Berlin - Day 2

The second full day in Berlin got off to a weird start. For one, we all overslept, with the exception of Dr. Warkentin. Linda was the first person to get up in the females room, and she woke up 15 minutes after we were meant to be downstairs for breakfast. We still managed to be ready with loads of time.

We took a train to Potsdam and visited the palace Sanssouci (translated from french it means "without worries". You may be thinking "why is a german Palace named in french?" Other that the fact that sans souci sounds better than "ohne angst" as Karen pointed out, Friedrich Wilhelm the Great was all about french. He and Voltaire spoke in pretty french about how great liberty was. I kind of have to disagree with you there, Friedrich II - I think German is plenty pretty.)

(Back Row: Dylan, Megan, Meghan, Adam, Chris McCrowe, Jaclyn, Chris Ryan

Front Row: Linda, Karen, Curtis)

Sanssouci and the grounds are huge. It takes a super long time to walk around it. Of course, royalty had horses and carriages that could take them from one place to another - they didn't really have to walk. It has numerous other large houses, a Chinese Tea House, as well as statues and fountains galore. The Chinese Tea House looks more like the typical eighteenth century European's idea of the East, with peculiar looking golden men and women with pointy hats.

The day was as beautiful as all the days we have spent in Germany, but it's far hotter than it has been in St. John's. The heat had definitely take its toll on many of us. After we left Potsdam, six of us tiredly went to the Pergamon Museum on Museuminsel (Museum Island), which was pretty much just around the corner from hostel. Pergamon Museum had a lot of Roman and Greek art, and sculptures. Megan, Adam, Curtis and I stuck to a little group, determined to see as much of the museum as possible in as little time as possible. You can imagine how unbearable the heat became once we were surrounded by thousands of other museum visitors, also using their entrance tickets as fans. The three things I found most interesting:

The Pergamon Altar. It's definitely different to see a large set of steps in a museum that is actually part of the exhibition. But the columns on top, and carvings make it pop, because it is the first thing you see as you walk in.

Left:

A statue of Athena Parthenos. Karen's rough translation of the card next to the statue is

"a hellenistic copy of the golden ivory statue in the Parthenon on the Acropolis in Athens.
Found in the north hall of the Temple of Athena in Pergamon." I really like Athena.

The other statue I thought was really cool was of the
hermaphrodite. I thought it was a little bit weird that
it was in a museum, although you really can't be surprised
by the Greeks. I've never seen a form of a hermaphrodite
in art work before and I made Adam take a picture so I
could show everyone.

The museum was followed by brief souvenir shopping. I bought
this shirt with the Leonard Cohen lyrics, "First we take Manhattan,
then we take Berlin."

Curtis, Karen, Megan, Adam and I went to see Harry Potter and
the Half Blood Prince in IMAX. We wanted to see Harry Potter
und der halbblut Prinz, the german version in German, but the
woman who gave us tickets knew that we were English and
automatically gave us tickets for the English one. I think a lot
might have gotten lost in translation anyhow. I'd seen it before,
but no one else had.

We turned our walk home into a photoshoot as we passed the
Canadian Embassy in Berlin.

And again when we found a Berlin bear.

We also found a street called "Georgenstraße" -
George Street, though there didn't seem to be any
resemblance to the Newfoundland George Street.

The next day was our train to Heidelberg. I have to be honest -
I did like Berlin, but I was not sorry to leave for Heidelberg. For me, there's no
comparison between the two. Berlin is gogogo! and everything was fast paced.
It is difficult to be on the go so much in a setting that's unfamiliar to you.

Heidelberg, on the other hand, is not completely new to me. I was there before
in 2006, albeit for only a few days, but it always stuck with me.

Our ride to Heidelberg took about 5 hours. It was pretty relaxing - some much
needed downtime to sleep or read or listen to music. Just to relax, really.

We arrived when it was nearing four o'clock. We took the bus to Bismarck
Platz, and from there, to Heidelberg Neue Universität.

Karen and I went in first to register. We were then told to go out into the foyer
to wait until our names were called so someone could bring us to our
accommodations. Everyone else came in one by one after us, but somehow,
everyone else's name was called before ours. There also seemed to be some
sort of mishap with Karen's room reservation. She didn't seem to exist in their
file. I joked with her that if need be, she could always sleep on my floor.

Eventually we did go in and ask what was going on with our rooms, because
the number of students left began to dwindle until there seemed to be only a
few others left. We were told that we were actually staying in the same building,
however, it seemed our hostess/ landlady would not be home until 7 o'clock.

I think that was when the panic set in. We were supposed to
meet Dr. Warkentin and the others at 7:30 and we doubted
that we would make it there at all. Luckily, we got to her home
at 7 and she was home, so we were able to make our meeting.
We strolled around the Hauptstraße and went to dinner at
Kulturbrauerei Heidelberg. While we waited for our food,
a thunder and lightning storm began. It lasted probably about
twenties minutes, but it was definitely entertaining. I love lightning
and thunder storms. Despite the potential harm they cause if you
actually get hit by it, I felt it was incredibly soothing.