstairs (now, keep in mind, the palace wasn't not yet officially closed...it was about 5:15 at this point). So we looked again at some of the rooms. It really didn't provide me anything new to have her let us back up, but I do very much appreciate her gesture of goodwill.

We then took a bus back to the subway station in Potsdam. At the subway station, I had a currywurst and Kerry had a bratwurst. The lady behind the counter was very friendly and smiling, which was nice. But not everyone is nice here, as I have pointed out. And, to add to this, apparently I bumped into a guy getting on the subway. He said something to me which I couldn't understand. "Oh, did he give you a dirty look!" said Kerry. So I'm sure it wasn't anything good. I noticed that on the subway, people were allowed to bring their bicycles! I thought this was very odd since I haven't seen this in Shanghai or Paris. But in Germany, I've noticed that the subway trains tend to be roomier and the seats tend to be more cushy. So maybe they can allow something like this.

We went to a potato restaurant for dinner--called Kartoffelkeller--and we both had schnitzel. Sehr gut! Mine was covered with "spicy" onions (that weren't spicy) and a cheesy, garlicy sauce. Kerry's had a chicken-stew sauce with cheese on it. We were both also served fried potatoes and a little salad with our meal. It was worthy to note that, all over Germany, we have to SERIOUSLY pay for water: they don't do tap water here, like they do in Paris. It's 7 euros for one bottle of water, 14 if you want two. That's 15 bucks for water, boys and girls. I also had a "Berliner Pilsener" beer, just to say I had a beer in Germany. It was pretty good...for beer.

Then we went to the grocery store for liquid, band-aids, and shavers. We popped in at McCafe for some dessert because I hadn't had quite enough carbs today. :)

Tomorrow is our LAST FULL DAY overseas. We'll see what transpires.